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    Lying
    Lying
    Lying
    Ebook86 pages1 hour

    Lying

    By Sam Harris

    3.5/5

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    • Ethics

    • Honesty

    • Self-Deception

    • Morality

    • Communication

    • Love Triangle

    • Enemies to Lovers

    • Wise Mentor

    • Rich Man/poor Woman

    • Power of Truth

    • Power of Honesty

    • Ethical Dilemma

    • Greater Good

    • Slippery Slope

    • Art of Deception

    • Lying

    • Personal Growth

    • Conspiracy Theories

    • Family

    • Deception

    About this ebook

    As it was in Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, and Othello, so it is in life. Most forms of private vice and public evil are kindled and sustained by lies. Acts of adultery and other personal betrayals, financial fraud, government corruptioneven murder and genocidegenerally require an additional moral defect: a willingness to lie.

    In Lying, best-selling author and neuroscientist Sam Harris argues that we can radically simplify our lives and improve society by merely telling the truth in situations where others often lie. He focuses on "white" liesthose lies we tell for the purpose of sparing people discomfortfor these are the lies that most often tempt us. And they tend to be the only lies that good people tell while imagining that they are being good in the process.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFour Elephants Press
    Release dateOct 23, 2013
    ISBN9781940051017
    Lying
    Author

    Sam Harris

    Sam Harris is the author of the bestselling books The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, and Lying.  The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction and his work has been published in more than 20 languages. He has written for the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Economist, the Times (London), the Boston Globe, the Atlantic, the Annals of Neurology, and elsewhere. He received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.

    Read more from Sam Harris

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    Reviews for Lying

    3.5/5

    314 ratings22 reviews

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    • 4/5

      Jun 27, 2017

      I don't usually like nonfiction, aside from memoirs, but this was a compelling look at lies in many contexts and the damage they do.
    • 3/5

      Mar 2, 2024

      The thing with "Ethics" is that they are all made up and while I agree with most of the points the author mentions but at the end it falls to a very American way of thinking, it was ok.
    • 5/5

      Jul 1, 2023

      This is a pretty good book if you are looking into lying and the phychology of it
    • 5/5

      Sep 25, 2022

      Worthwhile to read, think about, discuss, and incorporate the approaches to truth described herein. Easy to read. Consequential ideas.
    • 5/5

      May 14, 2022

      I loved it. It was an eye-opening book and it was fun reading it.
    • 1/5

      Jan 2, 2021

      This was, unfortunately, a truly lame book. Luckily it is very short so the pain is minimized. Basically it tells you lying is always bad and shows you why. However, it never deals with truly challenging ethical situations. Even telling children about Santa Claus is bad because some kids get mad that their parents lied. Oh yeah, spies might need to lie, but maybe spying as an occupation is unethical.
    • 4/5

      Nov 13, 2019

      This is indeed a great book to go through, I find it interesting how well author has addressed the challenging ethical questions. Simply a good book to open one's mind toward being honest. Thank you.
    • 5/5

      Aug 24, 2019

      A short book that changed my mind about the ethics of lying by showing that there really isn't as much reason to lie in many situations as we might first think. I want to be more radically honest going forward. The case against lying may be somewhat overstated, and it do agree with the criticism that it is a bit elitist, but I thought it was a worthwhile read.
    • 3/5

      Jun 27, 2017

      A fine, clear, straightforward, and convincing argument for the virtues of telling the truth, even when it feels difficult or may be hurtful. However, many of the examples had to do with telling the truth about "my opinion," which, I think, should have been distinguished from telling the truth in other circumstances. My opinion, after all, can change. My opinion, after all, is not always that important. Would have been helpful to point out that telling the truth about my opinion is not the same thing as telling the Capital-T Truth.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5

      Sep 11, 2021

      Some interesting thoughts and arguments, but he shies away from the deepest ethical arguments and relies too heavily on a few assumptions not fully expressed: lying will always eventually be "caught", in any situation where lying seems justified there is a non-lying alternative that is better by nature of not having to lie, the energy required in lying makes it less desirable than truth-telling. While I feel many of his conclusions were accurate or at least thought-provoking, I was left generally unsatisfied with the arguments leading there. The most interesting portion of the book was a section on responses to reader's questions given at the end.
    • 2/5

      Apr 23, 2022

      Surprisingly.. shallow? I don’t even disagree with the author, but I don’t think his position was very well argued. Author doesn’t really (or is incapable of?) grappling with the systemic, conceiving of a threat of violence, physical and otherwise, that is much bigger than you. Repeatedly assumes that the state monopoly of violence is intrinsically just, and so deals with lies of the state or their agents from that perspective. In general has much less nuanced sense of violence, threat, harm, than most very average marginalized people. I can’t tell if it’s just too short to deal with these ideas well, or if the author just did not consider them. In the end, it seems like he spent an insufficient amount of time defending the concept of honesty using ideas that don’t seem, at their core, entirely honest (although I’m sure he believes he’s telling the truth.)
    • 3/5

