Occasioned
by the suggestion of Sandel that it may sometimes be morally permissible to
deceive people, so long as you do so without lying, I here examine such alleged
truths as “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” After setting up the issues in Section 1, in Sections 2-4 I examine questions of language, communication, and truthfulness
in assessing whether candidate deceptive truths really are true. These
sections require little if any prior familiarity in the area. The fifth
section, however, probably will be hard to follow unless you have some acquaintance
with Kant’s ethics. Lacking that, you still may well be able to follow the
Sections 6-8, and the final section on the Clinton impeachment has no
prerequisites.
