1. Introduction
When I first arrived in the United States as an undergraduate, I did not know that the colloquial American greeting, ‘How are you doing?’ is not often a question asking me about how I was truly feeling. I remember stopping in front of the university library to tell a fellow student who had just addressed me with that greeting that I was not well. The perplexed and uncomfortable look I received in response to my admission of illness made me realize that I had misspoken when I had answered his greeting truthfully. At that moment, I discovered that his four-word utterance was not a question. I also learned that there is only one proper response to this utterance: to affirm that one is well, regardless of how one truly feels: ‘Pretty good, thank you’. It was the first time I realized that some utterances that sound like questions are not bona fide inquiries seeking information. Instead, they function in other ways, in this case, as a greeting that invited me into a social exchange of vocalizations determined by social convention.
As is commonly acknowledged, for St Thomas Aquinas, every intentionally spoken falsehood is a lie because it disorders speech from its unique and proper end, which is to reveal the content of the speaker’s mind: ‘Since, therefore, speech was established in order to express the conception of the heart, whenever someone speaks that which is not in the heart, he speaks that which he should not. This, however, happens in every lie. As such, every lie is a sin, even if someone lies for a good reason’.Footnote 1 Thus, it appears that responding to the American greeting asking how you are, in any way other than to reveal your well-being or lack thereof, truly, would involve you committing a sin, albeit a venial one. In my experience, however, the everyday intuitions of many faithful Christian believers reject this Thomistic conclusion regarding commonplace everyday greetings. I think that they are correct in doing so.Footnote 2
In this essay, I undertake a hylomorphic investigation of the structure of human speech acts to argue that not all spoken falsehoods constitute lies because not all spoken falsehoods involve disordered speech.Footnote 3 Because of this, I assert that greetings do not have to be answered with truthful self-revelations. I begin by analyzing Aquinas’s understanding of lying as a vice contrary to truth, focusing on the hylomorphic description of speech acts he uses to evaluate their morality. I then formulate a polyvalent Thomistic theory of speech acts that affirms that human vocalizations have multiple ends in the order of nature, including functions that do not involve signification. This claim is supported by evidence from studies of primate vocalization and by evidence from studies of contemporary speech act theory in the philosophy of language. I propose that to investigate the morality of human speech acts from the perspective of the Thomistic tradition, we must recognize that the human speaker is an efficient cause who is capable of informing the exact material cause of the speech act (in the terminology of speech act theory, the locutionary act) with numerous formal causes (the illocutionary acts) to attain a particular final cause (the perlocutionary act). Next, I use this polyvalent Thomistic theory of speech acts to grapple with the perennial lying-during-espionage case that has perplexed Catholic moralists. I propose that, in an analogous sense, as regards speech acts, spycraft during a just war is like gamecraft during a bluffing game. Finally, I articulate and respond to possible objections raised by three contemporary Thomists who represent the breadth of recent creative work in the study of speaking truths and falsehoods.
2. An Aristotelian characterization of a lie
For Aquinas, the defining characteristic of a lie is the nonconformity between what is spoken and what is in the speaker’s mind: ‘The essential notion of a lie is taken from formal falsehood, from the fact, namely, that a person has a will to say a falsehood. Thus the word, a lie, [mendacium] is derived from its being contrary to the mind’.Footnote 4 Here, he echoes St Augustine, who had defined sins as those spoken words that are contrary to one’s mind, i.e., contra mentem: ‘But all lies must be called a sin, because a man, not only when he knows the truth, but even when he is mistaken and deceived, as a man may be, ought to say what he has In his mind, whether It Is true, or whether he only thinks It to be true. But everyone who lies says the opposite of what he thinks in his mind, with a will to deceive’.Footnote 5 As an Aristotelian, Aquinas decomposed the lie into its four causal principles.Footnote 6 First, the liar is the efficient cause of the lie. He is the agent cause who crafts the lie. A lie cannot be a lie without a liar. Next, the falsehood, the nonconformity between what is spoken and what is in the mind, is the material cause of a lie. However, the falsehood is not enough for a speech act to be a lie. A person who utters a falsehood without realizing that he is speaking falsely – say a man who mistakenly tells his office colleague that it is sunny because he had been outside earlier, when it has begun to drizzle – cannot be lying. To account for this, Aquinas thought that for the speaking of the falsehood to be an act of lying, the agent as an efficient cause must be willing to speak the falsehood precisely as an untruth, i.e., as an utterance contra mentem. The agent must actualize the potency in his speech by giving his words the specific form of an untruth. Thus, the willingness of the liar to speak the falsehood and his intention to speak contra mentem constitute the formal cause of the lie. Finally, the final cause of the lie is the intention to deceive the listener. Or to put it another way, the deception of the listener is the telos of a lie. In the same way that an efficient cause imposes a form upon matter to attain an end, a liar wills to utter an untruth precisely as a false utterance contra mentem to deceive his listener. Notably, for Aquinas, the intention to deceive, the final cause of the lie, is not an essential constituent of a lie for it is the form and not the end that specifies every action, making it an action of this kind rather than that kind: ‘The desire to deceive belongs to the perfection of lying, but not to its species, even as an effect does not belong to the species of its cause’.Footnote 7 In this way, he appears to differ from St Augustine, who believed that the intent to deceive was necessary for a lie to lie: ‘A lie is false signification together with an intent to deceive’.Footnote 8
Finally, I should note that for Aquinas, speaking words is not a necessary aspect of lying. One can also lie with other signs: ‘And so when it is said that “a lie is a false signification by words”, the term “words” denotes every kind of sign. Consequently, he who intended to signify something false employing signs would not be excused from lying’.Footnote 9 The deaf and the dumb, like the hearing and speaking, can lie too.
