Natural Rights on the Threshold of the Scottish Enlightenment. Gershom Carmichael

says that the use of language requires that “users of any given language must employ the same words for the same objects following the usage of that language.” Carmichael comments:]

      Truthfulness lies in the fulfilment of this obligation and falsehood in its violation, provided that in the phrase employing words in a certain sense you also include, to make true speech according to that sense of the words, where true means conforming to the view of the speaker. In eliminating the obligation contained in this paragraph, the distinguished Titius seems to be making a highly unfortunate attempt to remove all distinction between truth-speaking and falsehood and to expel truthfulness from the catalogue of the virtues. But one may still ask, whence arises this virtue? And if it derives from convention, when and how do men enter into that convention? It would not be absurd to say that this obligation quite evidently arises from the very nature of the thing and from the obvious indispensability of the duty here prescribed for effecting the use of speech, and consequently for cultivating social life among men. I fully agree that a convention is not to be denied in this question: the only difficulty about it is, when and by what means the convention was entered into. For it can scarcely be maintained that the convention is entered into by individuals by some one single act, which establishes the norm for all future acts of speaking by everybody. One must rather say that each man, in addressing another person, particularly when he attempts to narrate something to him, makes a tacit agreement with him to use words in the sense which he thinks will be understood by him with the help of reason. He has to accept that the sense which normally goes with such words in similar cases will be the one understood (if it has not been otherwise defined by any special convention). The same is to be said of any other signs which perform the same function. The only exception is signs which are suited by their nature to signify some particular thing, where no other intervening use or express agreement has determined their signification otherwise; in their case, the sense to be reasonably understood, and for the preservation of which a tacit convention is made, is the sense which the nature of each sign suggests. It is agreed therefore that this obligation of which we are speaking is inviolable, and cannot be destroyed by any case or event, since a man would have to make a new contract every time he opened his mouth to speak. If this obligation were not assumed, the use of speech, particularly descriptive speech, would be eliminated from human life. It would be useless to tell anybody anything, and equally absurd to listen to anyone telling you anything. [I.10.2.i]

      The limits of prevarication

      [Pufendorf says that “I may shape what I say to express something other than what I have in mind” under certain conditions. Carmichael comments:]

       Here the author begins to desert the sound principles which he had established earlier.¹³ One must be very careful about exceptions of this kind. For although people do not in general have the right to learn our thoughts on any matter whatever, yet a person does have the right not to be deceived by speech or by other signs which he may justifiably believe are being used to express those thoughts. That is, we should not use signs which we judge that the other person will justifiably interpret as intended to signify something to him which is not true, or at least which we do not think to be true. As was said above, we have bound ourselves by a tacit convention to make the signs which we use, on any reasonable interpretation, consonant with our thoughts.¹⁴ [I.10.5.i]

      [Pufendorf says: “In these cases, therefore, we may make use of a dissembling and specious language. …” Carmichael comments on this principle and some of its applications:]

      I am tempted to say that the author uses such language here. In any case if he means speech which by the most reasonable interpretation signifies something different from the sentiment of the speaker, we must apply the well-known and correct rule, Do not do evil that good may result, especially since the universal loss which arises from the weakening of good faith among men, that is, from the relaxation of the common bond of human society, cannot be made up for by any private gain. [I.10.6.i]

      In educating children one must often use very crude metaphors. But the effect of speaking untruths is nowhere more pernicious than here. The result often is that children not only learn to disbelieve true lessons, but also acquire a wicked habit of lying. In this matter, they think themselves justified by the authority and example of their teachers. [I.10.9.i]

      Nor should we allow that we may tell lies to an enemy. The author himself acknowledges at On the Duty of Man and Citizen, II.16.5, that an enemy is not to be deceived by fraudulent promises or agreements. And we showed above (pp. 87–88) that a sort of tacit convention about using signs properly, appropriate to the occasion and the subject matter, accompanies every use of speech. He therefore who purports to say something to an enemy in all seriousness, while the enemy in his turn listens to him in the belief that he is telling him something in all seriousness, by that very fact contracts as it were the same obligation anew, despite the situation of enmity. It is quite wrong to class false stories with stratagems, since our author himself, following Grotius, specifically recognizes that in the former case a convention takes place, in the latter not. On both, see the references given above on p. 87. [I.10.9.ii]