Lying and Deception

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course examines truth, lying, and deception as parts of the natural world and human culture. It explores the nature of these phenomena in relation to our role in the world and our responsibility toward it and toward each other from a number of ethical perspectives. It briefly shows how Lying and deception are manifest in the behavior of plants and animals in order to highlight the ubiquity of the phenomenon in the natural world and how humans contrast with animals. It then looks in more detail at human deceptive behavior in children and adults, including self-deception and the deception of others. It examines the behavior of professional liars and the methods that have been developed for detecting deception. It also explores lying and deception in the public sphere in political speech, journalism, visual images, etc. In all this, the course relies on a high level of faculty-student engagement.