The Truth About Lying

Ideas1:11Is it lying to tell your hosts that dinner was wonderful when you really think it was terrible?

Is it lying to tell your hosts that dinner was wonderful when you really think it was terrible?

Participants in the program:

Michael Blake is a Professor of Philosophy and Public Affairs; he is also the Director of the University of Washington's Program on Values in Society. He received his bachelor degree in Philosophy and Economics from the University of Toronto, and a PhD from Stanford University. He also obtained some legal training at Yale Law School, before running away to become a philosopher. Blake is jointly appointed to the Department of Philosophy and to the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington. He was previously a faculty member at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and held positions in the Center for Ethics and the Professions and the Carr Center for Human Rights.

Samantha Brennan is a Professor in the Department of Women's Studies and Feminist Research at Western University, Canada. She is also a member of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy and a member of the graduate faculty of the Departments of Philosophy and Political Science. She received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago and an undergraduate degree in Philosophy from Dalhousie University. Professor Brennan's research and teaching interests include feminist ethics, contemporary normative ethics, applied ethics, and political philosophy. She's the author numerous articles and books on a wide range of topics including family ethics, children's rights, gender and fashion, feminism and death, and moral rights and their strength.

Arthur Ripstein is Professor of Law and Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh, a degree in law from Yale, and an undergraduate degree from the University of Manitoba. Professor Ripstein's research and teaching interests include torts, legal theory, and political philosophy. In addition to numerous articles in legal theory and political philosophy, he is the author of Force and Freedom: Kant's Legal and Political Philosophy(Harvard 2009) and Equality, Responsibility and the Law (Cambridge 1999). His newest book, Private Wrongs, will be published by Harvard University Press in the Spring of 2016. He is currently writing a book on Immanuel Kant's account of the law and morality of war.