Lina Alrawashdeh (St. Catherine's College): 'Reasons to Deceive'
Abstract: Deception has a bad reputation. All our main ethical theories, as well as common sense morality, agree that deception is, generally, wrong. Given this, it is unsurprising that much of the literature on the ethics of deception tends to focus on its wrong-making features. But this doesn’t give us a complete picture. Although most of us think that deception is generally wrong, most of us also think that it is sometimes permissible. To explain when and why deception is permissible, it’s not enough to consider the reasons we have against deceiving. We’ll also need to consider the moral reasons we have in favour of deceiving. In this talk, I take on this task, showing that, sometimes, deceiving can be a way of securing important values such as social cohesion, privacy, and a sense of self-authorship.
Registration: If you do not hold a university card, please contact the seminar convenor or admin@philosophy.ox.ac.uk at least two working days before a seminar to register your attendance.
Ockham Society Convenors: Jack Tristani, Yuxin Tang and Meredith Ross-James | Ockham Society Webpage
