Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life

by Sissela Bok

A thoughtful addition to the growing debate over public and private morality. Looks at lying and deception in law, family, medicine, government.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Psychology, Sociology, Politics, Self Help, Academic

354 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Sissela Bok (born Sissela Myrdal on 2 December 1934) is a Swedish-born American philosopher and ethicist, the daughter of two Nobel Prize winners: Gunnar Myrdal who won the Economics prize with Friedrich Hayek in 1974, and Alva Myrdal who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982.

She received her B.A. and M.A. in psychology from George Washington University in 1957 and 1958, and her Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University in 1970. Formerly a Professor of Philosophy at Brandeis University, Sissela Bok is currently a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, Harvard School of Public Health.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Cecil · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book in an attempt to understand why this other person in my life had such an propensity for deceitfulness, but before I could finish the book, I sent her packing to the opposite side of the country. I decided to read it anyway. What a surprise when I found out that I too was a liar when I omitted facts, changed the subject, or engaged other weaselly lawyer tactics in which the question is truthfully answered, but the 'truth' is not conveyed. Actually, I cannot blame that on law school--I had already mastered the technique prior to law school during my tenure in the corporate world. Once I moved beyond that epiphany, and my subsequent self-acceptance as a scoundrel, I found the book quite interesting in its discussions about the meaning of truth and about the moral implications which lead some people to tell lies for the benefit of others as opposed to those individuals who tell lies to keep themselves out of hot water. You will have to make up your own mind as to whether there is any such thing as a good lie and this book might give you some extra things to think about on your journey. Of course, I could be lying about that . . .

[Darius Liddell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bit hard to read at times but it was very informative and intriguing nonetheless. This book wasn't what I expected. It just helped me to contemplate much more about lying (and the motives/reasons for doing so) than I had before. It wasn't a polemic against lying. Literally, it was just a highly reasoned discussion that was backed by plenty of evidence. If you care about all the half-truths and whole lies that we tell everyday (doctors, congress, white lies, lies to children), this book goes through everything. It analyzes the pros and cons without ever taking sides. Basically, Bok just wants to broaden the discourse. She starts every chapter with great quotes from cool authors, and the appendix contains excerpts of some of the authors she quoted (among them Kant, Bacon, Boenhoffer, Warnock, Augustine, Aquinas). A full bibliography accompanies the text also. Never really a dull moment with this one. I have to warn you though, it can be stressful at times because she exposes an enormous amount of bullshit that is the fragile shame of human interaction -- and frankly, the average person (who is a notorious liar) will feel guilty.

[Soroosh Soltani · Rating 2 out of 5]

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[Quentin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Denial, redirection, and counter-accusations. The three pillars of honesty.

That statement might sound humorous and cynical first but I think treating language and thought as acts of deception, mostly self-deception, brings a bit more light into the dark well that is human nature.

With that in mind, this book became part of my library dedicated to deception and lies many years ago. With recent events, Russia first baiting their own soldiers into invading the Ukrain while spreading misinformation in the media and isolating the whole country from the west as if words spread Cholera, I came back to it. If you want to go deeper than "Oh, man, they are lying! How bad!" this is a nice pondering on lies, their impact, methodologies, etc. And I must say, I enjoy Bok's thoughts very much. Not a particularly enlightening reading experience overall but filled with little gems that spark inspiration.

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is odd that there are so few books dealing with lying. This one is a classic. Unfortunately, Bok does not go into the question of what lying is. She is more concerned with morality. She does have a point though when she says that it is the liers who find reasons to call their statements not lies. Ask the dupe, the one who is deceived and he will in most cases have a very strong belief that he was lied to. The "noble" lies for example are not necessarily considered noble by the ones who the noble guy takes the trouble to lie to.
The book deals with a lot of situations where lying occurs and deals with the question if and how lying could be justified. Lying to children, lying to the sick, etc. It is informative, but not breathtakingly so. Interesting her views on the lies in the medical profession, not only regarding the patients but also lies to protect colleagues.
She is not as strict against lying as Kant but certainly thinks that less would be better.
The appendix collects a couple of classic texts on lying, Augustine, Aquinas, Kant. The most interesting, funny enough, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. If a teacher asks a child whether his father comes home drunk and the child, to protect the family, denies it, although it is true. "The child’s answer can indeed be called a lie, yet this lie contains more truth, that is to say, it is more in accordance with reality than would have been the case if the child had betrayed his father’s weakness in front of the class."
A more competent speaker could maybe avoid lying in a case like this. But it is a very good example of a lie that is morally superior to telling the truth. 7/10

[Mike Dimitroff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sissela Bok's task is not an easy one: to define a moral stance on the practiced-by-all-but-condoned-by-none habit of lying. Yet she succeeds brilliantly in capturing the essence of the societal norms associated with the practice. Bok draws on the wisdom of a line of philosophers from ancient times until today to establish the harm lies cause to society and individuals, and the fallacy of the common excuses ("white lies", "the greater good", "inability to handle the truth", etc.).