3. Defining a lie within a classical theory of speech
After his investigation of lying as a vice contrary to truth, Aquinas examines the lie under the category of sin. In his view, a lie is a sin, i.e., it is evil, because ‘it is an action bearing on undue matter’.Footnote 10 He explains that the material principle of speech acts, the words as natural signs of intellectual acts, have to be specified, i.e., they have to be informed by the truth that conforms words to thoughts, if they are to be ordered rightly: ‘For as words are naturally signs of intellectual acts, it is unnatural and undue for anyone to signify by words that which he does not have in his mind’.Footnote 11 The defect in the formal cause of the lie as a speech act makes it evil, ‘since in order for an action to be good, it must be right in every respect, because good results from a complete cause, while evil results from a single defect’.Footnote 12 It is significant to note that for Aquinas, an evil act obtains when an agent causes a form to come to be that leads to the privation of a proper form in a thing, where a proper form is that form that is perfective of that thing’s nature.Footnote 13 Thus, in his view, lies are evil because they deprive spoken words of their proper formality, which is the signification of what is in the speaker’s mind, i.e., the truth. For Aquinas, this is the primary function of human speech, which is to reveal the contents of the speaker’s mind. This is what I will call a monovalent theory for the nature of human speech, where valence comes from the Latin valente, or capacity.
Importantly, for Aquinas, lying is a sin primarily because it is inordinate as a speech act and not because it injures one’s neighbors. Thus, in his view, a spoken falsehood can never be justified even if it benefits another:
Now it is not lawful to make use of anything inordinate in order to ward off injury or defects from another, just as it is not lawful to steal in order to give alms (except perhaps in a case of necessity when all things are common). Therefore, it is not lawful to tell a lie in order to deliver another from any danger whatsoever.Footnote 14
Like St Augustine before him, Aquinas held an absolute view that all intentional speech acts spoken contra mentem are lies.
4. The polyvalent nature of human speech
Within the Thomistic framework I just described, a lie is disordered speech. It is speech that does not properly attain its proper end, which is to communicate what is in the mind of the speaker. However, as I had discovered while going through my initial culture shock in the United States, we use speech for different ends. We use them as greetings. We also use them as goodbyes, pleasantries, encouragement, and polite niceties, all of which facilitate social cohesion. Our everyday experiences suggest that human speech is multifunctional. By nature, it can be ordered toward numerous ends. It is polyvalent.
Two more formal lines of evidence can be put forward to support this claim for the polyvalent theory of the nature of human speech. First, there is the evidence from nonhuman primate vocalizations. These vocalizations have numerous functions within the context of primate society. Given our evolutionary origins, it should not be surprising that human speech, too, has functions in human societies that correspond to tasks that vocalizations have in animal societies. Next, there is the evidence from the philosophical analysis of human language, called ‘speech act theory’, which was pioneered by John L. Austin and developed further by his student, John Searle. These philosophers and their successors have amassed and convincingly defended taxonomies of speech acts that testify to the many ends of human speech.
Recent discoveries have shown that the vocalizations used in nonhuman primate societies are not mere analogs to the human manifestations of passion. Especially when combined with facial expressions, body postures, and manual gestures, nonhuman primate vocalizations have numerous ends, i.e., numerous functions, that are linked to social cohesion in these animals.Footnote 15 Some vocalizations are alarm calls that generate an adaptive response in the animal hearers: Vervet monkeys produce three distinct alarm calls when encountering their three main predators, leopards, eagles, and snakes.Footnote 16 Playback experiments have demonstrated that the monkeys who hear these alarm calls respond to each in a unique adaptive manner. Other vocalizations initiate and facilitate grooming behavior: Wild Japanese macaques have unique vocal sounds associated with an animal’s desire to groom, an animal’s desire to be groomed, and an animal’s acceptance of another’s offer to groom.Footnote 17 Other vocalizations initiate and facilitate post-conflict resolution: Freeranging female baboons in Botswana grunt quietly to their former opponents after conflicts, facilitating infant handling.Footnote 18 In fact, approaches between two former baboon opponents do not serve a reconciliatory function unless grunts accompany them. As documented in these examples – and many others not listed here – primate vocalizations promote social cohesion among community members.
