I've been
mulling over this question a bit lately. The
dictionary doesn't seem to do the word justice. Just so you won't have to
click too many clicks, I'll quote old
Webbie:
1. A falsehood uttered or acted for the purpose of deception;
an intentional violation of truth; an untruth spoken with the intention to deceive
I guess it is agreed upon that a lie is indelibly intertwined with
intent to deceive. That seems true. But let's consider the following situations:
- Someone asks you what the value of PI is. You think it's 2.7182818284590452353, and say so. Is that a lie? Probably not. You just made a mistake.
- Someone asks you what the value of PI is. You have no clue. So you say, oh, 1.41421356237309, just a random number off the top of your head. Is that a lie? You pretended to know it. But you're not sure of whether it's an untruth. Is there intent to deceive?
- Someone asks you what the value of PI is. You don't know, but with intent to deceive, you throw out a random number: 3.1415927. You think you spoke an untruth with intent to deceive. You think you lied. Did you?
- How about this: your father tells you your shirt will be washed by when you get home. You get home and it's not. Who here thinks that's not a lie? Raise your hands please. When it was spoken, was it a lie? Did it become a lie over time? Perhaps there was no intent to deceive at first, but maybe, when the father saw he was busy, he realised that he wouldn't be able to do it. Does that change the way we look at his sentence? His intent doesn't perhaps change, but at the moment when he knows the shirt is not going to be washed, does it become a lie?
Just
food for thought.
This is not saying that I disagree with what you said, semprini, but you used Webster's definition to "prove" it's own correctness. That is not a very effective method of proof. If it was, anything could be proven.