Yale Law School

Gave the inaugural talk in the Yale Law School Graduate Programs Advanced Legal Studies Seminar on February 8th, 2012. The seminar was organized by two other Visiting Researchers at Yale Law School. The paper was entitled "The Lying Wars - Deceptionists and Anti-Deceptionists," but for the poster the talk was advertised as "Do Liars Always Want To Deceive You?" 

In the talk I described two groups of theorists writing about lies: Deceptionists and Anti-Deceptionists. Deceptionists argue that the intention to deceive is necessary for lying. Anti-Deceptionists argue that the intention to deceive is not necessary for lying. 

Although the talk was entirely philosophical in nature, I closed with a comparison between the U.S. and Canadian law in the area of perjury. U.S. law does not require an intention to deceive for the crime of perjury, but Canadian law does. Canadian law holds that witnesses may be lying without intending to deceive anyone, and hence, that they may be lying without perjuring themselves. U.S. law is not interested in whether or not witnesses are lying or intending to deceive anyone. It is sufficient that witnesses are knowingly making false statements that are material to the case after they have sworn an oath to testify truthfully.