Communication is hard.

I like a lot of the work Shiffrin does to categorize human communication. The distinction between lying and deception is particularly useful in that it both clarifies sources of moral wrong while also enabling a more focused discussion into what is inherently bad about lying. Although lying is clearly morally suboptimal by intuition and comparison to truth, I feel Shiffrin's account presents an overly binary depiction of communication that obscures nuance in the morals of communication. 

I think the focus on the epistemic importance of truth telling makes good sense, and better fleshes out a motivation for honest interaction than what I had attempted in my dramatic post on escaping nihilism. The values of any philosophy are clearly enhanced through collaboration with other people. Due to the inability to precisely know what someone else experiences, it seems truth telling and a refrain from lying has clear inherent value even distinct from the immorality of deception. Lying is wrong because to lie "is to sully the one road of authoritative access to oneself" which has the dual effect of impeding moral value derived from cooperation with others and of supporting the legitimacy of their own understandings of value (including the value of the individual themself). 

My only problem with this line of reasoning is that it doesn't seem to align with the dynamics of communication––and the moral expectations around that communication––that I experience in my day to day life. 

One issue with Shiffrin's presentation is her binary account of belief/understanding. Her working conception of lying both depends on A to believe P and to have awareness that they do not believe P. While useful theoretically, much of our significant communication is done in the gray area of belief and certainly the awareness of belief

Lying frequently happens as a result of emotional disagreements. In my experience, it is often easier to arrive at a happy conclusion if parties are encouraged to speak, even if the conditions of that speech is in part bad faith communication. Ideally, people would be able to always clearly, humbly, and respectful, describe what they are thinking, but often it is important for them to communicate their emotions first. I could be very wrong, but I feel like the choices made in bad faith communication around facts is one of the most effective ways to communicate emotions. It's not my personal communication style (I tend to be more dissociative :P), but it's something I observe working for others. 

If problem of lying is that it obstructs our ability to develop moral understanding in relation to others, it seems problematic that lying is not inherently obstructive to that end––even outside of the justified suspended contexts Shiffrin supplies. What is at stake in communication is values, and so immoral communication in an epistemic context should be properly connected to an obscuring or revealing of value. By lying, we often leave a negative space which is useful for ascertaining our true values. 

One could argue that this picture is not in conflict with Shiffrin as values are intimately connected with beliefs. It may be possible to reconcile the accounts in this way, but I feel the central inclusion of awareness of our beliefs suggests that my argument is a significant departure from how Shiffrin understand morality in communication. 

Honestly, I struggled with this reading, and so I'd love to hear the nuance I'm missing.