Insincerity, Lies and Bullshit

Norms and morality apply basically to all our (intentional) behavior and actions. So, also our linguistic behavior, our language use, is subject to norms, and those norms can be and often are ignored. By using language, people sometimes insult or discriminate others, or even commission a murder, which are examples of clearly immoral acts.

We will specifically focus on speech acts that are usually thought of as assertions: making statements, claiming that something is the case, reporting what has happened, telling another person something, or testifying to something having happened. For instance, I might tell you that the train is running late or testify to Leila’s whereabouts last Saturday. Assertions have attracted a lot of interest over the last decades, not only in philosophy of language, but, e.g., also in linguistics, epistemology, political philosophy, law, psychology, and computer science.

Assertions, as they are subject to (specific) norms, can also be looked at from the perspective of moral theory and normative ethics. It is, for instance, often held that one should only assert what one knows to be true. But, in practice, speakers also often assert what they believe to be false and sometimes they don’t even care about whether what they are saying is true or not. It’s usually held that in the first kind of cases speakers are insincere – if relevant additional conditions are fulfilled, they are lying – whereas in the second they are bullshitting.

In this seminar, after first briefly discussing the nature of assertion (What is a speaker doing when she is asserting? Is she expressing a belief in what she asserts? Is she committed to defend what she has asserted?), we will then be paying particular attention to insincerity, lies and bullshit as the results of different ways of abusing the speech act of assertion. One question that will be addressed is whether it is always immoral to be insincere, lie or produce bullshit, or whether there can be situations in which it is morally allowed – or maybe even morally required – to do so.

(Prior knowledge of philosophy of language and speech act theory is beneficial but not required for participation.)

Literature (selection):

-         Eriksson, John (2011), ”Straight Talk: Conceptions of Sincerity in Speech”, Philosophical Studies 153(2), p. 213-234

-         Fallis, Don (2018), ”What Is Deceptive Lying?”, in Michaelson, Eliot/Stokke, Andreas (eds.), Lying: Language, Knowledge, Ethics, and Politics

-         Fehige, Christoph/Wessels, Ulla (2019), ”Deception and the Desires That Speak Against It”, Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 93(1), p. 91-110

-         Frankfurt, Harry (2005), On Bullshit, Princeton University Press

-         Kotzee, Bill (2020), ”Bullshit Assertion”, in Goldberg, Sanford (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Assertion

-         Lackey, Jennifer (2007), ”Norms of Assertion”, Noûs 41(4), p. 594-626

-         MacFarlane, John (2011), ”What Is Assertion?”, in Brown, Jessica/Cappelen, Herman (eds.), Assertion: New Philosophical Essays

-         Maitra, Ishani (2018), ”Lying, Acting, and Asserting”, in Michaelson, Eliot/Stokke, Andreas (eds.), Lying: Language, Knowledge, Ethics, and Politics

-         Shiffrin, Seana (2019), ”Learning about Deception from Lawyers”, Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 93(1), p. 69-90

-         Sorensen, Roy (2007), ”Bold-Faced Lies! Lying Without the Intent to Deceive”, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88, p. 251-264

-         Stokke, Andreas/Fallis, Don (2017), ”Bullshitting, Lying, and Indifference Toward Truth”, Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 4

(Seminar readings will be made available on Moodle at the beginning of term. There is no reading required in preparation for the first class of term. Those who are interested in doing some preparatory readings are referred to the Stanford Encyclopedia articles ”Assertion” and ”The Definition of Lying and Deception” and/or Seana Shiffrin, Speech Matters: Lying, Morality and the Law, Princeton University Press, 2014.)

Term papers:

The seminar is conducted in English. Term papers can be written either in English or in German.

Zeit: Montag 16-18Uhr

Ort: Gebäude A2 2 - Seminarraum 1.27