II. The “Lying” Cosmology

In May of 1960 an unarmed American U-2 photoreconnaissance plane was shot down deep inside the Soviet Union. High altitude reconnaissance missions had been conducted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) since 1956, a fact carefully hidden from all but top U.S. officials, and the Soviets knew their intention. That the pilot—Francis Gary Powers—and the plane wreckage were in Soviet hands now, seemingly confirmed the Soviets' claim that the venture was a clandestine spying mission. Faced with a stunned American public, a flabbergasted Congress, and an awaiting Paris summit meeting between the United States and the USSR, President Eisenhower hastily announced that the U-2 was really an errant civilian weather plane, engaged in a research project over West Germany. The cockpit oxygen system had failed, he said, accidentally sending the pilot adrift deep into the Soviet Union. Was Eisenhower unequivocally lying? With a few clever twists and turns, could the president deny the truth and still not technically lie? Moreover, if Ike (as Eisenhower is also known) was, indeed, certifiably lying, was his behavior reprehensible, immoral, or otherwise reproachable?

In history's “official” record Eisenhower offered a bold-faced lie. Still, this verdict is not preordained. Much depends on the veracity of facts elsewhere, and if these specifics are untrustworthy, then Eisenhower escapes conviction. The president might have genuinely believed the cover story—Allen Dulles, the CIA director overseeing the surveillance program, was the real liar, so the trusting Eisenhower was absolutely speaking the truth, as he understood it. Alternatively, while the president was verbally offering his face-saving account, he could have simultaneously via winks and sheepish grins indicated to observers that the weather research account was bogus. Since his nonverbal message was intentional, charges of mendacity would derive solely from a transcript that could not convey his body language. Another possibility: Eisenhower's off-the-record conversations could have ensured that the truthful message, which contradicted the cover story, was widely conveyed, so he was simultaneously both truthful and deceitful.

Ike could also have obeyed medieval Catholic theological teachings and spoken vaguely while, unbeknownst to all but himself, he mentally qualified the cover-up to convert it into unqualified truth. That millions heard information that might have been misconstrued matters not; God discerns men's true thoughts, and to speak the truth to God is paramount, for He, not mere mortals, will pronounce judgment. All that was necessary was for the president to say publicly, “The U-2 was collecting scientific information” and then quietly add with nobody to overhear, “regarding Soviet rockets,” and, happily, God would have deemed the president a truth-teller.

Half-truths, as distinct from half-lies, also evade the outright lie, for deceit derives only from retrospective evaluation, not from anything Eisenhower personally said at that time. It was true, after all, that the spying mission was civilian administered (the CIA is independent from the Pentagon and Powers was an ex-military pilot). It was true that the particular U-2 flight had mechanical problems (later confirmed by Powers), and the mission's purpose was (vaguely but fittingly) “research.” Going one step further, the president could have sworn that the plane was not spying on Russia since (left unsaid) it was (perhaps) flying over the airspace of the Ukraine, a nominally independent republic of the USSR at that time. At worst, Ike would have been less than 100 percent candid, but not a liar.

What if the president, as counseled by some of his advisors, had remained entirely silent (or “out playing golf”) and permitted Allen Dulles to shoulder the blame, totally absolving Ike? If challenged, the president could have said, “No comment,” and thus been spared the onus of spreading falsehoods. Or if forced to react, Ike could have unleashed a torrent of Babel, none of which would have been factually wrong, but all of which would have said nothing precise regarding the U-2 incident. A variant might have been to mumble incoherently so that his response would have resembled a sort of Rorschach test to cover up the lie, in which listeners heard what they wanted to hear without the president confessing anything. Who knows what might happen to Ike's reputation as the historical record becomes more complete?

Ambiguity similarly attends the alleged harmfulness or immorality of Eisenhower's behavior. It is arguable that beyond short-lived embarrassment, the lie was innocuous. No constitutional oath of office or law was violated: foreign intelligence gathering is legal and mandated by statute. Ike's account—assuming that it was a lie—certainly did not injure Soviet interests (though the surveillance certainly did), and probably provided the Soviet Union a major propaganda advantage. Members of the diplomatic corps (and probably the press, as well) were not outraged; they expect deceit, and unexpected frankness might even be judged as an alarming rejection of established etiquette. As for the American public losing respect for Eisenhower (or for the government itself), this is doubtful, at best. Surely presidents enjoy considerable slack when it comes to subterfuge for the sake of national security, and that this dishonesty was directed toward fighting an avowed enemy surely made it commendable. The exposé of the ill-fated mission might have gladdened patriots since it highlighted America's technological prowess. Members of Congress could not claim to have been misled, since they were never even informed of the “weather” flights in the first place. Nor had any American outside Ike's administration put his or her reputation on the line by defending the U-2 project as atmospheric research. Overall, the reaction seemed to be that the U.S. had been caught conducting vital surveillance, and misrepresentation, no matter how clumsy, was the most convenient way of sustaining pretenses that nobody believed.

III. What Is a ‘Lie’?

The above illustration is scarcely unusual and exemplifies the nightmarish problems of disentangling truth from falsehood. Depending on definitions, and how inexact information is to be evaluated, Ike could be classified as everything from an archetypal purveyor of lies to an honest but misinformed fool, to a champion of truth as he (imperfectly) understood it. Moreover, a final judgment requires more than assembling facts, though facts are certainly essential. A verdict invariably reflects what is meant by ‘lie’, and this key element is by no means patently obvious. Nor was Ike's behavior unambiguously immoral. More than semantic gymnastics is involved; the disconcerting reality is that applying ‘liar’ to a public official can often depend on endless uncertain choices. Our parade of possible escape clauses is only the beginning.

