Table Of ContentLying, Misleading, and What Is Said
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Lying, Misleading,
and What Is Said
An Exploration in Philosophy
of Language and in Ethics
Jennifer Mather Saul
1
3
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Preface
Theterm‘whatissaid’,andotherrelatedterms,arecurrentlybeingused
in a huge variety of ways in the philosophy of language. They are the
subject of many complicated, ingenious, and passionate debates. One of
thesubjectsofdebateishow,andwhether,ouruseofthesetermsrelates
tothatofordinaryspeakers.Arethesedebatesmerelyamatteroftheore-
ticiansarguingabouttheirtheoreticalvocabulary?Isanythingatstakehere
that ordinary speakers do, or should, care about? The answers to these
questions(andmanyothers)seematthispointtobefarfromclear.
Not all thetermsphilosophers discussare likethis.Take, for example,
termssuchas‘lie’and‘mislead’.Thedistinctionbetweenlyingandmerely
misleading is an immensely natural one. It is clearly not a mere philoso-
phers’distinction,unfamiliartoordinarylifeandofdubioussignificance.It
isadistinctionthatordinaryspeakersdrawextremelyreadily,andgenerally
careabout,andadistinctionrecognizedandaccordedgreatsignificancein
someareasofthelaw.Interestingly,itisalsoadistinctionthatturnsonthe
notionofsaying:youcannotlieunlessyoudeliberatelysaysomethingfalse
(oratleastsomethingyoubelievetobefalse).
And this distinction matters. Recently, it played a crucial role in the
scandal that nearly led to President Bill Clinton’s removal from office.
During the scandal (which will be discussed much more extensively in
Chapter5), Clinton made a number of utterances that seemed carefully
phrasedinordertoavoidlyingbymerelymisleading.Onefamousonewas
hiscarefullypresent-tensedenialofarelationshipwithMonicaLewinsky:
“Thereisnoimproperrelationship.”
Infact,thelying–misleadingdistinctionisquitefrequentlyasignificant
oneinpolitics.Awarenessofthelying–misleadingdistinctionunderliesthe
infamous political practice of push-polling. A push-poll is a campaign
tactic in which voters receive a phone call purporting to be a genuine
pollforthepurposeofgatheringdata.Butnodataisgathered.Instead,the
voter is asked a series of questions which are meant to suggest the truth
ofsomeinformationconsideredlikelytobedetrimentaltotheopponent
of the campaign behind the push-polling. One of the most famous
examples of this was the push-poll conducted by George W. Bush’s
viii PREFACE
2000primarycampaignagainstJohnMcCain,inwhichvoterswereasked,
“Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for
president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?” John
McCainhadnotinfactfatheredanyillegitimatechild,blackorwhite.To
say that he had done so would have been a lie. But the poll effectively
insinuated that he had, without saying it. And this is widely believed to
havecostMcCaintheSouthCarolinaprimary.1
Butit’snotjustpoliticianswhocareaboutthelying–misleadingdistinc-
tion—nearlyallofusseemto.Thinkofwhatyoumightdoifyoufound
yourselfatthedeathbedofakindoldwomanwantingtoknowifhersonis
allright.Yousawhimyesterday(atwhichpointhewashappyandhealthy),
but you know that shortly after your meeting he was hit by a truck and
killed.Ifyou’relikemostpeople,youwouldconsideritbettertoutter(1)
than(2)—becauseuttering(1)ismerelymisleadingwhileuttering(2)isalie.
Andthereasonforthisisthatwhat(1)saysistrue,whilewhat(2)saysisfalse.
(1) Isawhimyesterdayandhewashappyandhealthy.
(2) He’shappyandhealthy.2
Ihavelongbeeninterestedinwhatissaid,andIhaveevenlongerbeen
interested in the careful statements and machinations of politicians. It was
natural,then,formetobegintowonderabouttherelationshipbetweenthe
notion of saying involved in the very intuitive distinction between lying
and misleading and the notions discussed in the philosophy of language
literature.Ifthenotioninvolvedinthelying–misleadingdistinctionisoneof
those from the philosophy of language literature, then we know that this
notion,atleast,isonethatordinaryspeakersdothinkandcareabout.Ifit
isnot,thenweknowthatthereisaproblemtobedealtwith:thereseemsto
be a notion of saying that matters to ordinary speakers which, despite
the enormous literature on saying and related notions, has not yet been
captured.InChapter2,Iarguethatoursituationisthelatterone.Despite
thevastliteratureonsaying,wedonotyethaveanotionsuitablefordoing
theworkneededbythelying–misleadingdistinction.
One response to this situation might be to pronounce the lying–
misleadingdistinctionunworkableorillusory because itdoesnotdrawon
any currently defended notion of saying. But this seems to me extremely
1 See,forexample,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_poll
2 ThisislooselybasedonanexamplefromWilliams(2002:114).
PREFACE ix
unappealing. We should not give up on such an intuitive and widely
accepteddistinctionwithoutafight,andthereisnoreasonforconfidence
that all viable notions of saying have already been put forward. Instead, it
seemstomethattherightresponseistotrytodevelopanotionofsaying
that can do the work needed for the lying–misleading distinction. This is
whatIattemptinChapter3.ThereIargueforanotionofsayingthatcando
theworkweneedforthelying–misleadingdistinction.(Ialsosketchoutthe
furtherworkthatwouldneedtobedonetodevelopthisnotionfully.)
All of the discussion in Chapters 1–3 takes as its starting place the
thoughtthatthereisanintuitivedistinctionbetweenlyingandmisleading,
to which many assign moral significance. But it is worth investigating
whetherthemanyarerighttoassignthismoralsignificancetothedistinc-
tion. After all, morally preferring misleading to lying is really rather
puzzling. In both cases, a speaker deliberately attempts to induce a false
belief in their audience. Why on earth should it matter whether they do
thisbysayingsomethingfalseormerelyconveyingitbysomeothermeans?
Chapter4tacklesthisdifficultquestion.Intheend,Iarguethatthereisno
across-the-board moral distinction such that any particular act of decep-
tion is better if accomplished by mere misleading rather than lying. But
I also argue that the lying–misleading distinction may still have moral
significance, in that whether a person decides to lie or mislead quite
frequentlyrevealssomethingmorallysignificantabouttheircharacter.
AlthoughtheargumentsinChapter4concernthemoralsignificanceof
the lying–misleading distinction, they draw in part on insights from
philosophy oflanguage.Even thoughitseems quiteclear thatthe lying–
misleading distinction involves an intersection of issues in philosophy of
language and ethics, there has been relatively little attention paid to this
intersection. Discussions of what is said and discussions of the ethics of
lyingandmisleadinghaveproceededalmosttotallyinisolationfromeach
other.Chapter5representsafurther chippingaway at thisdivide.In this
chapter, I consider a selection of interesting, historically significant or
difficultcasesforthelying–misleadingdistinction,workingthroughboth
theethicalandphilosophyoflanguageissuesforeachone.Whatwesee,in
doingthis,isthattheworkonthenatureofsayinginChapters2and3fits
rather nicely with the work on the morality of lying and misleading in
Chapter4.Together,Ithinktheyservetoprovideilluminatinganalysesof
avariety of puzzling and problematic cases.They also serve to show that
philosophical reflection on the lying–misleading distinction, and even