      Nov 22, 2018

      An essay on the societal and interpersonal damage caused by lying. Only very short - worth the hour or so it will take you to read it.
    • 5/5

      Oct 30, 2017

      A concise and convincing essay with a direct and clear message - don't lie ever again, starting now - articulated well enough to intercept most (if not all) objections. The key weapon in Harris' arsenal is the simple admission that few of us are ever in any situation where lying is necessary or beneficial, and yet we constantly make excuses to ourselves for our white lies. Harris' books have made me reconsider deeply held beliefs before, and this one may do it again.
    • 4/5

      Jan 21, 2016

      Even though I like to think I stick with the truth, this Kindle single makes you look again at the so-called white lies we tell and what their implications are.
      Interesting and thought-provoking.
    • 3/5

      May 31, 2015

      I liked this, but felt like it was way overly simplified. He made a lot of good points, but it's easy to do so when you only use examples that support your hypothesis. Mostly, I just wanted a lot more info.
    • 3/5

      Apr 19, 2015

      Sam Harris is very persuasive in his "no lying is good and it would be ideal to always be honest" approach. However, I'm still not buying it. People like the author who try to define the world of ethics or morality in black/white, objectivistic terms are missing the boat on human nature and on reality. That being said, this essay was still an interesting thought experiment.
    • 4/5

      Feb 13, 2015

      I would have loved more on telling the truth but alas it's a short work. It's still a must read.
    • 5/5

      Jan 10, 2015

      Easy read (2 hours tops). This is a brilliant little book, packed tight with quotable tid-bits. Worth a couple of read throughs with a highlighter. Great for family or relationship discussion starters.
    • 4/5

      Apr 10, 2014

      Harris is a neuroscientist and author of several books on science and religion. With this book he begins by describing a course he took at Stanford while an undergraduate. The class was called 'The Ethical Analyst" and was taught by Ronald A. Howard, and would be life-changing for Harris as it examined one question: is it wrong to lie?
      Harris proposes that our society has become one where we expect to be lied to because so many people lie. The book is broken into three sections, the first is his essay about committing to total honesty and what can be gained or lost by this commitment. Then there is a conversation with Howard about why people lie and scenarios are posed, many involving life or death situations. The third section consists of questions posed by readers. All this in just 95 pages.
    • 4/5

      Feb 2, 2014

      Normally I wouldn't read Sam Harris, but I needed a source for this paper I'm writing-- it needed to be something about communication in general or lying in particular, and my choices were rather limited, so I just took (or rather borrowed) it. It was somewhat useful for my paper, although it would have been more helpful to me if he had been a bit more descriptive as to why people *do* lie-- I especially need to know about the compulsive liar who lies out of habit-- but I guess that Harris is more philosophical than descriptive. Which doesn't mean that it was a bad book-- it was a short and interesting read.

      Overall it wasn't the best but it was a perfectly decent read; it was a pretty good polemic about why is lying is almost always wrong even in situations when it seems like it could be the right thing. And, given the author, I suppose that I should have expected a polemic, albeit a philosophical one.

      (8/10)
    • 2/5

      Sep 14, 2013

      What the hell happened to Sam Harris? He is no longer an active writer. And while that is not a sin and his true work must be occupying his time, it was not necessary to burden us with an essay that is neither here nor there. Sam Harris's three other books are excellent. In the afterword to this book, he cites his wife as the first mover for this project and it shows. It's evident that the author was either being on auto pilot or was very cynical or unwilling to write anything that would be both virtuous and insightful. I would have rated this a 1 if it were not for the vocabulary and verbiage I've gained reading this thankfully short essay.
    • 4/5

      Apr 2, 2012

      A very compelling essay on why lying, in every situation, is inherently against any good reasons.

    Book preview

    Lying - Sam Harris

    OTHER BOOKS BY SAM HARRIS

    Free Will

    The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values

    Letter to a Christian Nation

    The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

    Sam Harris

    Lying

    FOUR ELEPHANTS PRESS

    Four Elephants Press

    Copyright © 2013 by Sam Harris

    All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Four Elephants Press.

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Harris, Sam, date.

    Lying / Sam Harris.—1st ed.

    p. cm.