As Aquinas himself did, I propose that we can extrapolate from the instinctual experience of the brute primates to the volitional lives of the rational ones. Suppose nonhuman primates accomplish multiple functions that do not involve signification when they vocalize. Is it not reasonable to posit that human primates do the same as well, though in a distinctively human way?
But how do human beings use their vocalizations as non-significations? In a series of lectures first delivered at Harvard University in 1955, John L. Austin launched the intellectual movement in analytic philosophy of language now called Speech Act Theory, when he proposed that verbal utterances are performed primarily with some function in mind.Footnote 19 He wanted to challenge the settled view that the primary function of language is to give a true or false description of past, present, or future reality. This, of course, was the view held by Aquinas and most Western philosophers. Instead, the empirical evidence compelled Austin to conclude that there are numerous utterances to which one cannot ascribe any truth-value. When one greets another, apologizes, complains, or promises, he does not describe any preexisting state of affairs nor point to any external reality. Instead, by vocalizing a particular utterance, the speaker wants to do something. He wants to deploy a performative function of human speech. In Austin’s view, language should be considered primarily as a tool that can be used to accomplish specific things, rather than to communicate beliefs. As I see it, in pioneering speech act theory, Austin was beginning the process of cataloging the numerous non-significatory functions of human speech, i.e., speech that does not signify a concept, that correspond to the non-significatory roles that vocalizations play in nonhuman primate communities.
In Austin’s view, every utterance, every vocal act, is a speech act – Austin’s student John Searle coined the term – that could be decomposed into three actions.Footnote 20 He called these actions, these meanings of the speech act, the locutionary or propositional act, the illocutionary act, and the perlocutionary act. The locutionary act is the simple and literal meaning of what is said. ‘The library is closing in fifteen minutes’. The utterance of these seven words by the librarian, her vocalization of the syllables involved, constitutes the propositional meaning of this speech act. The illocutionary act is the social function of what is said. ‘The library is closing in fifteen minutes’. This utterance informs the patrons of the imminent closing of the library. However, it is also an invitation for patrons to collect their things and to pack up in anticipation of their departure. Finally, it is also a request for the remaining patrons to bring any books they may want to borrow to the circulation desk. The perlocutionary act is the effect of what is said. ‘The library is closing in fifteen minutes’. Here, the perlocutionary act includes all the actions of the library’s patrons as they get up and move toward the circulation desk or the exit.
Building on Austin’s work, John Searle has reflected upon the different ways language can be used, and he classified speech acts into five kinds of illocutionary acts: assertives, directives, commissives, expressives, and declaratives.Footnote 21 Assertives are utterances that function to manifest the speaker’s beliefs. They would correspond to the declarative propositions studied extensively by Aristotle and by Aquinas. Directives are utterances that function to get the listener to do something. They express the speaker’s wish, desire, or intention for the listener to perform some future action. Commissives are utterances that function to commit the speaker to do something. They express the speaker’s wish, desire, or intention that he himself perform some future action. Expressives are utterances that function to manifest the speaker’s feelings and attitudes about a particular state of affairs. They express the speaker’s apologies, greetings, condolences, and rejections, among others. Finally, declaratives are utterances that function to bring about a correspondence between the propositional content of the utterance and the world. Declaratives include marriage vows, consecrations, and christenings. They make what they say to be. Though taxonomies of the different kinds of speech acts have proliferated since Searle’s groundbreaking effort,Footnote 22 with subtle differences between the lists, the consensus is that they all reveal that human speech, like the vocalizations of the nonhuman primates, has numerous functions.
5. Formulating a polyvalent Thomistic theory of speech acts
How do we reconcile the fundamental truths of Speech Act Theory, especially its central insight that human speech has numerous functions, with the thought of Aquinas? One possibility involves modifying Aquinas’s hylomorphic description of speech. Recall that for Aquinas, a speech act can be dissected into its four Aristotelian causal principles. He focused on two formalities under which one could speak. If one spoke words or made sounds under the formality of truth – if one willed that these particular words are spoken as actual words that manifested the content of one’s mind or the passions of one’s soul – then the statement is true. If one spoke words or made sounds under the formality of untruth – if one willed that one’s words or sounds are spoken as falsehoods contra mentem – then the utterance is a lie, of varying degrees of viciousness depending upon how repugnant it is to the order of charity.
In light of speech act theory and of the ethological studies of the nonhuman primates described above, however, I now propose that a human speaker can inform his words with more than the two formalities that Aquinas had focused on in his discussion of truth and falsehood, to order them to different ends, specifying them as other kinds of speech acts. In this way, we can develop Aquinas’s account of truth and falsehood to incorporate better his acknowledgement, described above, that some human speech acts have the power to go beyond the mere making of statements.
