Lying, Deceiving and Cheating

Lying: from a simple speech act to a complex language game

In considering lying we must make a fundamental distinction: between the simple speech act of lying and the many-layered language game of lying as a social practice.

As a simple speech act, lying is traditionally defined as a consciously false statement with the intention to deceive: the speaker says p although he knows or believes that not-p is the case, and wants the hearer to believe p. This definition, from Augustine to Kant, regards lying as a binary act that either occurs or does not.

As a language game, by contrast, lying is a complex phenomenon embedded in social practices, capable of taking on various degrees and forms, and whose boundaries with other language games (fiction, irony, politeness) are fluid. It comprises implicit social rules about when and how one "may" lie, which lies count as acceptable and which are sanctioned, and how discovered lies are dealt with. The language game of lying is contextual, gradual and in constant interplay with social norms and values.

Real-life examples

The language game of lying shows itself in manifold forms:

• The "white lie" to spare someone's feelings ("The dress suits you superbly.");
• the social politeness lie ("I'm very pleased to meet you.");
• the child's lie for self-protection ("I didn't break the vase.");
• strategic deception in negotiation situations;
• the life-lie a person maintains over years;
• state propaganda that systematically spreads false information;
• the betrayal in a relationship ("I wasn't at the nightclub with Claude.");
• cheating on an exam;
• the "white lie" of the doctor who wants to give a patient hope.

What it aims at

The language game of lying aims at various effects that go beyond mere deception. Primarily it often serves protection — be it the protection of one's own self-image, one's own interests, one's own privacy, or the protection of others from hurtful truths. It can serve the avoidance of conflict, the maintenance of social harmony, the gaining of advantages or the manipulation of social relationships. In a more complex sense, lying can also aim at circumventing social norms felt to be constricting, or even function as a creative element to create alternative realities or explore spaces of possibility.

Success criteria

A "successful" lie in the sense of the language game is marked by the fact that:

• The untruth is accepted as truth and unfolds its intended effect
• The lie counts as justified or proportionate in the respective social context
• The balance between deception and plausibility is preserved
• The lie appears consistent with earlier statements and known facts
• The motivation behind the lie is not classed as morally reprehensible
• The lie does no more harm than the corresponding truth would
• The social relationship remains intact despite the lie, or is even strengthened

Unlike the simple speech act, which is reduced only to the criterion "believed or not believed", the language game is about complex weighings between values such as truthfulness, loyalty, compassion and benefit.

How it can go wrong

Lying can fail in various ways:

• Through obvious contradictions or implausible details (lies have short legs)
• Through non-verbal signals that counteract the verbal statement
• Through unintended hints at the intention to deceive ("Freudian slip")
• Through a false estimation of the other's level of knowledge or persuasive power
• Through the so-called "spiral of lies", in which follow-up explanations become ever more complicated
• Through miscalculating how others morally evaluate the lie
• Through careless witnesses or digital traces that lead to exposure

The fundamental error in a failed lie often lies in the liar having misjudged the social rules of the language game "lying" in this specific context.

How lying is abused

For some philosophers like Kant or Augustine, lying was unacceptable in every situation. Even when the murderer with the axe stands at your door and asks after the Jews you have hidden, you may not lie, according to Kant (in the common interpretation). In our everyday life, however, we allow ourselves many exceptions, as we have already seen in the real-life examples. The language game of lying becomes problematic when:

• It is systematically used for the abuse of power or for manipulation
• It undermines basic relationships of trust or social institutions
• It leads to the spread of disinformation with social harm
• It distorts the self-perception and identity of the liar himself ("self-deception")
• It instrumentalizes other people or violates their basic rights
• It corrupts democratic processes or the scientific gaining of knowledge
• It creates an interpersonal climate of permanent distrust

Especially problematic are forms of institutionalized lying in authoritarian systems, where the boundaries between truth and lie are systematically blurred in order to exercise control. ("Alternative" facts, totalitarian regimes of every kind)

Social role

The language game of lying fulfils ambivalent social functions:

• It serves as "social lubricant" that eases interactions and enables saving face
• It creates room for the development of identity and autonomy (especially in children)
• It can function as a "safety valve" in rigid social systems
• It enables the maintenance of multiple social roles and relationships
• It serves as a protective space for intimacy and privacy against social control
• It constitutes counter-worlds to the official reality in repressive systems
• It functions as a permanent reminder of the fragility of shared constructions of reality

The capacity to lie is, paradoxically, a central precondition for social intelligence and complex social behaviour. At the same time, the social condemnation of certain forms of lying is indispensable for the functioning of social relationships and institutions. This tension makes the language game of lying one of the most fascinating and ethically most complex patterns of human interaction.

