Comment by shard
5 years ago
To deceive someone is to tell them an untruth for personal gain. There are cases where an untruth is told for the greater good, or for the good of the listener. In those cases, there is a divergence between lie and deception.
I never got that connotation from the word 'deceive', I thought it just meant misleading someone, not necessarily for your own gain. Furthermore, I grew up christian and was never told all lying was for personal gain.
To me there is a difference between mislead and deceive. Deceive has a stronger negative intention behind it. Consider someone saying "I was misled" versus "I was deceived".
I made no connotations between what I wrote and Christianity / all lying is for personal gain, so we can skip that part of the discussion.
> To deceive someone is to tell them an untruth for personal gain.
No, it's to cause someone to believe something that is not true.
Personal gain is a common goal served by deceit, not part of it's essential character.
Causing someone to believe something that is not true is too weak of a definition for deceive. Consider the difference between telling someone a falsehood versus deceiving someone. There is a malicious intent behind deception, which is not present in falsehood.
> Causing someone to believe something that is not true is too weak of a definition for deceive
No, it's literally the definition of the word.
> Consider the difference between telling someone a falsehood versus deceiving someone.
The difference is intent; if you don't know that it's false, or you don't intend it to be believed, it's not deception.
> There is a malicious intent behind deception,
It certainly is a matter of intent, but aside from the sense in which a false belief itself is a harm, and any intentional element of harm even if not a net harm is “malice”, I wouldn't say it is necessary malicious.
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