The most useful place to plunge into this foggy topic is to acknowledge that ‘lie’ is an exceedingly vague term. English supplies countless synonyms that approximate ‘lie’. That these routinely replace it, often for innocent textual variety, can be exasperating. Psychiatrist Charles V. Ford, in his Lies! Lies!! Lies!!! lists twenty-five verbs, twenty-one nouns, and five adjectives that, in varying degrees, connote falsehood.²

This mendacity menu is hardly exhaustive. Each expression (among dozens) supplies its own special, and potentially highly useful, baggage. Imagine the following multiple-choice quiz question: Which word or phrase best describes President Eisenhower's behavior in accounting for the U-2 incident? Select from the following list: lying, misrepresenting, manipulating, being hypocritical, distorting, propagandizing, whitewashing, fabricating, faking, being selective with the facts, providing a trumped up story; acting disingenuously, without objectivity, and without candor; or all of the above. Choices are consequential—being deemed “not quite candid” is less provocative than being called a “naked liar,” while “not objective” and “manipulative” differ in their ethical connotation. Would “operational problems” be an acceptable euphemism for “being shot down by a Soviet missile,” since being hit by a missile has been known to cause mechanical malfunction? The potential vocabulary choices are most bountiful, and each can, in principle, be reasonably justified, yet language rules cannot possibly be imposed.⁵

Confusions multiply when venturing into non-English terminology. That translations may misconstrue cultural nuances compounds this fuzziness and potentially awards interpreters the power to mitigate or boost mendacity. For example, a distinctive Russian word for lying is vranyo, an untrue account told to those who recognize this falsity. A ‘tall tale’ might be a rough English equivalent. As in misleading children about Santa Claus being a real person, vranyo is usually not malicious since its fictitious character is usually understood as such by adults. By contrast, lozh is an outright lie intended to deceive and is therefore reprehensible. Since Soviet officials knew the truth about the U-2 flight, Eisenhower was merely guilty of vranyo, not lozh, and thus, in the eyes of the Soviets, he was merely a nonmalicious tale-teller, not a liar.

If choice of vocabulary does not sufficiently confound matters, then the frequency of a statement, totally apart from its explicit content, might signal a lie or truthfulness. J. A. Barnes, an Australian sociologist, in his A Pack of Lies, cites anthropological studies of cultures in which statements shift in truth-value via repetition, even if unchanged.⁶

Enhancing such ambiguities are the cultural contexts surrounding untruthful behavior. Consider simple marketplace haggling. In many commercial negotiations the initial price, let alone “my final offer,” is well understood as fluid and, technically, insincere. The seller, by his cultural norms, is hardly misrepresenting himself to a tourist when he initially says, “The vase costs five hundred rupees, a steal!” though privately he would happily accept a third, and this latter figure is the “real” price known “to everyone” (save perhaps naïve outsiders). The buyer is expected to bargain, not to accuse the seller of predatory fraudulence. Likewise, an “honest” expression of emotion may be culturally embedded, and this could easily engender misunderstandings from foreigners. Is a Japanese person “lying” when stoically reacting to a provocation, given powerful cultural prohibitions against public emotion? Is a person “trying to pass” as upscale by displaying a ten-dollar fake Rolex watch, or is such decorative misrepresentation a “a valid subculture lifestyle” lacking any deceptive purpose? Would it make any difference if the phony Rolex were so substandard that nobody was fooled?

These cultural interpretations of “lying” easily infect politics. Speech striking an American as outrageously hyperbolic (for example, “Death to American imperialists!”) might merely be “honest” where extreme embellishment is de rigueur and everything is automatically drastically discounted. When Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the Iraqi Minister of Information told reporters that “Iraq will not be defeated, Iraq has now already achieved victory—apart from some technicalities,” he was conceivably not lying despite an indisputable looming U.S. victory in the war between the two countries. Rather, the official sincerely believed what he said, and who knows what these “technicalities” might have been—perhaps deploying some secret weapon to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Brutal honesty (for example, “We are displeased with America”) might not even be recognized as critical commentary where overstatement is culturally revered. Similarly, those who put mail-order college degrees on office walls are hardly shamed fibbers where counterfeit Mount Blanc pens and five-dollar Prada handbags are displayed proudly—these deceits prove “consumer savvy,” not authentic social class.

Exaggeration, a close relative of lying, is also affected by cultural nuance. Cultures (and subcultures) differ in their tolerance for truth-trimming. Where absolute forthrightness is the norm, even a slight exaggeration becomes a lie. Elsewhere, however, substantial inflation is permissible without it becoming mendacious. In the first instance, a candidate for public office who promises a 5 percent spending increase for health care would be a liar if he or she really only intended a 4 percent boost. In a different cultural setting a promise of doubling outlays on health is “close enough” to the candidate's 4 percent intention to qualify as being truthful. Truly preposterous exaggeration can also shed the deception label. A candidate promising to abolish all taxes is probably not, technically, lying since this outrageous pledge is obviously a rhetorical flourish, not a realistic proposal. A more modest pledge to “cut taxes by 30 percent” might be interpreted as a lie, however, since it is plausible and therefore might be intended to deceive.

Plunging into formal explications of lying scarcely lifts the fog. The Oxford English Dictionary (second edition) provides a fairly straightforward denotation typically echoed elsewhere. It defines a lie as:

Barnes supplies a slightly different version:

Sissela Bok, a philosopher, in her widely cited Lying, offers a third and analogous rendering:

These generic definitions explicitly stress a perpetrator's intent. Propagating false or misleading information does not inevitably constitute lying, and no lie occurs if the speaker believed untrue information to be correct. Hence, it will be recalled, if Eisenhower genuinely believed his cover story, then his dissimulation does not qualify as dishonesty. Given that the public record abounds with sincere inaccuracy, this explicit-intent “escape clause” is, indeed, welcome news to those who fear criticism. Without such a clause, most public officials would be rightly classified as chronic liars, and there is no telling where this deficiency might lead if society punished untruths. Yet, equally obvious, since unconditionally establishing intent is quite arduous, and may itself be effortlessly falsified, this “intent to deceive” element in standard definitions of a lie invites eternal trouble. The relevant parallel is the notoriously painstaking and time-consuming task of establishing motive in criminal cases, a luxury seldom available in politics except retrospectively. Even then, “smoking gun” evidence is rarely forthcoming. Devious leaders can usually insulate themselves from awkward facts and thus be—technically—perfect truth-tellers while spreading the most horrendous misinformation. “Just do it, and don't tell me how,” is a time-honored bureaucratic ruse to escape accusations of consciously perpetrating evil.⁹