Two examples will illustrate my proposal. A physician who asks his patient, ‘How are you doing today?’ is informing the material utterance of these five words (the locutionary meaning) with one form, that of a directive utterance (the illocutionary meaning) to obtain up-to-date medical information from his patient (the perlocutionary meaning). In contrast, that same physician who asks his colleague, ‘How are you doing today?’ as he walks by her in the hallway later that morning is informing the same material utterance of these words (again, the propositional meaning) with a different form, this time, that of an expressive utterance (another illocutionary meaning), to greet her and reinforce their social bond (the perlocutionary meaning). Note that each speech act is distinct because each has a different form, i.e., the illocutionary meaning. As we have seen on several occasions in this paper, the form specifies the matter. Each speech act is ordered toward a different end. Each speech act has a different connatural function.
Finally, it is essential to point out that a single speech act can be understood under different formalities because the actual words that are spoken as the material cause can be informed by numerous illocutionary meanings as distinct formal causes, in the same way that different virtues can inform a single power of the soul. The librarian announcing the imminent closing of the library speaks once, but her utterance can be described under different formalities, as distinct illocutionary acts, ordered toward various ends. However, it is significant that in this case, the other illocutionary acts depend on the assertive illocutionary act. The library patrons only leave and prepare to check out books because they understand that, in speaking, the librarian has uttered a speech act with an assertive form that signifies her belief that the library is in fact about to close.
Defining a Lie within a Polyvalent Thomistic Theory of Speech Acts with this polyvalent Thomistic theory of speech acts, we can specify a lie as a disordered assertive act. In other words, it is a disordered speech act informed by an illocutionary meaning that, by its very nature, orders the verbal utterance toward the exchange of truthful statements involving the signification of what is in the speaker’s mind. Recall that it is the form that specifies the species of the matter in the substance. In this way, we keep Aquinas’ central insight that a lie is a disordered speech act that fails to attain its proper end. However, we do so while simultaneously modifying his theory to properly acknowledge the different connatural functions of human language, i.e., the different formalities that can inform any spoken utterances as form informs matter. Thus, the patient who tells his doctor that he feels sick in response to the question, ‘How are you doing today?’ even when he feels well, is lying. However, the colleague who responds to the same five-word utterance greeting from that same physician later in the day by saying that she is well, when she is sick, is not.
Within the framework of this theory for the polyvalent nature of human speech, the challenge for every speaker striving to speak truthfully will be to identify the type of speech act that is called for in a particular social and linguistic context and to respond virtuously. Sometimes, it is relatively easy to do this. For instance, a coach exaggerating his basketball team’s abilities just before their championship game to motivate and energize his men is not lying. He is encouraging. The social and linguistic context of his speech act reveals the formality under which the coach is speaking. Greetings, pleasantries, and encouragements are often indicated by context, which are learned as the speaker is socialized, either as he grows up in a particular family living in a specific community, or as he is acculturated into a new society.
Linguistic context is also created within a particular relationship or particular relationships. Thus, a wife who asks her husband if she is fat, after a lifetime of similar verbal exchanges, is asking him to compliment her. She is looking for an affirmation. Thus, when he tells her, as he has done on numerous past occasions, that she is not fat – despite her high BMI – he is not lying. It is not even a white lie. He is verbally grooming and stroking his mate. However, a teenage girl who asks her girlfriend if she is fat just before a night on the town is, in fact, asking for the truth so that she will not go dancing in a dress that will embarrass her. If the girlfriend does not respond truthfully, if she tells her friend that she looks thin when she looks fat, she would be lying.
Finally, linguistic context can also be made clear by the speaker’s speech act. When a speaker proclaims in a law court that he ‘swears to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help me God’, he is declaring that he intends all his utterances to be taken as assertive speech that signifies so that it can ‘express the conception of the heart’. He excludes all other possible kinds of speech acts and all other illocutionary meanings, and as such can be held accountable to the standard of truth and falsehood.
Note that in speech acts with multiple illocutionary meanings, a lie would be obtained if the speech act whose illocutionary meaning is assertive in nature is spoken in a disordered manner. ‘The library is closing in fifteen minutes’. Recall that this utterance is spoken under different formalities. The librarian speaks assertively to inform her patrons of her belief that the library is closing. This is a formality ordered toward true signification. She also speaks under other formalities, primarily directive in nature, to get the remaining patrons to prepare to leave at the close of business. However, if the library is not closing, and the librarian spoke only because she wanted the remaining patrons to go, then her utterance would be a lie because she disordered the assertive speech act from its proper end, which is the truth.
