Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life by Sissela Bok
Published 1978 · 368 pages · 82,000 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism, Nonfiction
How hard is Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life to read?
Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life scores 37 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 38 out of 100
- Bok writes in plain, precise English with a few philosophical terms such as 'deception', 'veracity' and 'justification'. The reading is closer to the Atomic Habits end of accessibility than to Moby-Dick's specialized diction.
- Sentence structure: 40 out of 100
- Her sentences are clear and well organized, with moderate subordination when she summarizes Kant or Augustine. The prose never reaches the nested density of Jamesian or Hegelian writing.
- Abstraction: 58 out of 100
- The argument is ethical theory, but Bok anchors it in cases from medicine, law, diplomacy and research. Each principle is tested on a concrete situation, which keeps it more grounded than pure philosophy.
- Information density: 52 out of 100
- Each chapter packs definitions, historical positions and case studies, though the pace stays measured. It is denser than a self-help book and lighter than a systematic treatise.
How Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life is regarded
Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life holds a literary regard score of 65 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.