Workshop on The Ethics of Deception

Deception is a pervasive part of public and private life. Some deceptions seem innocuous, desirable, expected, or even demanded by, say, duties of gratitude, loyalty, or friendship. We tell our children that Santa Claus exists (!), assure our partners that we love their (frankly baffling) gift, promise interviewers that this is our absolute dream job, and insist that our friend’s signature dish is just terrific. We might think that certain state actors also have permissions and duties to deceive. Police officers use deception to entrap suspected criminals, manipulate suspects in interviews, and infiltrate criminal organisations. Spies deceptively obtain state secrets. And yet we also treat deception as a prima facie wrong: we teach our children not to lie, regard being deceitful as a vice and being honest as a virtue, and often feel wronged when we discover that someone has deceived or misled us.

This workshop will explore a range of conceptual, theoretical and applied ethical issues connected to deception, broadly construed.

The speakers are:

Alex Barber and Sean Cordell: Legislating against Political Lying

Chloë Kennedy: TBD

Helen Frowe: Covert Coercive Control

Jeremy Page: Honesty and Deception

Jörg Löschke: Love, Games, and Deception

Luke Hunt: TBD

Maria Lucila Tuñón Corti: Stealthing: Between Consent and Deception

Pascal Mowla:  Sentimentality and Generative AI: What’s Wrong with “Cheating”?

Radu Bumbăcea: Personas and Deception

Shalom Chalson: Lying to Loved Ones: (Wrongful) Deception and Health Status

Vladimir Krstic: A Prolegomenon to Any Theory of Deception