The authors's style is consistent with the contemporary norm for philosophy works (which is to say quite dry and humorless), yet infinitely more readable than the writings of Kant, Bacon, and Thomas Aquinas (among others) she bases her research on. Written in the mid-70s, when our society's transition from a base of very limited tolerance for lies and deception to one where they are almost openly embraced was just beginning, this is probably the last serious book on the subject our generation will ever see (or tolerate).

[Thomas Edmund · Rating 5 out of 5]

Covers almost every area of deception that one can think of. Rational and philosophical in approach the author makes no secret of their opinion on lying, yet is able to objectively pick apart the myriad areas of the modern world where deception comes into play.

While perhaps slightly dated, most of Bok's arguments still apply, even though society has evolved at least somewhat in the area of medicine and informed consent.

In summary, probably best for those erring towards nerdiness (sorry) this book isn't a plain-speak 'talk-home' message piece. More an exhaustive discussion on the subject that won't leave you unsatiated.

[Jody MacPherson · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books ever written. Even though it was originally published in 1978, it is still highly relevant today. In fact, it might be more relevant now than ever as we watch the erosion of basic morality by liars like Donald Trump and other politicians who seem to build their entire career on half-truths. Highly recommend.

[TRE · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the original five book recommendations from my English professor and writing mentor Dr. Tom Harshman, just finished re-reading it after I first read it a decade ago.

"Lying" is basically numerous books in one as Sissela Bok gives a tour of moral philosophy from St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas to Immanuel Kant and Francis Bacon, giving detail to what has been considered truth, lies - and most importantly - everything in between. Written originally in the 1970s, the book was inspired by the dubious methods of psychologists in the '50s and '60s (see: Milgram and Stanford experiments) and fleshed out in the wake of the President Richard Nixon's impeachment proceedings.

Bok gives few direct answers herself and leaves much to the reader to decipher for themselves what choices are morally right, but clearly delineates paths of divergence between philosophers. She starts from one extreme (all truth) to another (all lies) and the dives into the great middle to show the variety of excuses people give to themselves and others for the choices they make, often not just for themselves.

One of her overall points that stands out is that the strongest case against is always lying is utilitarian, in that breaks down basic social trust to the point that nothing can be believed, and in an echo of economist-cum-journalist Henry Hazlitt, adds that one inconsequential lie can lead to a whole web of unintended consequences as others take the statement to be true. One can never really know where one lie ends and another begins, leading one to believe, that it is just easier to be honest to ourselves and others lest a chain reaction of events unfold that no one can predict.

The appendix is full of her sources from antiquity to the romantic era to the mid-20th century and is a fascinating insight into why people make the choices they take.

[Erin Gough · Rating 1 out of 5]

249 pages with little development therein. Bok explores every aspect of lying, but each so-called analysis is the same. She relies on general unfounded assumptions about the moral fiber of our society with little specific information that backs her sweeping claims. She also refuses throughout the book to take any actual position against or for any sort of lie she discusses, instead providing the reader with unhelpful and obvious suggestions, such as trying to find alternatives without lies or insisting that the subjects of social research experiments give consent (but declining to clarify how much the subjects would be told before giving their consent, even though the problem in most of these experiments is that fully revealing the nature of the experiment would render it useless). I read a lot about lies and learned very little.

[Daniel Currie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can count on one hand the number of books I've started and not finished, but... Sorry, but I see no point finishing this book, even tho it isn't overly long. I got about halfway thru and realized none of this was sinking in.

It isn't that the book doesn't have something to say. For me, it has too much to say. Every point is parsed so narrowly as to try to take every possible situation into account. By the end I have no doubt it will take every possible situation into account. But it is written more as an intellectual presentation than an actual book you can read and glean something from. Lying is a complicated subject. It you don't think so, start reading this.

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Late 1970s popular philosophy text on lying. Well-written and clear, no jargon. She approaches the problem of lying from an applied ethics perspective and focuses on examining cases when lying might be laudable. She doesn't spend much time on defining lying, basically calling it intentional statements of known untruths. Then goes onto argue that lying should be a last resort and examine various cases where it might be appropriate: crises, to liars, to organizations with more power.

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this some years ago back in college and it made quite an impression. I just picked my yellowing copy and noticed that I underlined a lot of passages in pencil, so I really must have dug it. Every angle of the concept of lying is scrutinized and the book is pretty uncompromising in concluding that a lie is a lie, no matter how you want to slice it.

[Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

How many ways can one author say that lying is bad. No, there are no acceptable times to lie even if someone's life might be saved. One of the most idealistic books I've ever read and one of the most misguided.

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everybody lies, nothing new there.

[Tim Porter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I stumbled across this book in a memoir by David Carr, the late New York Times media critic entitled The Night of the Gun (whose reading I have suspended but not abandoned). Carr, a former drug addict who died in 2015 of natural causes, cited Bok as he struggled to find the truths hidden in his mottled and poorly remembered past:

“The moral question of whether you are lying or not is not settled by establishing the truth or falsity of what you say. In order to settle this question, we must know whether you intend your statement to mislead.”

The questions of what is truth, what is “truthful” and what is a lie fascinated me at a time when the nation was treading water in the flood of mendacity loosened by the former president and current Florida man, so I ordered a copy of the book.

Bok, a Swedish-born American philosopher and ethicist, delivers both sides of the philosophical debate about the morality and practice of deception, from ancient times to the 1990s (when she last revised the book). In the end, she comes down on the side of truth and truthfulness, as she should, and as we should.

There has always been deception, either for reasons of survival (disguise while hunting), paternalism (protection against self-harm), greed (exploitation of others), and dozens of other reasons that frame the entire arc of human behavior, but it seems to me that we have never lived in more deceptive times. If the politicians are not lying to us, then big companies or social institutions (like the police) are. Nor has it ever been easier to lie, not just to our lovers and friends and colleagues, but to the world at large. Social media grants a megaphone to anyone with opposable thumbs, and much of what is shouted is mendacious (stolen elections, Jewish space lasers, etc.)

Bok presents the debate well, balancing arguments from ancient philosophers like Aquinas with blatant modern-day examples of deception by corporations, politicians and doctors. Perhaps because she is a philosopher and therefore prone to adopt the long view, Bok is more sanguine than I about the inevitability of these practices not only persisting but proliferating.

“Must we accept these levels of deception to be our lot?” he asks. “Are they somehow immutable? There is no reason to think so. They vary from one family to another, from one profession or society to the next. As a result, there is ample room for change.”

Since Bok wrote the book before the rise of social media, I wonder whether he might adjust his optimism if she were forced to endure a week on Twitter.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was a long essay treating moral problems of lying, incorporating a lot of quotations from ethicists down through the ages. The writing style was at times plodding, dry and academic. However, it can be taken also as a poetic contemplation, and there were many illuminating examples cited. For instance, the idea of truth was deconstructed to show that the moral religious definition of truth (e.g., "I am the truth") differed from assessing the truth of a particular assertion.

This calls to mind the paradoxical statement, "I never lie."

Many interesting ideas were presented, such as the Asian negative version of the Golden Rule: "[Do not do unto others as you would not have others do to yourself]". Another factoid that stood out for me was a study showing that people who have been brainwashed lose the ability to evaluate the veracity of any news.

It was a thorough disection of the justifications and excuses made for lying, in the many forms that it takes, with varying degrees of harm involved; a journey into the nature of honesty and the difficulty of living honestly in a wicked world. Edifying and relevant to our modern life.

[Glenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

In depth philosophical study of what constitutes lying and its impact on society and human communication. Bok draws about as clear a line in the sand as one is likely to see on any moral question and uses, as her center post, Kant's Moral Imperative - that one should act as if the maxim of his or her action were to become law in the universe. By this, lying willfully breaks down the fabric of human communication.

On the ethical side of the question, she deals with both moral dilemmas and nuanced interpretations, e.g. how does one respond when the Nazi's come to the door asking if you know where the Jews are? Should unfounded complements be avoided? Is making a mistake in what you said the same thing as telling a lie?

This is an excellent roadmap for behavior in public and private life. Read it more than once, at different times of your life. Use it as a yardstick to examine the speeches of your politicians, the reporting of media and, more importantly, your own behavior.

[Ronald Hoak · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I found this book, It appealed to me because in recent years I have seen In Politics, Advertising, and in normal life a disturbing tendency to approve of lying as just natural and not immoral. The excuse I hear is "everybody does it." The truth is, not everyone lies. Sissela Bok. Thoroughly analyzes "Lying" from many viewpoints, incorporating much historical as well as Biblical reasoning. She includes St. Thomas Aquina and St. Augustine, both of which wrote on Lying and other more modern scholars. Bok takes each kind of lie and gives good examples of it and also she discusses the severity of various kinds of lies, and there are many. She is very well qualified to write on this subject as an Ethicist and Philosopher. By the nature of the Subject, the reading is often slow and a little difficult when describing the many variations of Lying, but for the person who genuinely desires to understand Lying. I urge you to push on through as this is a very important factor in living according to the Moral Law that CS Lewis describes in "The Abolition of Man." As I read "Lying" I became acutely aware of the complexity of the subject and its many variations. Bok comes to a conclusion that all lies are bad, but some are "less bad" than others. I came away with a better understanding of the subject, but not totally convinced of her conclusions. This is a book which at the same time should be read several times and the referred to as a resource. One ancient writer, described the dilemma like this; "Lying should never be justified, but repented of."

