Lying Among Friends

Why are lies told among friends especially vicious? This chapter argues that friends must regard each other as entitled to claim each other’s trust. It defends this claim by appeal to a conception of friendship that involves a special kind of knowledge between friends, born of voluntary acts of self-disclosure. Yet treating someone as entitled to claim your trust also leaves you especially vulnerable to that person: you must be prepared to let her shape your conception of what the world is like. In extreme cases, you may even find you are obliged to believe things you know you cannot justify to others. The viciousness of lies told among friends can be understood in terms of this special and thoroughgoing form of vulnerability, which a lying friend exploits.