Event Details

Centre for Law & Society School of Law Lancaster University

How should the law deal with lying? Sometimes the law imposes strict sanctions on liars, as in the case of perjury; in other cases, like bargaining over the price of a car, there are more limited remedies. This workshop will bring together legal scholars and philosophers with an academic interest in lying to see whether there is a common approach across the various sub-disciplines of law. We will consider the different arguments as to why lying is morally wrong, and the situations where the requirement for a ‘necessary lie’ is accepted. We will also examine when legal regulation of lying is deemed appropriate and the circumstances where lying is treated as a collective harm, and not just a harm to the victim. The focus will be on the philosophical conception of lying – and the extent to which this has informed our research.

Speakers:

Keynote: James Mahon, Professor of Philosophy, The City University of New York

Cerian Griffiths, Lecturer in Law, Lancaster University

Chloë Kennedy, Senior Lecturer in Criminal Law, Edinburgh University

Angus MacCulloch, Senior Lecturer in Law, Lancaster University

Eliot Michaelson, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, King’s College London

Steven Wheatley, Professor of International Law, Lancaster University

Sarah Wilson, Senior Lecturer in Law, York University