[Klaudijus Valintėlis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contains a wide selection of examples when lying is justified too fast and too easy. Unfortunatelly most of alternatives given are very ambiguous. Author focuses about the point that lying is mostly wrong in any case, except for crysis or some very rare exceptions. And yet many of examples fails to prove that. It is even argued against deception in research studies, where in reality there would be probably impossible to conduct identical realistic experiment like Milgram's with clear consent before hand. Lying is bad, but this book wont really help you figure out why, as soon as you step out of any trivial situation. Lack of support for all claims seems to make it "its wrong because its wrong". Would be much better read if conclusions after every case would be just skipped, as they are fragile and inconvincing anyways.

[Lucas Calestini · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is very interesting to explore the depths and scopes of lying in our societies, particularly when there is a common acceptance of many forms of lies. This book challenges the moral and societal impact of even white lies, political lies, or those meant to prevent harm.

While the argumentation is clear and some of the examples interesting, there could be further exploration of the roots of such lies as well as the nuances in most types of lies. Sissela constantly push on the idea that we should look for alternatives to lying, even in face of the [allegedly] most harmless ones, and that is a great takeaway from this book.

[Austin · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Lying, Bok examines historical arguments for and against lying, rejecting both those theories that say lying is never permissible (even when the Nazis are knocking in search of your friends) and those theories that are cavalier with the truth (it's a little shocking how many people seem to assume it's OK to lie to children flagrantly).

When is it morally justified to lie? Roughly, Bok argues that much like doing physical harm to someone in self-defense, there has to be sufficient justification for that harm, the moral and social harm of lying. Furthermore, the justifications for lying must be able to stand up to public scrutiny.

[Gary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lying is a part of life that will never go away. Some lie for effect, some for keeping the truth from people, some for nefarious reasons, some for embellishment, some for staying out of trouble and about 20 other sub titles that pretty well covered the content in this book. Nothing revolutionary but impactful enough when you condense it in a book. I probably did not realize how often we do in fact lie in life. There is no end game with lies as it mainly depends on the circumstances and one's moral compass. Like all non fiction books it delivers information. How one processes that information or gains from it is self serving. You decide should you pick it up.

[Jaclyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Odd to read this in the same weekend as watching Frost/Nixon. I appreciated the chapters on lying in a crisis, lying for the "public good", and lying among professional peers. The alternatives discussion and "publicity" test were also instructive. I'm not up on the latest ethics research, but this piece from the '70s seems to present a coherent, albeit narrow and clearly of a perspective/training/type, case for discerning the morality (or not) of lies.

*Followed this from a footnote in All About Love

[Kason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for my class on ethics and counseling theories, and it changed my outlook on what it means to be truthful. When we tell the truth, we not only affirm the reality we perceive around us, but we empower ourselves and others to be more honest to each other and our own private thoughts. It also deeply and thoroughly defines what it means to lie, and the many layers that must be considered when we evaluate the necessity of our lies.

[Honey Rand · Rating 5 out of 5]

For what I'm researching, this book is great. It is not for the idly curious. Bok is a philosopher so the language and reasoning in the book reflect that. Mostly for heuristic purposes, I found the material fascinating and it helped me think about what is important in this space, what is the purpose and what social and relationship changes occur in the context of lying.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative. Interesting. Boring haha. It took me months to get through, but I liked it. I’d struggle to get through a whole page but liked the info enough to power through because I knew I’d regret not finishing. Grateful I finally did, though. I’d recommend, but this is definitely a coffee table book, or toilet read haha. Bit by bit, just hard to read in sessions longer than that.

[Stephen Sorensen · Rating 2 out of 5]

For the amount of times I've seen this book referenced in deception studies literature I had higher hopes. It felt repetitive, one-sided, and overly-privileged. Probably won't read it again except as a reference book.

A classic in the field of deception studies and the ethics of deceit, but very much a mile wide and an inch deep.

[Edward · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very thorough account of the topic that I perhaps found in a Little Free Library. The author covers trust, consequences, "white lies", excuses/justification, crises, lying to liars/enemies, peers/colleagues, & lies to benefit others. Perhaps a key point she makes is that to be justified, a lie must fit into a general scenario that others would publicly approve of.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author discusses lying from several different perspectives, from white lies to political lies and everything in between. She brings in consequences from victimization to parental protection. Lying is more complicated than one might think.