True lies and attempted lies

ABSTRACT

Sometimes speakers try to lie and inadvertently assert something true. Subjectivists about lying hold that such speakers are lying despite telling the truth. Objectivists hold that such speakers are not lying: they try to lie but fail. The first aim of this paper is to point to novel cases supporting subjectivism that do not involve speakers inadvertently asserting something true. Its second aim is to use these and other cases to explore the distinction between lying and trying to lie. Which factors can thwart an attempt at lying? In which situations do we judge that a speaker has tried to lie but failed? Attending to these questions not only offers insights into the act of lying, but also helps to scrutinise the objectivist strategy of explaining away intuitions about apparent cases of lying while telling the truth.

KEYWORDS:

• Lying
• subjectivism about lying
• objectivism about lying
• true lies
• attempted lies
• lying and falsity

1. Lying and falsity

Lying and falsity are intimately connected. But in exactly which way? That is the central question of the debate between subjectivists and objectivists about lying. Subjectivists and objectivists agree that lying requires asserting a proposition believed to be false.¹ They disagree whether the proposition asserted must also be actually false. Subjectivists hold that believed (subjective) falsity suffices and actual (objective) falsity is not required:

Subjectivism: lying requires asserting a proposition believed to be false

A lies to B only if there is a proposition p such that:

(L1) A asserts p to B, and

(L2) A believes p to be false.²

Objectivists, by contrast, hold that lying requires not only believed falsity, but also actual falsity:

Objectivism: lying requires asserting a false proposition believed to be false

A lies to B only if there is a proposition p such that:

(L1) A asserts p to B,

(L2) A believes p to be false, and

(L3) p is false.³

Accordingly, subjectivists and objectivists disagree about the possibility of true lies. Subjectivists accept that lies can be true if speakers assert a proposition they mistakenly believe to be false. For example, subjectivists hold that Thomas lies in the following case introduced by Andreas Stokke:

Exam advice

In a foregone age in which people believed in spontaneous generation, Robert is asking his friend Thomas for advice before taking an exam. Robert asks, ‘Where do rats come from?’ Thomas believes that rats are generated spontaneously by wet dirt, and he knows that this is the answer that will be taken as correct on the exam. But he wants Robert to fail the exam and so he tells him, ‘They are born by other rats.’ Robert trusts Thomas’s response and gives it as his answer on the exam, which he thereby fails. (Stokke 2018, 33–4)

By contrast, objectivists hold that Thomas’s attempt at lying is thwarted by the truth of the asserted proposition: Thomas tries to lie but fails.⁴

Arguments for subjectivism or objectivism commonly focus on cases similar to that of Robert and Thomas, in which a speaker tries to lie but inadverently tells the truth. Subjectivists have argued that speakers in such cases are intuitively lying (see e.g. Augustine [395/2013]/395/2013, 64; Fallis 2009, 39; Künne 2019, 225–226; Saul 2012, 6; Stokke 2018, 34). And these intuitions have received empirical support (cf. Wiegmann 2023).⁵ Objectivists have disputed these intuitions. On the one hand, they have voiced different intuitions about the cases in question, according to which the speakers are not lying (see e.g. Carson 2006, 285, 2010, 15–17). On the other hand, they have tried to explain why theorists or laypeople might take the speakers to be lying although they are merely trying to lie. For instance, Jesper Kallestrup (2023, 459) argues that subjects mistakenly judge speakers to be lying even if they are merely trying to lie because the acts of lying and trying to lie are ‘subjectively indistinguishable’ from the speaker’s perspective and thus easily confused with each other.⁶

The first aim of this paper is to point to novel cases supporting subjectivism. Its second aim is to use these and other cases to explore the distinction between lying and trying to lie. Which factors can thwart an attempt at lying? In which situations do we judge that a speaker has tried to lie but failed? As I will argue, attending to these questions not only offers insights into the act of lying, but also helps to scrutinise the objectivist strategy of explaining away intuitions about true lies.

2. Lying and knowing

In this section, I want to introduce cases and intuitions supporting subjectivism which differ from previously discussed cases in that they do not feature a speaker trying to lie but mistakenly telling the truth. Consider the following situations:

Sketch

Browsing an antiques shop, a costumer is interested in a sketch he thinks might be by Lyonel Feininger. Hoping to achieve a higher price, the antiques dealer asserts that the sketch is indeed by Feininger, although he believes this to be false.

Biscuits

It is teatime and the kids are asking for biscuits. In order to avoid a long discussion, Cyrus tells them that the biscuit tin is empty, although he believes this to be false.

