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  1. What’s the Good of Language? On the Moral Distinction between Lying and Misleading.Sam Berstler - 2019 - Ethics 130 (1):5-31.
    I give a new argument for the moral difference between lying and misleading. First, following David Lewis, I hold that conventions of truthfulness and trust fix the meanings of our language. These conventions generate fair play obligations. Thus, to fail to conform to the conventions of truthfulness and trust is unfair. Second, I argue that the liar, but not the misleader, fails to conform to truthfulness. So the liar, but not the misleader, does something unfair. This account entails that bald-faced (...)
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  2. The Structure of Open Secrets.Sam Berstler - forthcoming - Philosophical Review.
    In conversation, we often do not acknowledge what we jointly know to be true. My aim in this paper is to identify a distinctive kind of non-acknowledgment norm, open secrecy, and analyze how such norms constrain our speech. I argue that open secrecy norms are structurally different from other everyday non-acknowledgment norms. Open secrecy norms iterate: when p is an open secret, then there’s a norm not to acknowledge that p, and this norm is itself an open secret. The non-acknowledgment (...)
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  3. Bad Question!Sam Berstler - 2023 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 51 (4):413-449.
    Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 51, Issue 4, Page 413-449, Fall 2023.
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  4. Conversation’s Seedy Underbelly. [REVIEW]Sam Berstler - 2024 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 21 (3-4):433-444.
    I provide an opinionated discussion of two recent volumes on the structure, ethics, and politics of bad conversations. In Just Words (2019), Mary Kate McGowan argues that despite our best intentions, we sometimes inadvertently bring oppressive norms to bear on our interactions. In Grandstanding (2020), Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke argue that the human desire to cut a good moral figure before others systematically distorts moral discourse. Though their authors have different political outlooks, both books converge on a similar theme: (...)
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  5. Conversational Pressure: Normativity in Speech Exchanges[REVIEW]Sam Berstler - 2022 - Philosophical Review 131 (3):378-382.
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