Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life by Sissela Bok
Published 1978 · 368 pages · 82,000 words · about 7 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life to read?
Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life scores 43 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: 60 out of 100
- Philosophical vocabulary is precise but accessible, with moral concepts introduced carefully for non-specialists.
- Sentence structure: 54 out of 100
- Abstraction: 72 out of 100
- Abstract moral arguments are consistently grounded in concrete case studies from recognizable domains.
- Information density: 74 out of 100
- Dense ethical argument across multiple domains with cross-cutting principles applied consistently.
- Narrative indirection: 14 out of 100
- Bok states her framework plainly and applies it directly to each case category.
- Symbolic density: 12 out of 100
- Analytical philosophical prose with minimal figurative embellishment.
- Ironic distance: 14 out of 100
- Occasional irony toward rationalizations for lying; primarily earnest and rigorous.
- Resolution withholding: 12 out of 100
- Bok arrives at clear verdicts on each category of lying while acknowledging hard cases.
- Structural complexity: 34 out of 100
- Systematic case-category structure with cumulative argument and consistent ethical framework.
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 86 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.