Suppose we know all of the foregoing, do we know that the antiques dealer lied to the costumer? Do we know that Cyrus lied to the kids? In both cases, I submit, the intuitive answer is yes. This answer bears on the distinction between lying and trying to lie, as well as on the debate between subjectivists and objectivists.

To begin with, the answer indicates that, under certain circumstances, knowledge that someone tried to lie suffices for knowledge that they did indeed lie. Given that we know that the antiques dealer tried to lie and asserted something he believed to be false, intending to deceive the costumer, we know that they lied. And given that Cyrus tried to lie to the kids and told them something he believed to be false, intending to deceive them, we know that he lied.⁷ This connection holds for us as onlookers, but also from the first-person perspective: having told the kids that the biscuit tin is empty, Cyrus himself knows that he has lied.

Moreover, the answer supports a subjectivist view of lying. After all, neither case specifies whether the proposition asserted is actually false. This indicates that knowledge that someone has lied does not require knowledge that the proposition asserted is actually false. However, this is what we should expect given objectivism about lying, according to which, for all we know, either speaker could be trying but failing to lie: for all we know, the sketch could indeed be by Feininger; and for all we know, the biscuit tin could indeed be empty. If objectivism were true, we would be missing a vital piece of information that is required to tell the difference between an attempted lie and a successful lie. Yet, there is the intuition that we know that the antiques dealer lied and that Cyrus lied. Cases of this kind thus speak in favour of subjectivism and against objectivism about lying.

A different way to bring out the same result focusses not on vignettes featuring assertions of propositions the speakers believe to be false, but on the possibility of true readings of certain sentences.⁸ Consider the following sentences:

1. Although we know that he asserted something he believed to be false, intending to deceive his addressee, we don’t know whether he lied.

2. Although we know that John told Paul something he believed to be false, intending to deceive him, we don’t know whether John lied to Paul.

Both sentences do not seem to have readings on which they are true. But they should have true readings if objectivism were true. As ordinary speakers, we should be able to connect them with situations in which the missing knowledge concerning the actual falsity of what is asserted prevents knowledge of whether the speaker has lied. Such situations are not particularly unusual, and so the fact that they do not permit us to arrive at true readings of (1) or (2) speaks against objectivism.⁹

Of course, theorists may voice different intuitions about these cases and sentences, or they might try to explain them away. But even if some theorists do have different intuitions, there remain the intuitions of those who do think that the speakers have lied in both cases and of those who cannot access true readings of (1) or (2). These intuitions are in line with the empirical findings mentioned above, and I have found them replicated in personal communication. There is thus a choice of explaining away either the intuitions of many ordinary speakers and experts that are in line with subjectivism, or the minority of intuitions of some ordinary speakers and experts that are in line with objectivism. In this situation, and in the absence of strong reasons to favour objectivism, it seems advisable to pursue the more economic strategy of explaining away the much smaller number of objectivist intuitions, rather than attempting to explain away the much larger number of subjectivist intuitions.¹⁰ Below, I will return to the question of how subjectivists might respond to objectivist intuitions.

Furthermore, even if objectivists can offer an explanation that would explain the recalcitrant intuitions concerning apparent true lies, it is not clear whether this explanation works for the cases of this section. To bring this out, let us focus on Kallestrup’s (2023, 459–460) strategy to explain away the intuitions about apparent cases of true lies. Kallestrup’s explanation is typical for the objectivist approach, as it posits a confusion between lying and trying to lie, and it offers more detailed considerations than other attempts in the same vein.¹¹ Why do most people take Thomas to be lying to Robert in Stokke’s example? Because, Kallestrup argues, they are mixing up the act of lying and the act of trying to lie, which are indistinguishable from the speaker’s perspective. With respect to Stokke’s example, Kallestrup would say that Thomas is trying to lie to Robert, intending to deceive him, and that Thomas believes himself to be lying about where rats come from. According to Kallestrup, this means that Thomas is ‘apt to lie’ (2023, 460), that he is deceptive about his own beliefs regarding where rats come from, and that he violates a belief norm for assertion.¹² These features of Thomas and his actions, the explanation concludes, lead many subjects to judge that Thomas is lying, although he is in fact merely trying to lie.

