#18 - Sanderson intentionally did not tell his cousin

[Morgan2cats]

Hi PowerScore,

Maybe I’m overthinking, but please correct me: I feel this argument is about whether Sanderson told his cousin, ‘I overheard someone talking about bad news,’ or whether he left out the fact that he overheard it. Therefore, I think whether Sanderson believes the bad news itself is not important. Even he doesn't believe that, he could still lie to his cousin by "No I didn't hear any thing".

And because of this, I don't know why C is correct.

[Morgan2cats]

Hi PowerScore,

Maybe I’m overthinking, but please correct me: I feel this argument is about whether Sanderson told his cousin, ‘I overheard someone talking about bad news,’ or whether he left out the fact that he overheard it. Therefore, I think whether Sanderson believes the bad news itself is not important. Even he doesn't believe that, he could still lie to his cousin by "No I didn't hear any thing".

And because of this, I don't know why C is correct.

Sorry maybe I didn't explain my thoughts clearly. In another word, I thought even with (C), Sanderson is still intentionally misleading his cousin, because what matters is his purpose in withholding the information, not whether he believes the information.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Morgan,

You wrote:

In another word, I thought even with (C), Sanderson is still intentionally misleading his cousin, because what matters is his purpose in withholding the information, not whether he believes the information.

You're right that his purpose in withholding the information is what matters, but whether or not Sanderson believed the information is directly relevant to his purpose.

It may be easier to imagine a different hypothetical in which Sanderson did tell his cousin, "I believe that the factory is going to close." Now, if Sanderson does not in fact believe that the factory is going to close, then telling his cousin that he does believe the factory is going to close would be lying and would presumably be done with the intention to mislead his cousin for some reason. However, if Sanderson does in fact believe that the factory is going to close, then telling his cousin this would not be lying and would not be done with the intention to mislead his cousin (even if it turns out that Sanderson's belief is incorrect and the factory does not close). In this situation, his purpose presumably would be to share information that he believes is correct in order to inform his cousin of helpful information rather than to mislead his cousin.

For the same reason (based on the logic in the argument that failing to state something is equivalent to stating something if they have the same intention, i.e. to mislead), whether Sanderson believes that the factory would in fact be closing directly impacts his intention for not telling his cousin. If Sanderson believes that the factory would in fact be closing and chooses not to tell his cousin (knowing that his cousin would assume that the factory would remain open), this arguably indicates that Sanderson is in fact trying to mislead his cousin because Sanderson's intention for withholding the information is presumably to keep his cousin under what Sanderson believes is an incorrect view. However, if Sanderson does not believe that the factory would in fact be closing, then this intention to mislead is not present, because Sanderson shares his cousin's belief that the factory will remain open.

Put more simply, there is no reason (based on the moral reasoning in the argument) why Sanderson would need to tell his cousin something that he heard if he does not believe what he heard is true.