Secrets and Lies

Instructor: Professor Daniel R. DeNicola
               Department of Philosophy

This seminar explores "the ethics of concealment and revelation." We seem to have a great deal of difficulty with the virtue of honesty and the principle of truthfulness in contemporary personal, professional, and public life. Why do we keep secrets, tell lies, guard our privacy, or betray others? Has our evolution tilted us toward openness and trust, or toward secrecy and guile? What is our responsibility to the truth?

We will examine such practices as: Secrecy and Confidentiality (personal secrets, client confidentiality, forbidden knowledge, and governmental secrecy); Lying and Deception (including many forms of lies, placebos, strategic misinformation, and deceptive research); Fraud ("psychological," consumer, and scientific fraud, forgery and fakes); Betrayal and Treachery (personal and political betrayal, and the spy as double-agent); Invasions of Privacy (by individuals, organizations, and government); and Revelation (confessing, whistle-blowing, lie-detecting, informing, and outing). These studies will, of course, connect to related moral concepts, such as the ideals of authenticity and integrity. The seminar takes a philosophical perspective, but it draws upon the insights and research of many disciplines and opens up many lines of interdisciplinary inquiry.