An interesting addition to our cabinet of mendacious curiosities might be called the “unintentional lie.” This deceit is, at least according to the perpetrator, “accidental” or otherwise a result of ineptitudes as minor as an arithmetic mistake. For example, on June 21, 1998, the U.S. Justice Department announced that, thanks to the Brady Law regulating handgun purchases, some sixty-nine thousand people had been prevented from buying guns in 1997. That day, President Clinton (a Brady Bill advocate) announced that this legislation had stopped “hundreds of thousands” of evildoers from acquiring firearms. Was Clinton lying? Or was he merely stretching the truth or otherwise attempting to con the public? Answers depend on certain difficult-to-establish facts. A Clinton aide eventually (and conveniently) attributed this huge discrepancy to an “editing error.”¹⁰

And, of course, no cabinet of mendacious curiosities would be complete without a reference to Clinton's “lawyer-like” deceptions in escaping from perjury over his alleged sexual escapades. Here, as an astonished public discovered, commonplace words such as ‘is’, ‘alone’, and ‘sexual relations’ could be twisted so that black would appear white and vice versa. To refresh our memories: Clinton denied having a “sexual relationship” with White House intern Monica Lewinsky since, in his thinking, a few periodic intimacies short of intercourse did not constitute “a sexual relationship.” Although dismissing Clinton's behavior as exceptional and purely expedient is tempting (not to mention too reprehensible to be treated seriously), its legal foundation is quite intellectually prestigious. Indeed, to say that oral sex is not “sex” is the natural outgrowth of an earnest constitutional philosophy. Truth be told, the Clinton example is more a matter of salaciousness than of shaky legal pedigree.

Robert F. Nagel, a professor of law, calls this approach the “Yale Argument,” as a matter of convenience since it has been associated (though hardly exclusively) with Yale Law School, from which Clinton graduated. Basically, what might be an untruth is converted into truth by shifting levels of abstraction ever upward. To take an example enshrined by some as the epitome of contemporary jurisprudence, it might be said that the Constitution's guarantee against unreasonable searches and other Fourth Amendment rights imply a fundamental “right to privacy,” which, in turn, leads to a right to control one's person, which, in turn, extends constitutional protection to abortion. This creative legal reasoning, continues Nagel, “has become so basic to modern constitutional interpretation, that it is taken for granted.”¹¹

The Clinton equivalent, at least according to Nagel, occurred when Clinton said that he “was not alone” with Lewinsky since, by this logic, others were also in the White House (and the entire East Coast, and the planet) at the same time. Moreover, this hyperabstract world can create its own unique and, of the utmost importance, authoritative vocabulary (much like Soviet esoteric terminology). In this context, Clinton's tortured grand jury testimony might be likened to speaking in a foreign tongue, a specialized discourse in which, for example, oral sex is not even “sex.” If ordinary citizens get confused or accuse the president of lying, this is understandable since they cannot be expected to follow discussions in this specialized idiom. That ample opportunity exists to derive this “special language” (for example, by “updating” old ideas or discovering previously unsuspected nuances) makes this strategy, needless to say, a godsend for those who embrace flexibility with the truth. This style is also especially notable for its reliance on copious “documentation” to bury the disbeliever under an avalanche of “scholarly” footnotes and citations to buttress taxonomic novelties. Sophistic verbiage may be insufficient for the novice, yet very often those who embrace this “Yale” approach manage to convince themselves that they really are telling the truth, though this truth requires enormous intellectual exertion to divine.¹²

Anthropologists investigating liar-friendly cultures have likewise observed the role of specialized terminology in dividing truth from falsehood. Michael Gilsenan found that in one Lebanese Muslim village, outside of a few incontestable subjects such as mechanical ability, lying infused all social relations.¹³

Nevertheless, as in all societies, mechanisms must exist to separate humdrum fantasizing from truth, if only in emergencies. Gilsenan claims that judiciously inserting phrases like “without joking” or “by your father's life” signal veracity to the culturally attuned. He offers the example of a reported shooting, an account that would normally be disbelieved except that the phrase “by your life” was appended to the tale. The listener now “knew” that, indeed, the claimed event truly occurred. Unfortunately, outsiders are unlikely to be familiar with the import of such locutions, and with the idea that their omission absolves liars from any responsibility: “She should have known I was lying since I did not say ‘by your life’ since this signifies truth.” Similar telling phrases exist in contemporary American society: “I'm not joking around” or “I'm being serious!” signal truthfulness in situations when lying is generally expected.

The complexity of ‘intent’ goes beyond the travails of establishing it. As philosopher Frederick A. Siegler and others make clear, something believed to be fraudulent by the speaker may in fact turn out to be true.¹⁴

Siegler similarly raises the difficult but commonplace issue of people passing on deceits with absolutely no awareness of their duplicity, often in good faith or as part of a respectable job. Using Siegler's example, how do we classify the “honest” radio announcer who mechanically reads dishonest propaganda while oblivious to its veracity? Surely he deceives others and must certainly realize his job's built-in deceptive purpose. Or might the dishonest writers, not the dutiful announcer, be the dishonest ones? When government-sponsored lies are considered, this attribution of responsibility is, obviously, hardly trivial. By this reckoning almost every election campaign worker or public information officer (let alone those in the CIA, National Security Agency, etc.) becomes a liar just by showing up for work.

