Jana Dubinovsky  

                                                                                    Professor Kassner

Philosophy250                                                                                 December 19, 2021

Final Term Paper

Imagine that the state passed a law making it a criminal offense – punishable by incarceration for a

minimum of six months – to make false claims, even if they cause no material harm. Is the state justified

in using the weapon of law to do so?  

When a human is born, hopefully with a brain, a natural adaptation to growing up with

other humans is using gestures and sounds to display wants and needs. As we grow older, this

becomes crucial in communication, adaptation, teamwork, and the sharing of ideas. Anyone that

has spent more than several minutes with a small child can observe that they attempt to emulate

the speech and mannerisms of their caretakers in order to express themselves. When they get

older, they pick up on the language used most around them. Primitive humans built on existing

systems in their slowly evolving brains for communication, songs and rituals, and passing

knowledge through generations. Humans, as social animals, have relied on the ability to freely

communicate amongst one another to build things, use tools, domesticating animals, acquire

food and water, eventually using this development to do all of these things on a grander scale and

forming civilizations. It has long been established that language is a crucial part to human

flourishing as a species. The difficulty with this is that each individual human has their own

system of interpretation of language and their own truth. Each person employs their own truth

based on the reality of their experiences, whether or not the individual chooses to share their

truth via any method of communication. Additionally, it can be said that there are few absolute
falsehoods in the universe, and even less absolute truths. Therefore, the issue in trying to identify

a false claim lies not in classifying the so-called falsehood, but rather employing a more rounded

or better defensible truth. By this logic, it would be impossible for a legal system to in any way

practically or efficiently identify and mitigate false claims. As long as their truth is defensible, it

cannot be conceivably identified as a falsehood. The state has no authority in trying to deter

citizens from postulating falsehoods, not only because it would be practically unethical, but also

due to the inherent value in human speech as it pertains to the expression of autonomy and self-

consciousness.  

To further examine this idea, it is also important to know a working definition of a truth

vs. a false claim. To begin, there are several categories of “truths”. The first are absolute truths,

such as the laws of physics. A trained physicist may argue otherwise against absolutism because

the boundaries of science are being expanded nearly everyday, and some laws that are absolute

on earth may not apply in specific situations, such as in a vacuum or black hole. Nevertheless,

for the purpose of moral argument, several scientific truths, such as the workings of gravity, are

absolute truths because they apply universally and absolutely to humanity on earth. There are

also moral or epistemological truths, generally held by individuals in a society, about certain

actions that can be defined as either right or wrong. Often, these truths are simply the dominant

narratives in a given culture, further muddling the distinction between a truth and a falsity.

Cultural narratives can be related to personal truths, which brings us closer to the heart of this

argument. Nearly everyone has their own version of the truth, based on many complex factors.

This truth can include traditional or religious beliefs, which can also contribute to an individual

or group’s moral truths. There are causational truths based on experience (if I do X action or say

X, then these consequences are highly likely to occur), which we use as a guideline for future
actions (hopefully). Sometimes, the issue with identifying a falsehood is that the individual may

not regard the statement as a falsehood at all. It is their own defensible truth, and can only be

combated by encircling a different truth and defending it logically until the other can be shown

as either irrational or based on false evidence. This is an epistemological argument for the use of

language - it is not necessarily about the difference between a truth and a falsity, but whether a

statement can be considered pragmatically “true” based on its usefulness in society and sound

rationale behind it. The idea produced and used in a strong narrative in a society may indeed

influence an individual to behave or think a certain way. What about such claims that can be

proven to be based on false evidence or otherwise logically flawed, even if there is no harm

caused? For instance, there are people in this day and age who believe, wholeheartedly, that the

shape of the Earth is flat instead of a sphere. Assuming these people do not go on to intern at

NASA, there is little harm that is caused by holding onto this ideology. The absurd nature of

such a statement generally shows the uselessness it has to current societal narratives, rendering it

less ‘true’ or reiffied in the world. Thus, it is almost pointless to mitigate the various realities of

others (certainly from the standpoint of the state, if not of individuals), the idea which provides

the basis for the practical argument against state involvement in punishing individuals for “false”

claims. 

