The responsibility of misled people

Franca D'Agostini  | Invited paper

Franca D'Agostini | Invited paper

Keywords: Lying and Misleading, Doxastic responsibility, Victim-blaming

Abstract

A basic argument for preferring misleading (deceiving someone by telling the truth) to successful lying (deceiving by believed false assertion) is that misled people are relatively free to select the true content of what is said. So if they do not, they are at least partially responsible for deceit. The article focuses on possible unfair implications of the idea, and presents the principles that may guide a correct assessment of victims’ responsibility in deceptions by language.

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