ABSTRACT
My concern is with verbal deception. I focus on the role played by philosophical assumptions underlying politicians’ strategies for evading this charge. The assumptions concern the moral ranking of lying as worse than non-mendacious deception, and the nature of assertion. The moral ranking arises from casuistical writing on deception. 1 I shall argue that undue normative weight is given to the speech-act of assertion, compared with other ways that speakers communicate.
