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A Case of Insincerity
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37 A Case of Insincerity What Does It Mean to Deceive Someone? Kevin Kinghorn Whether disguising himself as an Italian priest in “The Final Problem” or leaving false evidence of his own death in “The Adventure of the Empty House,” Sherlock Holmes always seems to be one step ahead of friends and adversaries alike. Holmes’s ultimate goal, of course, is to thwart the maneuvers of criminals throughout London. As we watch him do so time and again, we notice that he often relies on trickery of some sort. He hides his true intentions when speaking to suspects, he misdirects them as to his whereabouts, he lulls them into a false sense of security. In short, Holmes regularly relies on deception to getter the better of others. One way of exploring Holmes’s use of deception would be to investigate when deception is and isn’t morally acceptable. Clearly, deception is sometimes deplorable, as when James Windibank cruelly impersonates a suitor to his daughter-in-law in “A Case of Identity,” or when Moriarty in “The Final Problem” draws Watson away from Holmes with a fake note about a patient as part of a plan to isolate and kill Holmes. At other times, though, deception seems entirely appropriate, as when we note that Holmes’s reason for masquerading as a priest in the previously mentioned story is to escape Moriarty’s murderous pursuit. Admittedly there have been a few philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), who have argued that deceptive lying is always wrong. But most philosophers hold the view, which is surely correct, that deception is sometimes morally permissible and sometimes not. Although the line between appropriate and inappropriate deception is an interesting question (and one discussed at length in Chapter 2 of this volume), I want to explore the prior question of what deception is. That is, I want to look at the nature of deception itself and what conditions would 38 Kevin Kinghorn need to be met for us rightly to conclude that an act of deception has taken place. In what follows, we’ll explore various definitions of deceive, identifying the shortcomings of these definitions until we finally arrive at a satisfactory explanation of the concept. Once we arrive at this final definition, we will see that it implies something rather surprising about Holmes’s relationship with his nemesis, Professor Moriarty. Going beyond the Dictionary One of the jobs of a philosopher is to bring clarity and precision to the terms we use in everyday language. Often dictionary definitions lack the nuance needed to distinguish one concept from similar—though importantly different —other concepts. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines deceive as “to cause to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid.” This definition, though, is far from adequate. In “A Scandal in Bohemia ,” Holmes takes elaborate steps to discover that Irene Adler has hidden a certain photograph behind a sliding panel in her sitting room. Holmes informs Watson during an evening conversation at Baker Street that they will call on “the woman” the next day and recover the photograph while they are waiting for her to receive them. Holmes tells Watson that they will go at “eight in the morning. She will not be up, so that we shall have a clear field.”1 In point of fact, however, when they arrive the next morning they are told by the maid: “My mistress told me that you were likely to call. She left this morning with her husband by the 5:15 train from Charing Cross for the Continent.”2 In one of the few times in which Holmes is outfoxed, “the woman” has been a step ahead of him. Holmes had announced to Watson that Irene Adler would not be up at eight in the morning and that they would have an opportunity to recover the photograph. But Holmes was mistaken. All the same, Holmes did cause Watson to accept as true something that was actually false. His action thus meets our dictionary definition of deceive. Surely, though, it isn’t right to say that Holmes deceived Watson. Holmes made an honest mistake. Perhaps we’d want to say that he unintentionally misled Watson. But genuine deception seems to be a different concept from an honest mistake, even if both can cause someone else to end up with a false belief. We must thus amend our initial definition to exclude those times when we honestly offer other people information that happens...