These (and comparable) accounts also assume that there really is something called “the truth,” and that this precious commodity can be established to everyone's satisfaction. Of all the possible escape clauses, this is by far the most encompassing and enticing. Even the hard sciences, that bastion of truth über alles, will confess that beyond statements true merely by definition, uncertainty can never be entirely banished. How can one ever lie if truth never exists? From this perspective, one can only contradict what is believed to be true, at that moment, by these particular people. And who is so above suspicion that he can attest that his singular version of truth outshines all rivals? Even accepted scientific laws (e.g., Newtonian physics) can sooner or later fail the cosmic truth test. Philosophically, of course, this is a colossal can of worms, and even strident positivists willingly concede that scientific statements can only be falsified, never absolutely confirmed.¹⁵

Accepting the possibility of hard-edged truth does not end discussion—certainty cannot be guaranteed. One compilation intended to debunk myths passed off as rock-solid truth begins with “We believe that truth exists; that it is an absolute” and then a few sentences later intones, “Just as the horizon recedes as we approach it, and does not exist in itself, so truth may never be unveiled, reached or apprehended.”¹⁶

This escape from the dishonesty accusation by challenging the very idea of fixed truth has been an especially valuable ruse for buttressing ideologically tinged, fictitious history. How do we classify the assertion that Socrates was black, or that Aristotle stole his knowledge from Africans, when no hard evidence supports either contention? Imposing a verdict of lying is hardly straightforward, despite the preposterous character of these claims. Leaving aside whether Afrocentric historians actually believe these claims (a fact beyond discernment), a case could be made that these claims might be true, or that it is the speaker's “mere opinion” that these assertions are accurate. In principle, it matters not whether the odds are .5 or .000005—a possibility is a possibility and is thus worth bearing in mind. Nor must one's opinion meet the standards of scientific truth: as Arendt argued, “facts” are often made into facts by the weight of assembled opinion, not indisputable reality.¹⁷

Paul Ekman, drawing on his extensive psychiatric experience, offers a more complex understanding to address these thorny issues.¹⁸

One need not suffer a permanent brain dysfunction or an incurable brain disorder such as Alzheimer's to escape the responsibility of discerning truths from falsehoods. Debilitation can be entirely temporary, even limited to the very moment when a seeming falsehood is uttered. Our growing tolerance of an ever-expanding list of disabilities offers multiple enticing possibilities. Plausibly, one's thoughts could have been briefly impaired by alcoholism, drugs, stress, and mental exhaustion, plus untold but nonobvious physical illnesses such as a brain tumor or dementia, all of which weaken clear thinking. Further, perpetrators with hyperactive imaginations could be added to the list of the exculpated with the claim that, like children, they cannot distinguish “is” from “ought.” The perfect defense, naturally, would be to attribute an apparent lie to circumstantial, mind-clouding stress, and since it is this (nonvisible) physical condition, not free choice, that engenders the fib, the perpetrator is permanently blameless. In other words, being asked to tell the truth may energize a disability into existence, so telling the truth is medically impossible. This logic may seem bizarre, but it appears regularly in criminal defenses based on the accused being drunk, insane, or otherwise not in a normal frame of mind, even if the faulty mental state was self-induced.

Another element in assessing falsehoods is volition. Coercion plainly interferes with volition, and it comes in assorted forms, some of which may be hidden, and range from torture to sodium pentathol (“truth serum”). It is possible, then, to claim that one misspoke due to compulsion, and thus escape the onus of lying.²⁰

Ekman adds a second critical dimension that was omitted in his generic definition of a lie: the recipient's willingness to be deceived.²¹

The ample opportunities that exist for self-delusion constitute a troublesome issue that cannot be stressed enough when attempting to verify lies. Psychologist Roy F. Baumeister details the everyday seductive incentives that propel potential liars toward self-delusion, notably, the ease of avoiding unpleasant information or the opportunity to shift blame to others.²²

Yet, as the rationally inclined might argue, “lying to oneself” is a logical impossibility if lying requires expressing something known to be false.²⁶

A further potentially troubling wrinkle concerns “nonverbal deceit.” Technically called “metacommunications,” these behaviors modify overt verbal or written statements. That is, one communicates A via one method, and simultaneously denies A another way. Though seldom addressed formally, these behaviors are inescapable and—more important—are integral to certifying lies.²⁷

Modern technology affords ingenious opportunities to convert truth into falsehood and vice versa using metacommunications. The American television news program 60 Minutes achieved notoriety by posing disconcerting questions to interviewees and then contrasting their verbal reassurances with close-up shots of sweating brows or tightened lips, all socially understood indicators of mendacity. In an instant, ostensible denials of wrongdoing by business executives or public officials became inadvertent visual “admissions” of guilt, thanks to clever camera work. The opposite is equally possible; judicious editing may transform a speech laced with clumsy contradictions and suspicion-generating mannerisms into believable “honest truth.” In both instances, the final verdict regarding truthfulness essentially resides with editors and directors since they—not the listeners—selectively include or exclude revealing nonverbal cues.

Recent research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology using powerful computers and artificial intelligence, enables experts to put new words into persons' mouths in ways that defy detection.²⁸

If the problem of metacommunications seems daunting, wrestling with outward behavior unaccompanied by words may be even more vexing. Can one lie with silence or deceive by other nonverbal means, and thus render oneself absolutely blameless regardless of intent? This well-recognized dilemma rests on the commonplace understanding of a lie as being a statement (presumably verbal or written) designed to deceive. Without overt voicing, the future victim can only guess at another person's intent, and as we all recognize, confusion can easily arise. Kant, the champion of absolute truth (see below), offers an illustration of someone who does everything to physically suggest that a vacation is imminent, for example, he packs his bags. Such behavior permits—but does not require—observers to conclude that he is about to depart. But, if no such trip were planned, is there deceit? No, according to Kant, since such a trip was never overtly confirmed; the observers themselves drew the erroneous conclusion, though understandably so. Surely, leaving town was not preordained nor the only possible interpretation of his actions; he might have packed the suitcases for another person or just out of nervous habit.²⁹

The manipulation of “honest” behavior in order to deceive while escaping the opprobrium of lying is a godsend to the devious. Entire industries service this ruse: advertising and cosmetics come readily to mind. Familiar examples from individual behavior include wearing athletic attire to display falsely one's “physical fitness” or ignoring all social invitations to demonstrate one's nonexistent workaholic commitment. Academics routinely cite unread books, “suggesting” (but not confirming) erudition. In the public sphere we find petty dictators bedecked with bogus but genuine-appearing military medals, or slothful legislators brandishing technical tomes well beyond their reading level. Since nothing overt is said about the implied accomplishments, nobody is—literally—lying. Imposing government buildings and grandiose monuments are classic tools to mislead. The offense here, technically, is playing on the gullibility of others who accept outward impressions as the truth, not mendacity.

