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I want to tell you a little bit about why I decided to write a talk about this.

I've been teaching now for almost for over 20 years. Every year, it seems like, at least once

I teach Kant's groundwork to the metaphysics of morals.

And on the basis of all the times of teaching,

Kant and undergraduate classes,

I can feel justified in saying that almost without exception,

university undergraduates, and as far as I can can tell almost everybody else thinks that it is

often acceptable and occasionally obligatory to deliberately make false assertions with the intent

to deceive or to lie. My gut feeling has always been on the other side. And finally, last year I thought, you know, I'm going to write a talk about this.

And I'm still, but I'm still thinking through it, which is, evidence of which is that I spent the weekend instead of grading my midterms,

rewriting the talk I wrote last spring because I still wasn't satisfied with it.

And I'm probably going to end up rewriting this. So I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

But when we talk about lying, right, we talk about the ethics of lying, everybody always goes to the extreme example.

...