Incidentally, the last scenario described above raises the possibility that performative utterances spoken under formalities not ordered toward signification could themselves become disordered. A speaker could utter a greeting or an encouragement in an improper manner. Austin argued that such utterances are neither true nor false but instead could be felicitous or infelicitous, according to a set of conditions, which he called felicity conditions.Footnote 23 These conditions governed the context of the utterance. Thus, a speech act that is a declaration, i.e., an utterance such as a marriage vow, which functions to bring about a correspondence between the propositional content of the utterance and the world, in Austin’s view, would only be felicitous if the utterance is spoken in a conventional form, the utterance is spoken by the appropriate speaker in the proper circumstances, the utterance is spoken without errors or interruptions, and the utterance is willingly intended as such. If any of these felicity conditions were not present, the utterance would fail in its function. It would be disordered. It is not a lie. It is an infelicity. It is striking that Aquinas held similar views concerning the speaking of the words of consecration during the holy mass, which is the form of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.Footnote 24
6. Disputed question: Lying to an enemy as spycraft in a just war
May an intelligence officer lie to his enemies during a just war? During World War II, Operation Fortitude was the codename of the military deception strategy employed by the Allied nations to protect the secret of the location of the planned Allied landings at Normandy.Footnote 25 The majority of the deception was carried out using false wireless messages and German double agents who passed on false information to their Nazi handlers. Speaking falsehoods is an integral part of spycraft during war. But is it virtuous? Can it be virtuous?Footnote 26
Aquinas does not directly address the question of lying during wartime espionage. Still, in response to the question, ‘Whether it is lawful to lay ambushes in war?’ he does say that it is unlawful to deceive an enemy even during war: ‘Now a man may be deceived by another’s word or deed in two ways. First, through being told something false, or through the breaking of a promise, this is always unlawful. In this way, no one should deceive the enemy, for there are certain “rights of war and covenants that ought to be observed even among enemies”’.Footnote 27 However, in the same response, Aquinas does allow deception as long as this deception occurs by an act of omission rather than by commission:
Second, [a man may be deceived] through what we say or do, because we do not declare our purpose or meaning to him. Now we are not always bound to do this, since even in sacred doctrine many things have to be concealed, especially from unbelievers, lest they deride it, according to Mat. 7:6: ‘Do not give that which is holy to the dogs’. So much more, therefore, ought the strategy of a campaign be hidden from the enemy. It is for this reason, among others, that a soldier has to learn the art of concealing his purpose lest it come to the knowledge of his enemies, as stated in the Book on Strategy by Frontinus.Footnote 28
From these statements, it appears that Aquinas would consider a spy’s communicating false information to the enemy to deceive to be an instance of lying that would be unjust, one that violates ‘the rights of war and covenants’ that are due even to one’s enemies. However, I think that one could also argue that for Aquinas, a lie uttered as part of spycraft during a just war would not constitute a mortal sin as long as it was uttered for the sake of the common good and in defense of the lives of many. It would be another kind of officious lie, ‘which saves a man from death’. Recall the guiding principle for Aquinas discussed above: ‘[T]he greater the good intended, the more is the sin of lying diminished in gravity’.
But what if we acknowledge the polyvalent nature of speech shaped by the social context of the speech act? Would a polyvalent Thomistic speech act theory alter the classic analysis proffered by Aquinas? I think so. It is striking that accounts of wartime espionage and counter-espionage, both historical and fictional, reveal that both sides of the exchange, for instance, the Allied and German intelligence forces during World War II, assume that the enemy is out to deceive them.Footnote 29 The goal of their exchange is to achieve a military and/or political victory. It is not to understand or to be understood. In other words, both sides implicitly agree that their speech acts are not meant to signify what is in the speaker’s intellect. They are not intended to reveal true information. Instead, they are directive. They are directed toward deceit. Both sides are expecting untruths from the other. Both sides are also trying to figure out ways to distinguish truth from untruth. Thus, the context of the communication that occurs between intelligence forces from opposing sides during a war is akin to the classic bluffing game of Balderdash, where opponents try to deceive each other by writing false but convincing definitions for uncommon English words.Footnote 30 During gameplay, everyone expects deception from the other team. At the same time, everyone is trying to figure out how not to be deceived.
Though Aquinas may think that players speaking untruths during a game of Balderdash are lying, albeit venially, because they are intentionally speaking falsehoods as untruths contra mentem, precisely to deceive, I would submit that a Thomist aware of speech act theory would beg to differ. Here, the Balderdash players are not speaking words under the formality of a speech act ordered toward the truthful revelation of one’s mind. Their words do not involve true or false signification but non-signification.Footnote 31 The players are speaking under the formality of a directive speech act ordered toward winning the bluffing game. This is a distinct kind of performative speech act made clear by the context of the vocal exchange and its social context, which is the game itself. By definition, these speech acts cannot be true or false. Instead, they could be felicitous or infelicitous depending on whether they effectively deceive the other team to achieve victory. By definition, therefore, Balderdash speakers cannot lie as long as they are playing the game. Both sides of the exchange must be aware of the context in which they are speaking. It is the context that helps the speakers recognize the formalities under which they are expected to speak to each other.