Can similar explanations be given to account for the intuition that we know that the antiques dealer and Cyrus lied and for the lack of true readings of (1) and (2)? That is questionable. In particular, the lack of true readings of (1) and (2) is difficult to explain by appealing to a confusion of lying and trying to lie. If we are asked to consider whether a sentence has a true reading, we have to consider whether there is a possible interpretation and a possible situation in which the sentence is true. This should lead us to consider not only subjectivist readings of ‘lie’ but also objectivist ones, if there are such readings, and the latter should lead to true readings in the aforementioned situation, in which the missing knowledge concerning the actual falsity of what is asserted prevents knowledge of whether the speaker has lied. Even if we did sometimes confuse lying and trying to lie, this would not explain why we disregard a possible interpretation of ‘lie’ in (1) and (2). A better explanation is that ‘lie’ simply does not allow for an objectivist interpretation.

Finally, there is a more general problem with Kallestrup’s explanation that has to do with the assumption that we tend to confuse the act of lying and the act of trying to lie. This assumption is dubitable, as I now want to argue by taking a closer look at the conditions under which speakers may try to lie but fail.

3. Lying and trying to lie

Under which circumstances has a speaker tried to lie but failed? Which factors can thwart an attempted lie? Of course, we have seen that subjectivists and objectivists disagree about whether being mistaken about the falsity of the proposition asserted is among the factors that can thwart an attempted lie. But there are also factors that theorists in both camps should agree about. Both subjectivists and objectivists accept that lying requires asserting a proposition the speaker believes to be false. So they should agree that an attempted lie can be thwarted if the speaker fails to assert anything or if the speaker mistakenly asserts something they believe to be true.

Here is an example that illustrates the first of these possibilities:

Failed message

Xenia is on holiday and the weather is terrible. She wants to deceive Zara into thinking that the weather is great and types the message: ‘The weather is great.’ But as she is about to tap on SEND, the messaging app crashes and the message isn’t sent. Xenia is momentarily distracted and believes that the message was indeed sent, thinking she has lied to Zara.

This is clearly a case in which a speaker tries to lie but fails: it is safe to say that there will be very few who have intuitions to the contrary. And both subjectivists and objectivists can account for this intuition: adherents of both views should agree that the failure is due to the fact that Xenia’s attempted assertion is thwarted.

The second of the above possibilities for failed lies is illustrated by the following case:

More exam advice

Thomas is still giving Robert devious exam advice, trying to make extra sure that Robert fails. To achieve his aim, Thomas has made a list of what he takes to be false answers to likely exam questions. However, having had a few drinks too many, he picks up a different list: a list containing his revision notes, which he actually believes. Not noticing the confusion, and intending to deceive Robert, Thomas reads off the following answer: ‘The Sun orbits around the Earth.’ Robert trusts Thomas’s response and his answer is taken to be correct on the exam (but he nonetheless fails, as his answer to the rat question is taken to be false). Thomas never finds out about the confused lists.

Again, this is a clear case of trying to lie, but failing. And, again, both subjectivists and objectivists can account for this intuition: on both views, the failure is due to the fact that Thomas fails to assert something he believes to be false.

These cases of attempted but failed lying are instructive for several reasons. Firstly, they show that there are several factors that can thwart an attempted lie that have nothing to do with the truth-value of the proposition asserted. An attempt at lying may fail even if the proposition the speaker intends to assert is indeed false. In some cases, the non-truth-related reason an attempted lie fails is clearly beyond the speaker’s control. For example, we can imagine a version of Failed message in which Xenia’s messaging app has been deviously re-programmed to not send certain messages, while nonetheless displaying them as sent and later read by the addressee.

This case brings out that Marsili (2022, 1450) goes too far in criticising Holguín’s (2021) knowledge-based account of lying for entailing ‘that whether a speaker is lying may depend on factors that are beyond the speaker’s control’ and labelling this as a ‘controversial commitment, which has problematic moral implications’. On Holguín’s view, lying requires asserting a proposition the speaker knows to be false. So if a speaker asserts a proposition they believe to be false but, for reasons beyond their control, do not know to be false, they have not lied. Marsili argues that this has the problematic implication that a speaker who fails to lie because of a lack of knowledge (beyond their control) can be less blameworthy than a speaker who acts ‘in the same way, with the same intentions and consequences, and for the same reasons’ (Marsili 2022, 1450) but does lie: only one of the two speakers can be blamed for lying. The case of Xenia’s reprogrammed messaging app illustrates that any account of lying should allow for cases in which speakers try to lie but fail for reasons beyond their control. It is thus not promising to object to a view of lying by arguing that it predicts that success in lying may depend on factors beyond the speaker’s control.¹³