IV. How Are Lies to Be Judged?

Conceptually separating truth from impostures is difficult enough, but formulating an evaluative framework that justifies or condemns lying in the public realm is even more daunting. It is not haplessness we suffer when calibrating public lies. Recall W. C. Field's quip about abstinence: Giving up drinking is easy; I've done it a thousand times. Classification schemes abound, each celebrated by its author as authoritative; it is the practical utility of such schemes when concretely applied that is debatable. Conceivably, evaluative schemes are pointless; at best they provide a decent public face on immorality or, conversely, provide a handy weapon to discredit foes. And if this pessimistic assessment is, indeed, correct, then how are we to confront “bad” lies in the public sphere when they suddenly surface? Can anything be said beyond, “That's a lie! Shame on you!” or, “Everyone does it, so no big deal”? Let us briefly consider some notable categorization efforts. My point is simply that, while schemes and admonitions galore might win intellectual beauty contests, they fail when organizing the civic household.

We commence with the “hard-liners” who (apparently) prohibit any lying, public mendacity included. Among the most influential of this group is Augustine (354–430 a.d.), who unmistakably insists that God forbids all lies, period. By ‘lie’, Augustine means a falsehood uttered to deceive, so a speaker has to believe that what he said was, indeed, false.³⁰

Nevertheless, like a skilled legislator drafting a draconian law, Augustine bows to human nature and occasional necessity. For one, he admits that remaining silent can occasionally substitute for a lie without a lie being told when the purpose is to accomplish a good deed.³¹

Though convenient for some purposes, ambiguity may not be sufficient for those circumstances in which lying seems attractive, if not honorable (e.g., shielding an ill person from news that might cause even more illness). Fortunately, Augustine offers a way out of this predicament while still affirming the absolute prohibition against lying. The quandary is addressed by first formulating an eightfold classification scheme for lies, resting on intention and harm, beginning with the most grievous lies (e.g., false religious teachings), and ending with the least harmful falsehoods that may, in fact, promote the good (e.g., by preventing injury). The latter lies, being lies, are still absolutely forbidden by God, and certainly cannot be encouraged or justified, but—and here is the loophole—they are pardonable sins, and thus possibly forgiven by God, depending on the repentance of the liar.³²

Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–74) embraces a similar-appearing hard-line position some eight hundred years later than Augustine, though the room to maneuver is, as a matter of practical expediency, conveniently stretched. Following Augustine, Aquinas argues that intent to deceive certifies the lie, and to lie is absolutely forbidden. His Summa Theologiae repeatedly pronounces lies to be mortal sins, and a mortal sin alone causes destruction and death of the soul. Is the liar, regardless of the lie, therefore eternally doomed? Not quite—as with Augustine, for Aquinas the loophole arrives via the pardonable sin. Some lies, notably those that are helpful without inflicting harm and those said in jest (“just kidding”), are divinely pardonable. Other deceits, particularly those that subvert the virtues of faith and religion or are intended to injure one's neighbor in name or possessions, are unforgivable. The trick, then, is to secure the favorable categorization. Nevertheless, as before, classification is ultimately beyond mortal reach: God, not judge and jury, decides the liar's fate, though the Church might offer a preliminary assessment. A savvy public official, attuned to Aquinas's teachings, could justify mendacity by intoning, “My lie—despite what you might think—is harmless, even helpful, but if I'm wrong, God will punish me in the hereafter, and for others to insist otherwise, is presumptuous.”

The most unforgiving hard-liner of them all is Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). His attack on lying—defined as intentionally declaring an untruth to another—is absolute. Lying is forbidden even for the most benign reason, including saving the life of the innocent threatened by evil. The pardonable-sin loophole is gone. Not even self-defense or resistance to coercion is allowable. To tell the truth is an unconditional duty, applying in all circumstances, and even an innocent “little lie” destroys the liar's human dignity and harms mankind generally by vitiating the sources of law. Agreeing with Augustine, Kant argues that speaking falsehoods renders the liar less than human. Expediency and absolution count for nothing.

To appreciate the absoluteness of Kant's strictures, consider Kant's own “tough case” illustration—deceiving a prospective murderer in the hunt for a victim in one's own house (now a commonplace example in this ongoing debate). Should one refuse to answer the evildoer's inquiry, or tell him or her to look elsewhere? Neither, contends Kant. Telling the truth, even if it inescapably invites evil, remains one's duty, and, as a practical matter, even a well-intentioned lie may well impose unforeseen negative consequences on the liar, namely, developing the habit of lying. Further, the intended victim may have fled the house, and the evildoer, if told the “lie” to look elsewhere, might encounter the victim on the street (an unlikely scenario if the truth be told). Perhaps, even if the pursued were still in the house and the would-be killer were told this truth, the would-be killer could be quickly apprehended within, but not easily apprehended if in pursuit elsewhere. In any case, endless hypothetical contingencies aside, by performing one's duty to be truthful, the person who is asked about the sought-after victim is absolutely blameless, regardless of consequences, including if the murderer succeeds. If a lie “for good reason” had been told, and the intended victim were still murdered, the liar would now share some of the responsibility for evil, at least according to Kant.