    Library of Congress Control Number: 2013947127

    ISBN 978-1-9400-5101-7

    1. Ethics. 2. Values. 3. Lying and deception. I. Title.

    10987654321

    For Emma

    Contents

    Lying

    APPENDIX A: A Conversation with Ronald A. Howard

    APPENDIX B: A Conversation with Readers

    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    NOTES

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    A NOTE ON THE TYPE

    Among the many paradoxes of human life, this is perhaps the most peculiar and consequential: We often behave in ways that are guaranteed to make us unhappy. Many of us spend our lives marching with open eyes toward remorse, regret, guilt, and disappointment. And nowhere do our injuries seem more casually self-inflicted, or the suffering we create more disproportionate to the needs of the moment, than in the lies we tell to other human beings. Lying is the royal road to chaos.

    As an undergraduate at Stanford, I took a seminar that profoundly changed my life. It was called The Ethical Analyst, and it was conducted in the form of a Socratic dialogue by an extraordinarily gifted professor, Ronald A. Howard.¹ Our discussion focused on a single question of practical ethics:

    Is it wrong to lie?

    At first glance, this may seem a scant foundation for an entire college course. After all, most people already believe that lying is generally wrong—and they also know that some situations seem to warrant it. What was so fascinating about this seminar, however, was how difficult it was to find examples of virtuous lies that could withstand Professor Howard’s scrutiny. Whatever the circumstances, even in cases where most good people would lie without a qualm, Howard nearly always found truths worth telling.

    I do not remember what I thought about lying before I took The Ethical Analyst, but the course accomplished as close to a firmware upgrade of my brain as I have ever experienced. I came away convinced that lying, even about the smallest matters, needlessly damages personal relationships and public trust.

    It would be hard to exaggerate what a relief it was to realize this. It’s not that I had been in the habit of lying before taking Howard’s course—but I now knew that endless forms of suffering and embarrassment could be easily avoided by simply telling the truth. And, as though for the first time, I saw all around me the consequences of others’ failure to live by this principle.

    That experience remains one of the clearest examples in my life of the power of philosophical reflection. The Ethical Analyst affected me in ways that college courses seldom do: It made me a better person.

    What Is a Lie?

    Deception can take many forms, but not all acts of deception are lies. Even the most ethical among us regularly struggle to keep appearances and reality apart. By wearing cosmetics, a woman seeks to seem younger or more beautiful than she otherwise would. But honesty does not require that she issue continual disclaimers—I see that you are looking at my face: Please be aware that I do not look this good first thing in the morning . . . A person in a hurry might pretend not to notice an acquaintance passing by on the street. A polite host might not acknowledge that one of her guests has said something so stupid as to slow the rotation of the earth. When asked How are you? most of us reflexively say that we are well, understanding the question to be merely a greeting, rather than an invitation to discuss our career disappointments, our marital troubles, or the condition of our bowels. Elisions of this kind can be forms of deception, but they are not quite lies. We may skirt the truth at such moments, but we do not deliberately manufacture falsehood or conceal important facts to the detriment of others.

    The boundary between lying and deception is often vague. It is even possible to deceive with the truth. I could, for instance, stand on the sidewalk in front of the White House and call the headquarters of Facebook on my cell phone: Hello, this is Sam Harris. I’m calling from the White House, and I’d like to speak to Mark Zuckerberg. My words would, in a narrow sense, be true—but the statement seems calculated to deceive. Would I be lying? Close enough.

    To lie is to intentionally mislead others when they expect honest communication.² This leaves stage magicians, poker players, and other harmless dissemblers off the hook, while illuminating a psychological and social landscape whose general shape is very easy to recognize. People lie so that others will form beliefs that are not true. The more consequential the beliefs—that is, the more a person’s well-being demands a correct understanding of the world or of other people’s opinions—the more consequential the lie.

    As the philosopher Sissela Bok observed, however, we cannot get far on this topic without first distinguishing between truth and truthfulness—for a person may be impeccably truthful while being mistaken.³ To speak truthfully is to accurately represent one’s beliefs. But candor offers no assurance that one’s beliefs about the world are true. Nor does truthfulness require that one speak the whole truth, because communicating every fact on a given topic is almost never useful or even possible. Of course, if one is not sure whether or not something is true, representing one’s degree of uncertainty is a form of honesty.

    Leaving these ambiguities aside, communicating what one believes to be both true and useful is surely different from concealing or distorting that belief. The intent to communicate honestly is the measure of truthfulness. And most of us do not require a degree in philosophy to distinguish this attitude from its counterfeits.

    People tell lies for many reasons. They lie to avoid embarrassment, to exaggerate their accomplishments, and to disguise wrongdoing. They make promises they do not intend to keep. They conceal defects in their products or services. They mislead competitors to gain advantage. Many of us lie to our friends and family members to spare their feelings.

    Whatever our purpose in telling them, lies can be gross or subtle. Some entail elaborate ruses or forged documents. Others consist merely of

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