Legal Terminology of Lying

There are many justifications for criminalizing lies: lies thwart investigations, waste time and resources, and threaten false results. But lies by government actors are even more harmful: they disrupt democratic autonomy by hiding relevant information from the electorate, undermine trust in institutions, and can entangle areas of information imbalances, making it particularly difficult to expose lies. If x makes a false statement about y, without the intention that y believes that this false statement is true, but with the intention that y will believe something other than x believes to be true, then x is not lying to y, according to L1. Examples of such false and non-misleading statements are polite lies (Kant 1997, 27; Mahon, 2003, p. 109). For example, when the servant Igor makes the false statement to the unwanted visitor Damian: “Madame is not at home”, without the intention that Damian believes that it is true, that she is not at home (it would be on Igor`s side), but with the intention that Damian believes that it is true, that it is embarrassing for Madame, To see Damian now, something Igor believes to be true, so Igor does not lie to Damian, according to L1 (Isenberg 1973, 256). However, for Igor to intend for Damian to believe this, it must be the case for Igor to believe that Damian understands this: “Madame is not home.” Polite lies can be called examples of “falsifications but not lies” because the person “says exactly what the label requires” (Shiffrin 2014, 19). As has been said about false statements, situations “where politeness requires some sort of remark” and the other person “knows full well that the statement is false,” such statements are “not really lies” (Coleman & Kay, 1981, p. 29). They are best thought of as code conversation cases.

Another example of a non-misleading false statement is a so-called “altruistic lie” (Fallis 2009, 50; cf. Augustine 1952, 57), for example when a speaker makes a false statement to a listener whom he believes to be suspicious so that the listener believes to be something that the speaker believes to be true. This is not a lie according to L1. Director Comey`s confirmation of the existence of an investigation into Russian interference in the U.S. election and possible collusion or criminal behavior is likely to exacerbate the rhetoric. It will be all the more tempting for critics to claim that lies about the connection with Russia constitute criminal behavior. So it`s worth taking a step back and taking a look at the laws that actually govern lying. According to Hugo Grotius, this is part of the meaning of the “lie” when it is “strictly speaking” that it is “the violation of a real right” of the person to whom one has lied, namely “freedom vis-à-vis him”. (Grotius 2005, 1212). You can only lie to someone who has that right to exercise freedom of judgment.

The definition of Grotius` lie is therefore as follows (modified accordingly): According to the condition of testimony, it is not possible to lie by failing to make a statement (Mahon 2003; Griffiths, 2004, p. 33). So-called “lies by omission” (or “passive lie” (Opie 1825)) are not lies (Douglas 1976, 59; Dynel, 2011, p. 154). All lies are mission lies. It is possible for a person to lie by “remaining silent” if “silence” is a signal previously agreed upon with others that amounts to a statement (Fried 1978, 57). However, such a lie would not be a “lie of omission” (see People v. Meza (1987), in which, based on the California Evidence Code of this “statement”, “the non-verbal behavior of a person whom he intends to replace oral or written expression”, the silence of aspiring juror Eric Luis Meza and the failure to raise his hand in response to questions, “was considered a negative answer, that is, a negative statement” (People v.

Meza 1987, 1647) and he was convicted of perjury). In the case of polite lies such as “Madam is not home,” however, the false statement is simply a euphemism: “For example, the words `She is not home` recited by a servant or relative at the door have become a mere euphemism for discomfort or aversion” (Isenberg 1973, 256). In case of polite lies, it seems that there is no intention to communicate something that is believed – false. In the case of the servant who says to the caller, “I dust off the piano keys,” or the Iraqi doctor who says to the journalist, “I don`t see uniforms,” or the negotiator who says to the other negotiator, “This is the highest thing I can walk,” or the person who lives in the totalitarian state and makes the pro-state statement, It can also be argued that there is no intention to communicate something that one believes – false. If this is true, then there is some support for the claim that non-deceptive liars do not intend to communicate anything false with their false statements, and therefore do not lie according to L15 or L16. But despite the values that could be promoted by strict enforcement of criminal laws against lying, there are also dangers of overcriminalizing lying. Both L15 and L16 are able to include the following counterexample to the previous definition: “when Mark Antony said to the Roman people, `Brutus is an honorable man.` the citizens of Rome know that (a) Antony did not believe that Brutus was an honorable man, (b) Antony was subject to a standard of saying things he thought were wrong, and (c) Antony had hitherto been a cooperative participant in conversation. Thus, they were led to the conclusion that Antoine ignored the norm in order to communicate something other than what he literally said. In fact, the best explanation for his statement was that he wanted to communicate exactly the opposite of what he was literally saying” (Fallis 2012, 567). Since Antony does not intend to violate the standard of conversation against communicating something he considers evil (that Brutus is an honorable man) by saying, “Brutus is an honorable man,” or, more simply, since Antony does not intend to say anything false with his false statement, it follows that Antony is not lying. In the case of a guilty witness, Tony, against whom there is overwhelming evidence, who says, “I didn`t do it,” without any intention that anyone would believe it, he intends to violate the standard of conversation against communicating something he believes to be wrong (which he did not do) by saying, “I have not, Or, more simply, he intends to communicate something believer-false with his false statement, although he does not intend for anyone to believe him.

The speaker also tries to get the listener to have this false belief about what he believes “in a special way – by obtaining his sacrifice to trust him” (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 149). This is breach of trust or faith in lying: “Lying, unlike other types of deception, is essentially an abuse of faith” (Chisholm and Feehan 1977, 153).