The political lie

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
George Orwell: 1984

Historical cases

The Dreyfus affair (1894—1906): the textbook case par excellence. Captain Alfred Dreyfus is convicted of high treason on the basis of forged documents (among them the forgeries of Major Henry); army and state cover up the miscarriage of justice for years. Émile Zola's "J'accuse…!" (1898 in L'Aurore) is the archetype of the intellectual who writes against the state lie — ideal for a page on language and the claim to truth.

The stab-in-the-back myth (after 1918): The claim that the German army had been "undefeated" in the field and "stabbed in the back" by the home front, a falsification of history with devastating effect.

Guernica (1937): the German Condor Legion bombs the Basque town on Franco's orders; Franco propaganda claims the Basques had burned down their own town. Picasso's painting became the worldwide counter-assertion.

Hitler after Munich (1938): "I have no more territorial demands to make in Europe" — Hitler after the Munich Agreement, shortly before the destruction of the rest of Czechoslovakia.

The claims of the Nazi regime (1939-1945) Adolf Hitler's regime systematically spread antisemitic conspiracy theories and racist pseudo-science that served to justify persecution and genocide.

Katyn (1940): The Soviet Union shot thousands of Polish officers and for decades pinned the massacre on the Germans; only officially admitted in 1990.

Holodomor denial: Stalin's famine in Ukraine, whitewashed and "written away" by the NYT correspondent Walter Duranty (Pulitzer Prize, disputed to this day).

Torture in the Algerian War (1954—62): France long denied the systematic torture. Henri Alleg's La Question (1958) and the Maurice Audin case refuted it; Amnesty International documented it; Macron admitted the responsibility only in 2018.

Gulf of Tonkin incident (1964): The alleged second North Vietnamese attack that legitimized the escalation in Vietnam did not take place as claimed; exposed by the Pentagon Papers (1971).

GAL (1983—87): state-backed death squads against ETA under the González government; the state denied the involvement until the scandal broke. A classic case of state lying in a democracy.

Rainbow Warrior affair (1985): the French secret service sank the Greenpeace ship in New Zealand (one dead); Paris denied any involvement until the state terror came to light. A fine modern case of an exposed government lie.

The incubator lie (1990): A Kuwaiti woman presented as an anonymous nurse ("Nayirah") claimed before the US Congress that Iraqi soldiers had torn babies from incubators. Staged by the PR agency Hill & Knowlton; she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador.

The present

Chinese information control Critics accuse the Chinese government of presenting sensitive topics such as the Tiananmen protests of 1989 or human rights questions in Xinjiang only in a heavily restricted or distorted way. China has built a "Great Firewall" (digital wall) around its country in order to protect its citizens from Western propaganda.

Iraq war justification (2003): The governments of the USA and the United Kingdom declared that Saddam Hussein's regime possessed active programmes for weapons of mass destruction. After the war the claimed stocks were not found. Whether this was a deliberate lie or a mix of flawed intelligence and political exaggeration is debated to this day.

Saudi Arabia / Khashoggi (2018): First it was said the journalist had left the consulate alive, then there was a series of changing versions up to the admitted murder. Documented by Amnesty.

Russia / Ukraine: In 2014 Putin at first denied Russian soldiers on Crimea ("little green men"), but later admitted it. Denial of the Bucha massacres in 2022. The Russian government also likes to use linguistic framings such as "special operation" and "denazification".

Syria: Denial of the chemical weapons attacks (Ghouta 2013, Douma 2018) — documented by the OPCW and Amnesty.

China / Xinjiang: "vocational training centres" as a euphemism for internment camps; Amnesty International speaks of crimes against humanity.

Myanmar / Rohingya: state denial of the ethnic cleansing — Amnesty and the UN documented the opposite.

The "soft" lies: euphemisms (Orwell bridge)

Often the deception comes not as a smooth lie but as camouflaged language.

• "enhanced interrogation" = torture (CIA, after 2001) — so named by Amnesty.
• "extraordinary rendition" = abduction to torture states.
• "collateral damage" = killed civilians.
• "ethnic cleansing" — itself already a euphemistic term for expulsion/mass murder.