Dissenting from the position of the “hard-liners” are Plato (c. 429–347 b.c.) and Machiavelli (1469–1527), both of whom cut enormous slack for leaders to lie. Plato, famously, proposes the “noble lie,” the fictions and comparable deceptions told to ordinary people to preserve social harmony. These lies are not self-serving, as one might offer misstatements to hide bribery or marital infidelities. The purpose of such lies must be the educative good of the whole, and in the Republic their most illustrious purpose is to provide a convincing rationale for political hierarchy and class distinctions (the familiar tale of the gods' mixing the rulers with gold, the auxiliaries with silver, and the farmers and tradesmen with lesser metals). Similarly, occasions may arise when a city's rulers fittingly mislead the people or enemies for the civic good, though here, unlike the noble lies, the deceits may eventually be confessed.

Plato is not, however, an apologist for mendacity; lies must be judged by their ultimate civic purpose. Some lies are forbidden. In Book III of the Republic Plato repeatedly inveighs against subversive myths, namely, Homer's tales of the gods, which might promote vices such as adultery or encourage citizens to escape their civic responsibilities by blaming others for their immoral urges. It is unwise, for example, to tell of the terrible rapes by Theseus, son of Poseidon and Perithous, son of Zeus, for these will surely mislead mere mortals. Put into modern terminology, the intemperate and rash Zeus should not be held up as a role model; only when the gods instruct wisely are these myths to be cherished.

Given the necessity of judgment, how is one to assess the value of such lies, noble or otherwise? Might the gods (or God) sit in final judgment and punish catastrophes? Are the pluses to be weighed against the minuses? Hardly. Promulgating mendacity is the domain of those who rule, and it is entirely up to them to decide, for they are wiser than those below.

Even more extreme is, of course, Machiavelli. No convoluted philosophical rationales or appeals to divine authority for deceptions are needed: experience shows lying to be an absolute necessity of statecraft, and to insist otherwise invites defeat. People, according to Machiavelli, are naturally inclined to evil, selfishness, and egoism, and to believe that one's enemies will not stoop to deceit is perilous fantasy. The purpose of politics, fundamentally, is the cunning accumulation and preservation of power in order to achieve glory; morality among leaders is immaterial, a distraction. To quote Machiavelli, “[A] prudent ruler cannot keep his word, nor should he, when such fidelity would damage him; and when the reasons that made him promise are no longer relevant.”³⁴

It is not that morality is totally irrelevant. The citizens' dispositions—notably loyalty, attachment to family, and frugality (among others)—can be immensely valuable in a well-organized state. (Machiavelli greatly admired the virtues of the Swiss.) It is also important that the ruler appear to embody such virtues as courage and decisiveness. However, statecraft as properly practiced exempts rulers from such constraints. Put bluntly, the successful prince must be a great liar and hypocrite: truthfulness should never be the evaluative standard.

Rounding out our brief foray into classic treatments is how Islam assesses lying. There are two instances where lying is absolutely forbidden: lying about Allah and lying against Muhammad.³⁵

Modern attempts to supply useful demarcation lines between truth and lies have scarcely settled the matter. Quite predictably, utilitarian philosophers have devised formulas to separate “good” from “bad” lies, and their efforts have, equally predictably, fallen into obscurity. Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900) offers a familiar utilitarian case: lies (defined by intent to deceive) should be judged exclusively by their consequences.³⁶

Yet, as Bok observes, Sidgwick and like-minded utilitarians offer formulas that are alluring only in the abstract.³⁷

Even if consequences were predictable down to the fourth decimal place, this does not eliminate judgments regarding alternative outcomes. This assessment is inevitable since a single act has multiple results, and calculating the value of each outcome “package” is never objectively straightforward. In the U-2 instance, were all the consequences of honesty “better” than all the results of lying? Who is to do this addition and weighing, and according to what calculus? Answering this question is even more formidable than predicting the future. To believe that these divergent outcomes can be mechanically summed and choices made between varying packages without bitter political struggle is a daydream.

Bok also correctly notes that utilitarian evaluation abolishes the moral onus attached to lying and cheating. A falsehood, insofar as it is to be judged exclusively by impact, differs not one iota from truthfulness. The utilitarian calculus effortlessly frees the miscreant from any moral discomfort or social opprobrium. The possibilities for secret rationalizations are also apparent; what commences as a moral predicament can be quickly twisted into a “good deed” and, after a point, the honesty-mendacity distinction vanishes. The pernicious situation can further deteriorate as fresh lies are advanced to cover past fabrications, until extracting even the tiniest truthful tidbits is hopeless. Society itself could become unlivable: Why fret over a speaker's public dishonesty when we should be disputing alternative outcome scenarios?

A final noteworthy scheme is what might be called “contextualism,” which resembles situational ethics. Advocates claim that the blanket condemnation of lying as immoral, disruptive, or reprehensible fails to appreciate that lies are necessary for human relationships, not a defect to be expunged wherever possible. Lying is, after all, endemic in daily existence: even the clothes we wear and our household furnishings are designed to deceive (e.g., newly constructed “eighteenth century English cottages” decorated with manufactured “antiques”). Unadorned nudity—the “naked truth”—is both undesirable and impractical, if only because clothes protect us against the elements. Moreover, banishing such fictions would undermine effective psychological functioning and deprive humans of our beloved culture, especially the arts: even photographs these days are seldom reflections of unvarnished reality. Who can be happy in a world governed exclusively by cold, hard-edged truth? It would be a lifeless world bereft of romance or beauty. As Oscar Wilde quipped, “The aim of the liar is simply to charm, to delight, to give pleasure. He is the very basis of civilized society.” It is not that lies should replace truth as the gold standard; everything is a matter of practical circumstances, not unforgiving dogma.

