Equivocation

[pcg2]

Is equivocation a sin?

 

[presidentjlh]

…Equivocation? Isn’t that just a type of logical fallacy?

Please specify.

 

[pcg2]

Sorry about that. From Oxford Dictionary:

equivocate /'kwvket/

→ verb
[no obj.] use ambiguous language so as to conceal the truth or avoid committing oneself: the government have equivocated too often in the past.

• DERIVATIVES equivocation noun equivocator noun equivocatory adjective .
• ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense ‘use a word in more than one sense’): from late Latin aequivocat- ‘called by the same name’, from the verb aequivocare, from aequivocus (see equivocal).

 

[rpp]

Context please.

For example, am I:

1. Answering my wife’s question “Does this dress make me look fat?”
2. Talking to a police officer who just pulled me over for speeding?
3. Hiding Jews in my house in 1942 Holland and a Nazi comes to the door?

 

[pcg2]

Context please.

For example, am I:

1. Answering my wife’s question “Does this dress make me look fat?”

Your reply: “You look nice,” even though she does look fat – you are not directly answering her question, and you are being intentionally ambiguous. Yet you are not lying.

1. Talking to a police officer who just pulled me over for speeding?

You say you had something extremely important to go to – a monday night football game. To you MNF is extremely important, and so you are not technically lying.

1. Hiding Jews in my house in 1942 Holland and a Nazi comes to the door?

You say there are no Jews in the house – yet you are not referring to your house, even though you make it seem that way. Once again, you are not technically lying.

I guess what you are getting at is that it depends on the moral gravity of the situation, correct?