In the same way, I propose that intelligence officers trying to deceive the enemy cannot lie as long as they are speaking qua spies who are trying to promote the common good by winning a just war and protecting the social order. Both sides acknowledge that they are not seeking the truth. Both sides recognize that they are speaking to achieve a military and/or political victory. Both sides, therefore, are incapable of speaking lies, properly so called. In an analogous sense, regarding speech acts, spycraft during a just war is like gamecraft during a bluffing game. Notice that this argument also applies outside the context of a just war as long as both sides know they are playing the ‘game’ of espionage.
Finally, I propose that this analysis can be extended even further. It also applies to the context of undercover stings where undercover law enforcement officers and federal agents infiltrate an organization involved in illicit activities, or even to the classic interaction between a Dutch citizen hiding Jews in her basement and a Gestapo agent searching for them. In the first case, when the drug lord and his accomplices establish their network of illicit activities and engage in behavior that undermines the common good, they enter into a cat and mouse game with the authorities whom they are trying to deceive so that they will not be apprehended and incarcerated. Once again, they are seeking to deceive and not to be deceived. They have entered into a bluffing game. Once again, I propose that officers of the state, trying to deceive the members of these illicit organizations, who are trying to deceive them, cannot lie as long as they are speaking qua agents who are trying to promote the common good that is the proper ordering of the commonweal. Once again, regarding speech acts, undercover operations during a drug bust can be compared to the gamecraft during a bluffing game, in this case, the party game called Mafia.Footnote 32 In my view, the same argument applies to the classic Dutch citizen concealing Jews and the Gestapo agent searching for them. Both are engaged in a bluffing game, which alters the structure of their speech acts. Their words do not involve true or false signification but nonsignification. In other words, their words are intended to deceive and to catch the other in deceit, and not to understand or to be understood. They cannot lie as long as they are playing the game of cat and mouse, which they know they are engaged in.
7. Objection: Speaking falsehoods necessarily corrupts moral character
One possible objection to the account of human speech acts proposed here is that there are seemingly realistic narratives – John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold comes especially to mind – that suggest that the duplicitous nature of espionage corrupts the moral character of spies.Footnote 33 For the objector, this would be empirical evidence that the speaking of falsehoods, by its very nature, hinders the moral development of the speaker and, as such, can never be justified. Petri and Wahl have even argued, ‘as necessary as the Central Intelligence Agency or National Security Agency may be, we would not recommend a person who is seeking to grow in virtue and holiness to join either of them’.Footnote 34 In response, the vocation of a spy has to be understood precisely as a vocation. As such, it is a profession that is not for everyone, but only for those called to that life. These individuals have been given a particular set of personal traits that would allow them to grow in virtue and holiness in a life of espionage. For example, Kevin Dutton has suggested that the best spies are individuals with mild psychopathic traits.Footnote 35 Unsurprisingly, there are heroic narratives written by former CIA operatives that can serve as counterexamples to the stories that paint a dark moral portrait of the spy.Footnote 36 There is also the evidence from other professions that routinely involve the speaking of falsehoods, especially the acting profession, that suggests that the practice is not inherently damaging to the moral character of many of its practitioners. Would Petri and Wahl discourage all Christians from the dramatic arts?
Spies bear a hefty psychological burden because of their profession, which could lead to moral damage if that burden is not carried virtuously. But this is not unique to espionage. Surgeons, grief counselors, first responders, and priests, among others, bear similar burdens because of their work. Indeed, in my view, moral theologians, especially those working within the Catholic tradition, have a pastoral responsibility to help their brothers and sisters carry their burdens well. And for our brothers and sisters working in counter-intelligence in defense of the common good, articulating why espionage is not a sin, not even a venial sin, would be one way of doing this.
8. Objection: Denying the possibility of lying denies the possibility of truth-telling
Another possible objection to the account of speech acts described here is that it does not allow for scenarios where speakers in social contexts where truthful assertions are not expected could be lying, and for other scenarios where speakers in different social contexts where spoken falsehoods are expected could be telling the truth. For instance, in the example of the basketball coach who exaggerates his team’s abilities to encourage his players, could it not be that the coach is actually encouraging by lying? Alternatively, in the example of the Dutch citizen speaking with the Gestapo agent, could it not be that she is speaking the truth when she tells him that it is noon when he asks her for the time? Or to put it another way, if lying is impossible for the Dutch citizen speaking to the Nazi officer, then is truth-telling not also impossible for her since you cannot have the former without the latter?