Secondly, and relatedly, cases of this kind illustrate that even subjectivists should accept that there are cases in which we think we lied, although we failed. If we mistakenly think we succeeded in asserting or if we mistakenly think we succeeded in asserting something we believe to be false, we might mistakenly think we have lied. It is thus too quick to say that, ‘on the subjective view, if you think you lied, you have lied’ (Marsili 2016, 300). Rather, subjectivists accept that if you think you lied and if you asserted something you believe to be false, then you have lied.¹⁴

Thirdly, the examples help to see why Kallestrup’s attempt at explaining away subjectivist intuitions about true lies is unconvincing. Recall that Kallestrup holds that subjects tend to confuse lies and attempted lies in cases in which speakers are apt to lie, think they have lied and violate a norm of assertion – features Kallestrup identifies in cases in which speakers try to lie but inadvertently tell the truth. Now, almost exactly the same features are present in the cases discussed in this section. Consider Xenia and her failed message: Xenia is apt to lie, she thinks she has lied and she believes that she has violated a norm of assertion.¹⁵ Yet, there is the clear intuition that Xenia has not lied; her attempt at lying was unsuccessful. So we do not make the mistake of confusing an attempted lie with a lie in this case. But then why should a corresponding mistake be widespread when it comes to apparent cases of true lies?¹⁶

One might reply on behalf of the objectivist that there is a difference between Xenia and the speakers in apparent cases of true lies. For instance, it might be argued that Thomas (in Stokke’s example of a true lie) indeed violates a norm of assertion, while Xenia merely believes that she has violated a norm of assertion. Yet, it seems implausible that such a small difference between the cases can indeed account for strongly different intuitions. Furthermore, given that Thomas’s belief that he has lied is afforded a role in Kallestrup’s explanation, one should equally expect that the belief of having violated a norm of assertion could play a similar role in explaining why we judge speakers to have lied even in cases in which they failed to assert anything.¹⁷

Attempts at lying may thus fail because the attempted assertion fails, or because the attempt at asserting something believed to be false fails. And these failures lead to clear intuitions that the speakers have tried to lie but failed. Such intuitions are absent in apparent cases of true lies, calling into question the objectivist strategy of explaining away the intuitive basis of subjectivism.

4. Lying and success

Under which conditions is a lie successful? It is commonly remarked that ‘lie’ contrasts with ‘mislead’ in that the latter is a success term whereas the former is not (cf. Saul 2012, 71; Viebahn 2021, 291). If you (intentionally) misled someone, you succeeded in getting them to believe something false. If you lied to someone, that leaves open whether your lie was successful. But in which sense? It certainly leaves open whether you succeeded in getting the addressee to believe something false. But the cases discussed in this paper illustrate that there is a sense in which ‘lie’ implies success even if the speakers do not get their addressees to believe something false: they succeed in asserting something they believe to be false.

These different ways in which a lie can be successful are relevant for the debate between subjectivists and objectivists. Recall that although subjectivists are not faced with the task of explaining away the common intuition that apparent cases of true lies are indeed lies, they nonetheless should say something about why some theorists and laypeople have the intuition that speakers in such cases are not lying. The most straightforward thing to say here would be that some theorists and laypeople use the term ‘lie’ in a different way, namely in an objectivist sense. But I think a more promising alternative explanation can be given.¹⁸ When speakers lie, they intend to assert something false, and they usually (deceptionists would say: always) intend to deceive their addressees. If the asserted content turns out to be true, subjectivists can emphasise, there is a sense in which the speakers have failed in telling a lie: they tried to assert something false, but failed; and, through lying, they tried to get the addressee to believe something false, but failed.¹⁹ These failures, the explanation continues, might lead some theorists to judge that the speakers in question failed to tell a lie. However, a speaker’s endeavour in telling a lie might fail, while their attempt to tell a lie is successful.

To sum up, subjectivist explanations of the minority of objectivist intuitions about apparent cases of true lies can be based on the view that we sometimes judge that a speaker has failed to tell a lie although they have merely failed to deceive the addressee or to assert something false. On the other hand, objectivist explanations of the majority of subjectivist intuitions about apparent cases of true lies are based on the view that we commonly judge a speaker to have lied although they have merely tried to lie. I have tried to show that the former project is more promising than the latter.²⁰

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Some theorists might prefer to say that lying requires asserting a disbelieved proposition or a proposition believed to be untrue. These finer distinctions are not important for the purposes of this paper.

2 Subjectivism is the traditional view on the matter and has been defended by Augustine (395), Bolzano (1810/2007), Chisholm and Feehan (1977, 152), Williams (2002, 96), Fallis (2009), Saul (2012), Stokke (2018), Maitra (2018), Pepp (2019), Wiegmann and Viebahn (2021) and Marsili (2022).

