Open AccessThe Aesthetic Significance of the Lying-Misleading Distinction
Author(s) -
Jessica Pepp
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the british journal of aesthetics/british journal of aesthetics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.481
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1468-2842
pISSN - 0007-0904
DOI - 10.1093/aesthj/ayz032
Subject(s) - lying , conviction , epistemology , psychology , sociology , philosophy , law , political science , medicine , radiology
There is a clear intuitive difference between lying and attempting to mislead. Recent efforts to analyse this difference, and to define lying in ways that respect it, are motivated by the conviction that the difference is important or significant in some way. Traditionally, the importance of the lying-misleading distinction has been cashed out in moral terms, but this approach faces a number of challenges. The purpose of this paper is to suggest and develop a different way in which the lying-misleading distinction might be important: it might matter aesthetically. I propose that the aesthetic significance of the distinction inheres in a more prominent experienced disharmony in lying as compared with attempting to mislead.