A Philosophy of Lying

From lying to friends to lies in politics, a wide-ranging examination of the forms and ethics of falsehood from popular philosopher Lars Svendsen. This is a comprehensive investigation of lying in everyday life. What exactly is a lie, Svendsen asks, and how does lying differ from related phenomena, such as being truthful? Svendsen also investigates the ethics of lying, why is lying almost always morally wrong, and why is lying to one's friends especially bad? The book concludes by looking at lying in politics, from Plato's theory of the 'noble lie' to the Big Lie of Donald Trump.