These various classification schemes for judging lies hardly exhaust the subject, and, obviously, my overviews are only snapshots.³⁸

Philosophical deficiencies—that is, ambiguous terminology or contradictory precepts—are not the culprit here, though, to be sure, these flourish. Far more damaging is that few people in the “real world” find these idiosyncratic musings of intellectuals useful. In commercial language these evaluative schemes are unmarketable products. This disinterest in evaluative schemes exists despite the public's insatiable appetite for scandal and journalists' penchant for exposing official double-dealing. Explaining this inattention is not exactly rocket science: observers are quite content with their own homemade evaluative frameworks, namely, those of momentary opportunism. Why fret about pardonable sins, future net benefits, or comparable “Great Thoughts” when crass self-interest suffices? Why not just castigate enemies as liars while helping friends to escape the same indictment? This is the triumph of ideology, not theology, and it is doubtful whether this inclination is reversible. If this point seems dubious, just count the number of Republicans who were uneasy over Clinton being charged with perjury or feminists who were outraged over his convoluted interpretation of “sexual relationship.” One can only surmise that if two-thousand-plus years of cogitation have failed to supply an accepted evaluative formula, we will continue to wait.

V. Lying and the Law

A remarkable feature of the “lying literature” is its neglect of the law. Philosophers, political theorists, psychiatrists, and untold other academic professionals dwell on the most arcane distinctions to (supposedly) illuminate mendacity, save legal proceedings. Even Bok's outwardly comprehensive Lying only momentarily touches on perjury, and then without any reference to statutes. (Her concern is the lawyer-client relationship.) This indifference is stunning. A civic life in which the justice system is plagued with chronic dishonesty is unthinkable. Better to have undue campaign hyperbole or leaders unable to tell truth from falsehood. After all, only the courts can protect the rule of law and severely punish liars, so falsification in the legal system should be front and center in any account of lying.

More important, the exigencies of trials force us to confront lying seriously. We can endlessly debate the philosophical or linguistic quandaries inherent in lying, but how should a judge or jury act when asked to believe improbable tales in a murder case? Juries seldom have the luxury to wait for historical evidence regarding ultimate societal benefits. Might the judge summon a theologian to see if the accused's likely falsehood is merely a minor sin ultimately punishable by God? Or does the accused's dishonesty menace the very foundations of civic life? Clearly, regardless of how lying is treated in learned tomes, it is in the courts where lying is concretely defined and punished. If the situation is bleak here, then we are surely defenseless against mendacity.

The law addresses dishonesty in multiple places, and we should note at the outset that lying is not automatically a crime. Going from lying to conviction for lying is an immense distance. Section 1001 of Title 18 of the United States Code, for example, covers defrauding the government in business, supplying false information in employment applications, and similar dealings raising issues of truthfulness.³⁹

A useful starting point is what the law calls “impeaching a witness”—attacking the witness's credibility or believability. This is not the crime of perjury, a subject that we shall examine below. “Being impeached” may not even bring any legal sanction. Establishing that a witness is not believable is the issue, and discrediting a witness may not involve unmasking an outright intent to deceive (i.e., lying), but this is beside the point. The key question concerns witness credibility regardless of motive. An absolutely honest witness may not be credible simply due to faulty memory, impaired eyesight, mental illness, or distance from the events about which testimony is given, among dozens of other honest explanations. There are other medical reasons that might be cited to diminish a witness's credibility, for example, Alzheimer's or drug abuse. Such an impaired witness may not be telling the truth, but is technically not lying.

Federal and state evidentiary guidelines plus established legal custom are often a jumble of opaque regulations and guiding judicial pronouncements. These rules even baffle lawyers who do not specialize in uncovering the whole truth and nothing but the truth. For these reasons, explications of witness impeachment can vary somewhat across legal texts. This confusion is hardly unexpected given, as I have previously depicted, the multiple meanings of a ‘lie’. (This point should be recalled when my conclusion considers the implications of ridding society of mendacity.) Nevertheless, a few simple principles are apparent.⁴⁰

By contrast, extrinsic evidence concerns evidence offered independently by other witnesses or documents. Extrinsic evidence is most common when a witness resists impeachment attempts by evasiveness or by endlessly pleading “I can't remember.” Somebody asserting no knowledge of another person might be impeached by a photograph showing the two together or by proof revealing that the two once shared a jail cell. Securing opposing testimony can also challenge recollections; for example, if a witness said he saw a fistfight, other onlookers could deny this account. Establishing bias—that the witness had previous altercations or romantic relationships with the accused—can likewise cast doubts on veracity. For largely practical reasons, courts generally prefer intrinsic evidence regarding witness credibility since assembling extrinsic evidence is difficult and time-consuming (“a trial within a trial”).

While the idea of lying in court will surely draw rebuke from defenders of truth, the American legal system scarcely wages war on this mendacity. The quest for “truth” at all costs is not the only aim; extracting truth must be balanced against other values, including optimal use of time. One clue into how noncredible testimony is assessed is provided by the multiple opportunities available to an impeached witness. Escape routes abound over and above conceding defective hearing, blurred vision, or similar “honest” errors. For one, an impeached witness can be rehabilitated during court proceedings by skilled questioning. “Refreshing one's memory” is one recognized rescue tactic; a friendly lawyer steers his or her client toward accuracy by “reminding” the witness of certain other details. Interestingly, Rule 612 of the Federal Rules of Evidence allows “refreshment” via evidence not otherwise admissible in court, for example, hearsay. These “refreshment facts” need not themselves be authenticated. (Refreshment can also demonstrate incredulity, as well.) Moreover, according to Rule 613, if a witness says “I don't remember” or fails to supply past testimony, then no contradiction exists, and thus no false testimony. However, in extreme cases of contrived “forgetting” impeachment is possible with a single statement.

Rules concerning the exclusion of past criminality in impugning a witness's veracity are especially revealing. The issue here is whether statements can be challenged on the grounds that the witness is a convicted criminal, “a bad character,” or a proven liar, so why believe that a leopard has changed its spots? Nevertheless, according to federal standards, prior criminal conviction cannot usually be used to impeach truthfulness if the conviction is older than ten years or the person was released from confinement more than ten years ago (whichever is later). Nor can alleged false testimony be challenged on these grounds if the witness was pardoned or had his sentence annulled, provided that no intervening felony conviction occurred. Finally, a past conviction cannot be used to impeach if that crime was similar to the currently charged crime, the crime was inflammatory, or the witness has been impeached in other ways.

