True Lies

SOCREAL 2013 : 3rd International Workshop on Philosophy and Ethics of Social Reality 2013. Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan, 25-27 October 2013. Session 1 : Logic, Knowledge, and Philosophy of Languag

Memory and True Lies

This article discusses the concept of memory, its relation to culture, and three hypothetical phenomena associated with it

True Lies: Canossa as Myth

This essay is a response to Paul Horwitz, “Freedom of the Church without Romance,” published as part of a symposium on “The Freedom of the Church.” The essay endorses Horwitz’s central thesis that advocates of a contemporary “freedom of the Church” have overlooked historical complexities in marking the 11th-century investiture conflict between Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII, often simply referred to “Canossa” after the small Emilian village where Henry sought absolution from Gregory, as the birth of that freedom. The essay goes beyond Horwitz to argue that the historical account of “Canossa” presupposed by freedom-of-the-Church advocates is literally false. “Canossa,” instead, is a myth. More salient, nonmythical analogies for a “freedom of the Church” exist in U.S. constitutional history: genuine state sovereignty and dual-sovereignty federalism from the 19th century, and state dignity and native American domestic dependency from the contemporary era. These more historically accessible analogies all suggest that any “freedom of the Church” in U.S. constitutional doctrine is greatly diminished from the robust freedom argued for by those who invoke “Canossa” as that freedom’s defining moment. But even the mythical “Canossa” remains important. Myths are stories that a society tells about itself, stories that preserve and clarify its deepest values and commitments. Like the “myth of Magna Carta” that has exerted so much influence on English and American constitutional law, “Canossa” emphasizes the dangers to liberty from a government that sees no bounds on its jurisdiction and authority. Though historically false, “Canossa” might be mythically true

True Lies: Canossa as Myth

This essay is a response to Paul Horwitz, “Freedom of the Church without Romance,” published as part of a symposium on “The Freedom of the Church.” The essay endorses Horwitz’s central thesis that advocates of a contemporary “freedom of the Church” have overlooked historical complexities in marking the 11th-century investiture conflict between Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII, often simply referred to “Canossa” after the small Emilian village where Henry sought absolution from Gregory, as the birth of that freedom. The essay goes beyond Horwitz to argue that the historical account of “Canossa” presupposed by freedom-of-the-Church advocates is literally false. “Canossa,” instead, is a myth. More salient, nonmythical analogies for a “freedom of the Church” exist in U.S. constitutional history: genuine state sovereignty and dual-sovereignty federalism from the 19th century, and state dignity and native American domestic dependency from the contemporary era. These more historically accessible analogies all suggest that any “freedom of the Church” in U.S. constitutional doctrine is greatly diminished from the robust freedom argued for by those who invoke “Canossa” as that freedom’s defining moment. But even the mythical “Canossa” remains important. Myths are stories that a society tells about itself, stories that preserve and clarify its deepest values and commitments. Like the “myth of Magna Carta” that has exerted so much influence on English and American constitutional law, “Canossa” emphasizes the dangers to liberty from a government that sees no bounds on its jurisdiction and authority. Though historically false, “Canossa” might be mythically true

True lies and Moorean redundancy

According to the subjective view of lying, speakers can lie by asserting a true proposition, as long as they believe this proposition to be false. This view contrasts with the objective view, according to which lying requires the actual falsity of the proposition asserted. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to pairs of assertions that differ only in intuitively redundant content and to show that such pairs of assertions are a reason to favour the subjective view of lying over the objective one.Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001659Ruhr-Universität Bochum (1007)Peer Reviewe

The myth of true lies

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Republic 382a-d: On the Dangers and Benefits of Falsehood

Socrates' attitude towards falsehood is quite puzzling in the Republic. Although Socrates is clearly committed to truth, at several points he discusses the benefits of falsehood. This occurs most notably in Book 3 with the "noble lie" (414d-415c) and most disturbingly in Book 5 with the "rigged sexual lottery" (459d-460c). This raises the question: What kinds of falsehoods does Socrates think are beneficial, and what kinds of falsehoods does he think are harmful? And more broadly: What can this tell us about the relationship between ethics and epistemology? The key to answering these questions lies in an obscure and paradoxical passage in Book II; at 382a-d Socrates distinguishes between "true falsehoods" and "impure lies." True falsehoods are always bad, but impure lies are sometimes beneficial. Despite Socrates' insistence that he is not saying anything deep, his distinction is far from straightforward. Nevertheless, in order to determine why some falsehoods are beneficial and why some are always harmful, we must understand what exactly true falsehoods are and how they differ from impure lies. In this paper, I argue that true falsehoods are a restricted class of false beliefs about ethics; they are false beliefs about how one should live and what one should pursue. I refer to these beliefs as "normative commitments." False normative commitments are always pernicious because they create and sustain psychological disharmony. Unlike true falsehoods, impure lies can be about anything. Nevertheless, they are only beneficial when they help produce and sustain true normative commitments. I argue that the upshot of this is that practical concerns have a kind of primacy over theoretical concerns