Graduation Year

2025

Date of Submission

4-2025

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Philosophy and Public Affairs

Reader 1

Alex Rajczi

Abstract

In this essay, I analyze the ethics of deceptive interrogation in police procedure from a Kantian perspective. After evaluating several arguments that consider the permissibility of lying from either a consequentialist or deontological approach in the first chapter, I decide that a deontological framework is more useful in proving that lying by police in interrogation is impermissible. In Chapter 2, I closely analyze Samuel Duncan’s article “Why Police Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Lie to Suspects.” I also respond to Duncan’s argument that cases of outright lying in the Reid method are impermissible from a Kantian perspective and respond to two possible objections that justify the act of lying in particular circumstances. The focus on the third chapter is on one of the two objections: an argument given by Christine Korsgaard on why it is permissible to lie to a murderer at your door, a famous example from Immanuel Kant’s “On A Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropic Motives.” I endorse Duncan’s conclusion that the justification for lying to a murderer at the door does not justify the act of police lying in interrogation. Finally, I argue that, while some acts of lying can achieve their purpose in narrow circumstances, it is immoral for police to lie in interrogation because it depends on the exploitation of suspects’ ignorance or weaknesses.

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This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.

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