Even if it were morally permissible for the state to administer a law that deters people

from lying (speaking with the knowledge or belief that something is not true and convincing

others of the truth in the statement), I can imagine no conceivable way to determine an

individual’s true intentions, and if the harm was meant to be caused. A lie is determined from the

perspective of both the liar and the victim, but the only possibility of harm being identified and

mitigated is if the victim realizes the lie and comes forward to implicate the liar. Similarly, even
backing an irrational defense with faulty evidence would warrant criminality under the scope of

the law, as it would be very difficult to prove that the statement is indeed a lie, and not a poorly-

defended claim. Contrarily, there are several areas of this practical argument which are and ought

to mitigated by the state because of the balance of tangible harm caused and easy identification

of a malicious perpetrator and a victim - hypothetical examples cited by many scholars include

someone being placed in psychological distress; or else lying to defraud others, to embezzle

funds or lie to workers, among many more possible harms. These cannot be discounted.

However, what the state has a role in mitigating is the consequential harm caused to some party,

by means of the justice system. Additionally, there are instances of lying when the liar is

punished, such as lying under oath. In this scenario, the individual is punished for breaking their

oath sworn under a court of law rather than the action of lying itself. Though the individual is

punished for lying, it is under the precondition that a declaration of honesty was undertaken with

the knowledge of the ramifications of lying. Lying, or making a false claim, may be an integral

part of this harm caused, but it is the actions and the consequences themselves that require

punishment on the part of the perpetrator. 

The tragedy of the commons is a poignant example to bring to this argument. Though

commonly related to environmental sustainability, the underlying hypothesis of the argument is

one that there is no ethical way to eliminate all members of society who would take more than

their equitable share of the pie, so to speak. To do so would infringe upon the negative human

rights enabled to all people on this earth; the rights to life and autonomy. To truly mitigate all

harms stemming from making a purposefully false claim or deceiving another, it would be

necessary for the government to implement such measures that would be detrimental to the rest

of the population via surveillance and heavy monitoring of peoples’ speech and expression.
Promoting honesty may be a value held dear by a given population, but the ethical and

appropriate way to encourage purposeful truthfulness from citizens is to reward honesty or foster

in the community such a tradition, not enforce punishment.

These arguments are not to say that it is permissible for any kind of speech or expression

to be displayed in the community. There are exceptions, such as speech that threatens to or

would cause great harm, such as crying “fire” in a movie theater. Hate speech is also an

undesired utterance that would create benefit and disallow hate speech on the grounds of

restricting personal autonomy. The way hate speech and falsehoods can be combated are through

individual and community power, by providing an alternative version of their truth that can

defeat the falsehoods with logic. There is no reason that at any point, the state should have the

jurisdiction to step in and punish the speaker. Speech that attacks or threatens others justifies

consequences because those actions are morally wrong. Nevertheless, morally wrong does not

quite necessitate interference from the state, though it is arguable that these actions do require

some sort of consequences. Take, for example, a long-term, monogamous relationship between

two people. One day, one of the partners finds out that their significant other has been talking to

and flirting with people online and breaking their bond of fidelity. Their partner is heartbroken

and responds appropriately. A person in this scenario lied, yes, but for the state to step in

needlessly (if there is no violence or if emergency services are not/do not need to be altered)

would be immoral on the grounds of violating the privacy of these individuals. Consequences are

appropriate based on the action concerning the individuals impacted. 

To conclude, it would not be ethical for state-sanctioned intervention against solely the

action of any individual making a claim they know to be false and sharing it with the intention to

deceive. For the state to be justified in intervention, there would need to be some other tangible
harm caused or otherwise an auxiliary illegal action associated with not telling the truth. The

ability to vocalize our thoughts and beliefs is an integral factor in human expression and our

ability to advance and evolve as a species. To implement measures that limit autonomy would be

unethical and unjustifiable for any authority figure - on an individual level. With our increased

human globalizations, it is possible for singular human beings to represent something greater

than the individual; and with such large-scale consequences, there are greater institutions that

ought to implement them - governments on corporations, on other nations, and sometimes

nations on themselves. This reality can still fit ethically and logically within one where it still

would not be ethically permissible for the nation to intervene in most general instances

concerning individuals proclaiming falsities. To reiterate, it is not justifiable for the state to

mitigate the specific speech expressed by individuals, be it with the intention to deceive,

knowing that the information as they know it is false, or believing in a reality not compatible

with better-defended claims.