In short, these (and other) restrictions offer handy escape routes from appearing to be a noncredible witness. Talented trial lawyers undoubtedly have countless useful ploys to sway jurors, independent of what is permitted by the rules. Note well, these afforded protections are integral to the American legal system, not despicable ruses to protect deceit. It is a matter of balancing the need for truth with other valuable rights. If only for practical reasons, such as limits on what can be investigated or how many character witnesses can be called, attaining absolute truth from witnesses is an unreachable goal. These complicated rules offer only minimal adequacy for truth-finding, not a mechanical instrument to unearth unvarnished reality.

Whereas to impeach witness credibility only exposes lack of credibility, the demonstration of perjury criminalizes deceit, although, in a few instances, an impeached witness invites court reprimand. Again, this simple idea of perjury has burgeoned into an immensely knotty legal subject, complete with multiple statutes and endless commentaries, but the core of perjury at the federal level is giving false testimony to a grand jury, to a court, and (where specified by statute) during other proceedings such as discovery or legislative hearings.⁴¹

The simplest element (relatively) of perjury is that the lie must be under oath. Federal rules are imprecise regarding this oath and, in fact, wording can differ by jurisdiction (and provisions exist for those who refuse to swear on a Bible or otherwise invoke religion). The oath must, however, be statute-based and be administered by competent lawful authority. Improper oaths include those given to grand juries exceeding their appointment terms, to legislative committees operating beyond their authorized jurisdiction, or to those without a quorum. Likewise, the court in which the oath is given must have proper jurisdiction if the oath is to be valid. However, having a law declared unconstitutional does not retroactively void conviction, nor does being inappropriately charged permit escape from perjury. The absence of counsel likewise does not invalidate a perjury conviction. Perjury can also occur in either civil or criminal cases and when testifying under a grant of immunity, unless it can be shown that this immunity was closely connected to the matter covered by the grant.

A perjury conviction requires a showing that the defendant knew that his or her testimony was false. The legal emphasis is on willfully offering false testimony. The burden of proof is on the government, and a slippery witness and clever defense lawyers often devise ingenious escape routes.⁴²

Nor is perjury committed if a response is evasive, intentionally misleading, ambiguous, or arguably false, provided that it was literally true. Also, “attempted perjury” is not a crime: if a witness believes that the sun rises in the west and “lies” by saying it rises in the east, no perjury is committed. An example of escaping perjury by playing upon uncertainty occurred in a case when the defendant was asked if he had ever traveled to Florida with a “Mr. X”.⁴³

There are, of course, limits to a court's acquiescence to such linguistic game playing. In one instance a defendant trying to escape a perjury verdict claimed that his reference to a “juice loan” applied to orange juice. The judge ruled that the jury could probably surmise that this slang expression referred to a loan with excessive interest (the term “juice” derives from “they will squeeze you if you don't pay”). In another case, a defendant denied meeting a woman in a New Orleans motel and later claimed to be truthful since the motel was actually outside city limits. Nevertheless, the judge held that in the context of the questioning, the defendant surely realized that the query concerned the New Orleans metropolitan area.⁴⁶

The issue of perjury by silence, a topic long debated by theologians and philosophers, also periodically surfaces. As legal scholar Peter Meijes Tiersma notes, silence is not the same thing as evasion by hemming or hawing or otherwise being inarticulate. Nor is it equivalent to refusing to testify or avoiding a court appearance altogether. At least one state court (California) has ruled that absolute stone silence may be grounds for perjury. In this case a prospective juror named Meza repeatedly remained silent when asked about whether he knew the defendant or whether there was anything that would hinder him from rendering an impartial verdict.⁴⁷

An additional element of perjury is materiality—whether the falsehood actually concerns the issues of a case, not ephemera. If Alfred E. Neuman states his name sans middle initial, this is not perjury unless the “E” were relevant to trial proceedings. The customary standard of materiality is whether or not a statement might influence the trial's outcome, regardless of whether it actually does. This includes statements that enhance or impugn witness credibility. Materiality can be deceptively complicated; for example, lying about a seemingly trivial item could misdirect court inquiry and therefore be “material” despite its apparently petty nature. (What if the missing “E” signifies gang membership?) Again, the burden of proof regarding all of these requirements rests on the government, though judges enjoy ample discretion in deciding materiality.

These safeguards make securing a perjury conviction arduous. Sections 1621 and 1623 of Title 18 of the United States Code cover perjury, and each has its own requirements, and the government is free to elect either section in its prosecution. Both, however, offer hurdles to successful prosecution. Under Section 1621 two witnesses are required to convict, though in exceptional instances one witness plus substantial evidence may suffice. Section 1623(e) requires the difficult “proof beyond reasonable doubt” standard. Under Section 1623(a) a witness can also be indicted for perjury based on materials such as books, records, recordings, or similar items that are submitted as evidence and known to be false.

Conveniently for the accused, Section 1623 (but not 1621) permits testimony that invites perjury to be recanted or modified. This defense must be done explicitly; the old version must clearly be retracted and repudiated and in the same legal proceedings in which false testimony was initially offered. Though far from a guaranteed immunity against perjury, courts can look kindly upon such behavior, especially if the potential perjurer uses this newfound honesty to show lack of deceptive intent. Grand jury witnesses in particular might be cut greater slack since they lack counsel to protect them from leading questions that can ensnarl them in contradictions. Perhaps the best defense against a charge of perjury is to be acquitted. Though a “not guilty” verdict does not formally annul a perjury charge, it is unlikely to be pursued further by the government since the testimony was credible to the jury, a fact consistent with honest testimony.

Perjury is a serious offense under federal law, and in a criminal case perjury might cause a witness to be considered an accessory to the crime. The relevance of honest testimony is also well understood by judges who treat it with the utmost attention. Nevertheless, but hardly surprising in light of the depicted roadblocks, perjury cases are relatively rare (at least in federal court) despite anecdotal evidence that perjury is on the increase. According to some observers, despite its frequency, perjury is simply not a high priority crime in a beleaguered, often overworked system.⁴⁸