In response, my account of polyvalent speech acts acknowledges that social contexts are fluid and can change multiple times even within a single vocal exchange. Consider our basketball coach. When he is giving a pep talk to his team, the coach is not encouraging by lying precisely because, in this precise context, assertive speech is not expected by those engaged in the vocal exchange. However, the coach can still lie if the social context changes. For instance, if a team member asks him for the score of their last victory amid his lengthy exhortation, then the coach would be lying if he did not give them the actual final score.
In the same way, the Gestapo agent who asks the Dutch citizen if it is lunchtime has changed the social context of their conversation. Here, he is not speaking to her qua Gestapo agent, and she is not responding to him qua Dutch citizen who does not wish to cooperate with the Nazis in a game of cat and mouse. Instead, he asks her for information that both know is irrelevant to their strategic goal of deceiving or catching the other in deceit. With the altered social context, the Dutch citizen would be lying if she did not tell him the correct time.
9. Possible objections from contemporary Thomists
Finally, I would like to entertain and respond to objections that could be raised by three contemporary Thomists investigating the ethics of lying: Christopher O. Tollefsen, John Skalko, and Stewart Clem. They represent the breadth of creative work recently published in this area of philosophical inquiry.
Writing within the school of New Natural Law theorists, Christopher O. Tollefsen appears to hold a more rigorist view than Aquinas. In an online essay, ‘Why Lying is Always Wrong’, he has called into question ‘the practices of undercover work, espionage work, and other forms of journalistic, police, and governmental work that might require lying’.Footnote 37 He concludes: ‘That we have become conformed in our social practice to lies as an essential part of the defense of the realm, and for the protection of citizens, just as in our personal lives, is a fact. […] But this participation is neither an inevitability, nor, in my view, a reflection of what is genuinely demanded by truth and love’. Tollefsen will go on to claim that lying during wartime espionage would be sinful because it damages the liar’s integrity, which is a basic good that has to be preserved: ‘So here is the initial harm of the lie: it divides the inner and outer self, damaging the agent’s integrity; and integrity is a great good’.Footnote 38 He will also propose that lying is evil because it is an attack on charity: But […] truth in self-disclosure just is the primordial means by which we establish community with another; and the forming of community – the entering into communion – with others just is what it means to love another (thus, naturally enough, as there are many forms of communion, there are many forms of love, and not all are equally appropriate to each person). But this too is damaged in the lie.Footnote 39
For Tollefsen, lying during wartime espionage would be sinful because it violates the order of truth and charity. As such, in the language of Aquinas, it would be a mortal sin that is uttered not only contra mentem but also contra caritatem.
In response, Tollefsen believes that when one makes false assertions during wartime espionage, both the basic goods of integrity and sociality are violated. As such, making false assertions is evil. However, with a polyvalent Thomistic theory of speech acts in hand, I propose that spies are not engaged in making assertions that are ordered toward truth. Like players in a game of Balderdash, they are trying to deceive and catch each other in deceit. Interestingly, in his book, Lying and Christian Ethics, Tollefsen agrees with me that bluffing during games is ethically permissible:
But the bluff in a game, as with the ruse in war (examples to which I shall return), is different in a crucial way from selective disclosure. The former both take place in a context in which it is anticipated and accepted that bluffing will occur. Accordingly, the respect in which intending deception converges on the injustice of the lie is removed, for in such contexts, one is not made a dupe, intentionally deprived of the autonomy that the truth provides. So my judgment is that in selective disclosure, one should not intend deception so long as the ordinary context of justice and expectation of honesty is operative; any deception in such circumstances must be outside the intention. But when that context is not operative, as in games, war, or in acts of significantly unjust aggression, such as murderers at the door and the like, then I believe one could permissibly intend deception in one’s selective disclosure.Footnote 40
Once again, however, he is insistent that deception cannot involve false assertions even in games: ‘The deception I am talking about involves inference to a false proposition from a true one; it does not involve false assertion’. Instead, I claim that once we appreciate the polyvalent nature of human speech, we can affirm that in games, espionage, and other contexts, when the expectation of honesty is not operative, there cannot be true or false assertions because speech during gameplay and war does not involve true or false signification but non-signification.
Next, in his comprehensive book, Disordered Actions, John Skalko wonders if there are further purposes for language other than the conveyance of truth. He replies that like Aquinas, he believes that there may be other purposes for language but that these must always remain subordinate to its primary purpose, which is to convey what is on one’s mind: ‘Aquinas knew language has further purposes beyond the mere conveyance of the conceptions of the mind, but the mere fact that language has further purposes never detracts from its primary purpose, which is to convey what is on one’s mind’.Footnote 41 Thus, he concludes: ‘One may direct assertions to other remote ends so long as one does not violate its fundamental purpose. For example, one may assert words of encouragement or fraternal correction, without violating the purposes of speech, because one is still asserting what one believes to be true’.Footnote 42 In light of these statements, Skalko would object to my proposal that spies engaged in spycraft cannot make true or false assertions because speech during gameplay and war does not involve true or false signification but non-signification. In his mind, any speech that deviates from its primary end is disordered and, as such, morally objectionable.
