Eh, this abuses the meaning of the word "lie", which I take to mean "a statement at variance with the mind"[0]. Used figuratively, it's fine, but you run into p

Eh, this abuses the meaning of the word "lie", which I take to mean "a statement at variance with the mind"[0]. Used figuratively, it's fine, but you run into problems when you begin to treat the word literally in this context. The first obvious problem is that non-human animals don't communicate in a manner that involves statements. Statements are propositional in nature, and you need language for propositions. According to Popper, there are four functions of language: the expressive function, the signaling function, the descriptive function, and the argumentative function[1]. Non-human animals are at best capable of the first two, and it is in the second two that propositions, and therefore concepts, make an appearance, and therefore it is by means of the latter two that lying takes place. If you don't have propositional content, you cannot have lies. > To conceal, is to lie. The second problem is that this is most definitely not true, and it follows from the definition I've given. This would mean that wearing clothing in public is an act of lying because we conceal our nudity, which is absurd. Not only is there no general entitlement to see anyone else nude, but concealment does not provide intentionally wrong information to deceive another. Concealment merely withholds information. (You could, however, make the argument, that plastic surgery or excessive makeup are a kind of deceit, because you are presenting yourself to others in a manner that you are not, and with the intent to deceive others into believing you are. It is an act of simulation with the intent to deceive that one has supposedly better physical fitness, health, fertility, youth, etc. than one actually has, though non-verbally, but certainly with intent and concept.) The third problem is that you assume animals intend to deceive, and that the animals that are supposedly deceived are in fact being deceived. But to be deceived, again, requires the capacity to form beliefs, and beliefs presuppose propositional content. Even having an image of the environment, coupled with what we might call instinctual responses (which include emotional states and appetites) to that environment perhaps mediated by that image, does not entail propositional content. These can be purely sensory. To assume that these behaviors entail propositional content is to anthropomorphize non-human animals. [0] https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09469a.htm https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09469a.htm [1] https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/04/animal-souls-part-i.html https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/04/animal-souls-part-i...