Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

In this paper I address two questions about bald-faced lies: why are bald-faced lies morally wrong, if at all? How can we disagree with a bald-faced liar? It turns out the two questions are closely related. I argue that, even though we cannot have doxastic disagreement with a bald-faced liar, we can disagree with a bald-faced liar on what issue will be addressed in a conversation. By looking from this perspective, we can see how bald-faced lies prevent certain questions from being addressed in the conversation between the speaker and the addressee. This is, in turn, a wrongdoing. Bald-faced lies impair the collective epistemic agency of the speaker and the addressee and prevents agents from successfully performing certain assertions. I label this effect “dialectical obstructionism” and I argue this concept can also shed new light on the prima facie wrongness of lying in general, as well as on the moral difference between lying and misleading