3 Objectivism has been defended by Carson (2006, 285; 2010, 15–17), Turri and Turri (2015), Benton (2018), Holguín (2021) and Kallestrup (2023). Both subjectivism and objectivism are compatible with the view that there are further requirements on lying, such as an intention to deceive the addressee. We can set aside such possible further requirements here. To avoid any possible complications, all the examples discussed will feature lies or attempted lies that are accompanied by an intention to deceive.

4 It is sometimes said that cases of apparently true lies are unusual or exceptional. For instance, Kallestrup (2023, 458) remarks that ‘[e]verybody agrees that if true lies exist, they are rare and atypical occurrences’. Historical cases such as that of Thomas and Robert cast doubt on that observation. In circumstances in which many speakers have false beliefs, attempts to assert something false can easily lead speakers to inadvertently assert something true, in particular if the proposition asserted is the negation of a proposition the speaker believes to be true.

5 However, the route to this result has not been entirely straightforward. Initial empirical data supporting subjectivism was presented by Coleman and Kay (1981, 31). Turri and Turri (2015) argued that this data was based on a confound and presented data supposedly supporting objectivism (see also Turri and Turri 2021). However, experiments by Wiegmann, Samland, and Waldmann (2016) and Wiegmann (2023) suggest that the initial data can be trusted after all. See Viebahn (forthcoming) for discussion and Wiegmann (2023) for a comprehensive literature review.

6 Relatedly, Holguín (2021, 17) argues that lying and merely trying to lie are ‘internally indistinguishable’. For criticism of such an approach, see Marsili (2022, 1455–1457).

7 I hope it is clear from the description of the cases that the speakers do have an intention to deceive. If it is not, adding this information explicitly should not change anything about the intuitions the cases evoke.

8 This approach is inspired by Holguín’s (2021, 5353–5354) argument for objectivism, which is also based on whether certain sentences have true readings. For criticism of Holguín’s argument, see Marsili (2022) and Viebahn (forthcoming).

9 As an example of a more everyday collection of sentences similar to (1) and (2), an anonymous referee suggested something along the following lines: ‘I heard Alex tell Bea that the party is cancelled. I know he doesn’t think so – he told me that he’s sure it’s not cancelled. I mean, he was trying to fool her. But I don’t know if the party’s actually cancelled, so I don’t know if he lied.’ I share the referee’s verdict that these sentences do not seem to have a reading on which they are jointly true.

10 This point is also made by Marsili (2022, 1456) in arguing against explaining away intuitions that lying does not require knowledge that the content put forward is false.

11 But see Holguín (2021) for an extended account of why people mistakenly intuit that lying does not require knowing the proposition asserted is false. See Marsili (2022) for criticism of Holguín’s approach.

12 See Kallestrup (2023, 460) for a parallel explanation of a parallel case. Kallestrup is concerned only with lies accompanied by an intention to deceive, which are also the cases we are concerned with in this paper.

13 Marsili’s focus is on whether a lack of knowledge (beyond the speaker’s control) can plausibly lead to a difference in blameworthiness. It may well be possible to rephrase the argument by focussing only on knowledge, rather than on factors beyond the speaker’s control more generally.

14 For insightful discussion of how lying and other forms of insincerity relate to conscious attitudes, see Stokke (2014; 2018).

15 Of course, Xenia would not put her belief about violating a norm of assertion in precisely these words, but that does not mean that she does not have a belief with roughly this content.

16 Analogous considerations apply to the case of More Exam Advice, in which Thomas is clearly apt to lie, thinks he has lied and believes to have violated a norm of assertion.

17 This point can be further strengthened by the observation that there are apparent cases of true lies that do not exhibit all the features Kallestrup discusses. For example, we can think of a case of a true lie in which the speaker immediately becomes aware that what they have asserted is in fact true. I doubt that this would significantly change intuitions about the case (people are still likely to call it a lie), yet Kallestrup’s explanation would have to be amended.

18 For related considerations and empirical evidence, see Wiegmann (2023).

19 Under certain circumstances telling a true lie might instil a false belief in the addressee, e.g. when the addressee believes the speaker to be lying. But we can disregard these rather exceptional cases here. For relevant discussion, see Augustine’s ([395/2013]/395/2013, 66) example of the benevolent travel adviser.

20 For helpful discussion and comments, I would like to thank Alex Wiegmann and an anonymous referee for this journal.