Why should people speak the truth? Why should they lie? Do people speak the truth? Is there such a thing as truth? The last question is rather pointless, and we’ll leave it to the post-modernists to grapple with. People do speak the truth, and they also lie. Do we have any understanding of what the conditions are under which they do one as opposed to the other?
Much of modern pragmatic theory, the theory of language use, begins with the assumption that people speak the truth. This is stipulated as a primitive of our communicative machinery, and it is on the basis of this assumption that algorithms are constructed for computing inferences based on speech acts (such as the inference that if I say “Mary ate some of the pie,” you conclude that Mary didn’t eat all of the pie).
On the other hand, work in game theory, in particular on various kinds of “signalling games,” asks a more fundamental question: Given agents with various goals who find themselves in the strange predicament of having to communicate, under what conditions will honest signalling arise? The answer on offer seems to be that honest signalling will arise to the extent that the agents’ interests are aligned. Thus, when applied to certain kinds of games of information exchange that humans play, such as when we’re really trying to exchange information with our interlocutor and get them to come to believe the meaning encoded in our sentence, truthful speech is what we should expect. It is no wonder, then, that linguists and philosophers have been inclined to posit truthful speech as a primitive, for the kinds of language games that have tended to interest them most have been coordination games of information exchange (such as when you ask me how much of the pie Mary ate, and I tell you that she ate some of the pie, intending to get you to believe that Mary ate some but not all of the pie).
However, it seems that the theory doesn’t exactly apply to humans. Experimental results suggest that humans tell the truth more than they “should,” where by “should” I mean “should according to game theory.” In other words, even when it’s not in the agents’ best interest to speak truthfully, they will, as if driven by some deeply rooted impulse to tell the truth. But people do of course lie. However, as it stands, the conditions under which truthful speech will or will not arise are not well-understood. What is clear is that human communication is not guided solely by any narrow construal of “self-interested” utility maximization. But that is to be expected, since human motivations are diverse and plentiful.
However, what is true of humans need not be true of inanimate agents, such as firms or other organizations. Consider, for instance, the corporate media, such as the New York Times. Can we understand when they will or will not speak the truth? Since the motivations of such firms are simple, guided only by the need to maximize profit, the game theoretic apparatus can be more readily applied to them. Since most of the New York Times’ profits are driven by advertising, the game-theoretic results suggest that when the needs of the advertisers clash with the need to speak the truth, truth will find itself going the way of the dodo. And this is indeed what we find, to a large extent. Thus, we can expect a self-generated, self-enforcing, decentralized propaganda system to emerge solely from the fact that large media firms are driven by the profit motive, with profit generated from advertising. As such, the game theoretic results support Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky’s “propaganda model,” which suggests that propaganda in the Western media emerges out of market forces, and not through some centralized decision maker imposing informational restrictions on what the public can and cannot see.
George Orwell had this idea well over sixty years ago. He once wrote: “Is the English press honest or dishonest? At normal times it is deeply dishonest. All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news.”
There is of course a lesson to be learned here, namely, if we, the public, want truthful, reliable information sources to inform us about the goings-on in this nasty world of ours, these sources should be stripped as much as possible from motives that interfere with the emergence of truth. Another way of saying the same thing is that there should be an incentive for an information source to be truthful, in that the extent of its utility is derived from the extent of its truthfulness. A media system designed to sell human brains to advertisers is destined to become a liar from the beginning. Its fate is sealed from the get-go, a rather unfortunate thing, for no one wants to be a liar. The liar draws the venom of all for having abused us in such a vile way. Surely, media firms deserve a better fate than that, as does the public, whose thirst for truthful, reliable information remains unquenched.
Truthful Speech
April 8, 2007 at 3:08 pm · Filed under General Science, Linguistics, Socio-Political Commentary, Uncategorized
Why should people speak the truth? Why should they lie? Do people speak the truth? Is there such a thing as truth? The last question is rather pointless, and we’ll leave it to the post-modernists to grapple with. People do speak the truth, and they also lie. Do we have any understanding of what the conditions are under which they do one as opposed to the other?
Much of modern pragmatic theory, the theory of language use, begins with the assumption that people speak the truth. This is stipulated as a primitive of our communicative machinery, and it is on the basis of this assumption that algorithms are constructed for computing inferences based on speech acts (such as the inference that if I say “Mary ate some of the pie,” you conclude that Mary didn’t eat all of the pie).
On the other hand, work in game theory, in particular on various kinds of “signalling games,” asks a more fundamental question: Given agents with various goals who find themselves in the strange predicament of having to communicate, under what conditions will honest signalling arise? The answer on offer seems to be that honest signalling will arise to the extent that the agents’ interests are aligned. Thus, when applied to certain kinds of games of information exchange that humans play, such as when we’re really trying to exchange information with our interlocutor and get them to come to believe the meaning encoded in our sentence, truthful speech is what we should expect. It is no wonder, then, that linguists and philosophers have been inclined to posit truthful speech as a primitive, for the kinds of language games that have tended to interest them most have been coordination games of information exchange (such as when you ask me how much of the pie Mary ate, and I tell you that she ate some of the pie, intending to get you to believe that Mary ate some but not all of the pie).
However, it seems that the theory doesn’t exactly apply to humans. Experimental results suggest that humans tell the truth more than they “should,” where by “should” I mean “should according to game theory.” In other words, even when it’s not in the agents’ best interest to speak truthfully, they will, as if driven by some deeply rooted impulse to tell the truth. But people do of course lie. However, as it stands, the conditions under which truthful speech will or will not arise are not well-understood. What is clear is that human communication is not guided solely by any narrow construal of “self-interested” utility maximization. But that is to be expected, since human motivations are diverse and plentiful.
However, what is true of humans need not be true of inanimate agents, such as firms or other organizations. Consider, for instance, the corporate media, such as the New York Times. Can we understand when they will or will not speak the truth? Since the motivations of such firms are simple, guided only by the need to maximize profit, the game theoretic apparatus can be more readily applied to them. Since most of the New York Times’ profits are driven by advertising, the game-theoretic results suggest that when the needs of the advertisers clash with the need to speak the truth, truth will find itself going the way of the dodo. And this is indeed what we find, to a large extent. Thus, we can expect a self-generated, self-enforcing, decentralized propaganda system to emerge solely from the fact that large media firms are driven by the profit motive, with profit generated from advertising. As such, the game theoretic results support Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky’s “propaganda model,” which suggests that propaganda in the Western media emerges out of market forces, and not through some centralized decision maker imposing informational restrictions on what the public can and cannot see.
George Orwell had this idea well over sixty years ago. He once wrote: “Is the English press honest or dishonest? At normal times it is deeply dishonest. All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news.”
There is of course a lesson to be learned here, namely, if we, the public, want truthful, reliable information sources to inform us about the goings-on in this nasty world of ours, these sources should be stripped as much as possible from motives that interfere with the emergence of truth. Another way of saying the same thing is that there should be an incentive for an information source to be truthful, in that the extent of its utility is derived from the extent of its truthfulness. A media system designed to sell human brains to advertisers is destined to become a liar from the beginning. Its fate is sealed from the get-go, a rather unfortunate thing, for no one wants to be a liar. The liar draws the venom of all for having abused us in such a vile way. Surely, media firms deserve a better fate than that, as does the public, whose thirst for truthful, reliable information remains unquenched.
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