In response, Skalko and I disagree because we have two different accounts of the nature of speech. Like many philosophers before him – he lists Aristotle, al-Farabi, Hobbes, Locke, Gaeng, and Sturtevant as his fellowsFootnote 43 – Skalko believes that there is one primary end to speech to which other ends must always be subordinated.Footnote 44 His is a monovalent theory of speech. In contrast, as I explained above, contemporary analytic philosophers have convincingly shown that distinct ends of speech involve ‘doing with’ rather than ‘communicating with’ words. Speech is polyvalent. Therefore, lies remain disordered speech acts, but they are disordered assertive speech acts. Speech acts that are non-assertive, such as those involved in gameplay and spycraft, cannot be true or false. By definition, they cannot be lies. Instead, they are felicitous or infelicitous. They can be just or unjust.
I have to add two more comments to respond to Skalko: First, in his book, Skalko criticizes the view that contextual linguistics can change the function of language. He cites Kemp and Sullivan, who ‘conclude that since the Nazi-at-the-door scenario includes no reasonable expectation that one will be speaking the truth, one is not making an assertion in telling the Nazis “we are hiding no Jews;” consequently, one is not lying’.Footnote 45 Skalko goes on: ‘What is strange about their position is that on such an account it is impossible to lie to the Nazis, or even assert the truth, about the whereabouts of the Jews one is hiding’. In response, as I noted above in the section dealing with the objection that denying the possibility of lying denies the possibility of truth-telling, my account of polyvalent speech acts acknowledges that social contexts are fluid and can change multiple times even within a single vocal exchange. Players in the game of Balderdash can speak the truth and expect the truth when speaking to their fellow players, even in the middle of their game. This is commonplace because we know when the social context has changed. We know when we are playing the game and when we are not. I propose that the same happens in every social exchange, including the exchange between the Dutch citizen and the Nazi officer.
Second, Skalko writes: ‘What or who determines what counts as a reasonable expectation [for whether or not a speech act is an assertion or not]? […] The conventions of society seem to be the more reasonable position, in that the rules governing whether assertion is possible are determined by the society of language users and not merely the whims of the agent. But there is no societal rule governing assertions that suspends them from being assertions simply because the case is one of blackmail or the Nazi-at-the-door scenario’.Footnote 46
In response, I agree with Skalko that social conventions dictate the nature of speech acts. One learns these social conventions growing up in a particular culture by observing the behavior of others. For instance, in Asian societies, you never criticize the food served by your hostess. Never. If she asks you if the dish is delicious, which she will inevitably do, it is always tasty. This is a social convention of speech I learned that governs vocal exchanges about meals at another’s home. It is a social ritual of praise and not an exchange of information. I learned it by observing the behavior of others at social gatherings growing up. I saw how specific responses to questions about the food served were praised and how others were criticized. Societal rules regarding the nature of speech acts are established by the behavior of people around you. I submit that the social consensus, even among virtuous individuals, that it is permissible – indeed, laudable – to speak deceptive untruths to a Nazi-at-the-door suggests that such a social convention regarding the nature of that speech act is in place. Speech act theory makes what is socially recognized as an implicit social convention explicit.
Finally, Stewart Clem locates his discussion of lying within the context of the virtue of truthfulness. In his essay, ‘Lying to the Nazi at the Door: A Thomistic Reframing of the Classic Moral Dilemma’, Clem begins by affirming Aquinas’s definition of a lie as a falsehood told to deceive. After going through all the possible scenarios to respond to the Nazi at the door, he concludes that ‘every possible action [in response to the Nazi at the door] will involve some degree of sin, even if lying is the least sinful action’.Footnote 47 However, for Clem, all these possible responses to the Nazi are minor ethical infractions. They would only count as venial sins: ‘I am suggesting that the theological category of venial sin helps us understand why there may be some (perhaps very limited) instances in which one has no choice but to perform some morally defective action. To lie to the Nazi is a regrettable action, but it is also forgivable’.Footnote 48 Nonetheless, in light of these comments, Clem would likely object to the conclusions of my paper because he does not see the exchange with the Nazi as anything other than speech that signifies.
In response, Clem affirms that human language is multifaceted and does not serve a singular function. He acknowledges that ‘not all utterances are assertions’.Footnote 49 Therefore, he concludes: ‘Jokes, acting, imaginative play, etc. involve formal duplicity, but they do not violate the contra mentem principle, therefore they are not lies’.Footnote 50 Therefore, I think he and I have similar accounts of speech. However, I hold that a polyvalent Thomistic theory of speech acts would allow us to expand the moral analysis of non-assertive speech that we find in games, jokes, and imaginative plays to dialogue between spies and conversations with Nazis at the door. If Clem is willing to do this with me, then we would agree that not every deliberately willed spoken falsehood is a lie.
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