Is not giving the whole truth a lie of omission?

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/u/ArchVelocity

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For context, as I was spending my time in the shower internally debating about whether a “lie through omission” is truly a lie, I decided to ask reddit, as the civilised people that you all are, please explain whether you believe it is or not.

Getting a quick few questions first before putting your answers down I will say that as of the time of writing this post, I believe it’s not truly a lie.

That is to say, omitting details which can cause a mistake or misconception isn’t a lie.

My reasoning is, at its core a lie is to spread false information. In this case you aren’t spreading false information, you are instead spreading true information whilst not saying the whole truth.

This can cause to a problem of misunderstanding from the opposite party. However that isn’t entirely your fault, only partially, the other part is theirs for misunderstanding.

Anyway I came up with a few questions I feel should be asked before I get bombarded with declarations that I’m wrong.

First, if person A doesn’t say the whole information to Person B, and that person understands everything correctly, is it a lie of omission?

If it’s based on intent instead, if Person A tells Person B something that they believe to be complete and later Person B comes to them and explains their plans based off of the incomplete information, and Person A has just recently come to realise he hadn’t explained everything. If Person A doesn’t say anything here, is it a lie of omission?

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