Justified Untruthfulness

This chapter outlines a systematic framework for analyzing the many discursive circumstances in which speakers may justifiably suspend their commitment to truthfulness. Other approaches to ethical justifiability, such as the overtness of the communication and the epistemic categorization of conventional speech settings, are considered but rejected. The framework of suspensions set out here provides for a more flexible and nuanced analysis that does not prejudge the epistemic status of a given discursive context. Three main types of suspension—conventional, consequential, and condonable—are identified through application of the Golden Rule, and the chapter considers the conditions under which they are both justifiable in principle and justified in practice. While breach of trust is the primary determinant of whether or not a speaker’s suspension of commitment to truthfulness is justifiable in principle, there is no necessary correlation between discourse context and trust.