Abstract
This article provides formal accounts of dishonest attitudes of agents. We introduce a propositional multi-modal logic that can represent an agent's belief and intention as well as communication between agents. Using the language, we formulate different categories of dishonesty. We first provide two different definitions of lies and provide their logical properties. We then consider an incentive behind the act of lying and introduce lying with objectives. We subsequently define bullshit, withholding information and half-truths, and analyse their formal properties. We compare different categories of dishonesty in a systematic manner, and examine their connection to deception. We also propose maxims for dishonest communication that agents should ideally try to satisfy.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 259-294 |
Number of pages | 36 |
Journal | The Logic Journal of the IGPL |
Volume | 23 |
Issue number | 2 |
Early online date | 29 Dec 2014 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Apr 2015 |
Bibliographical note
AcknowledgementsWe thank the reviewers for their valuable comments on the manuscript. Martin Caminada has been supported by the National Research Fund, Luxembourg (LAAMI project) and by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC, UK), grant ref. EP/J012084/1 (SAsSy project).
Keywords
- dishonesty
- multi-modal logic
- belief and intention
- communication