A problem I just ran into while working on a paper:

In philosophy of language and linguistics, Paul Grice is known for proposing the idea that conversation is governed by cooperative maxims–Steven Pinker actually said that the paper in which he did this is one of the most important ever. One of these maxims is relevance. What exactly does this mean? It seems like much of our conversation happens on topics that aren’t relevant to anything, and sometimes we convey useful information without being conscious of it: gossip can be useful for navigating social interactions, but plenty of people gossip for fun (this is the only purpose served by celebrity gossip).

The relevance to my paper is that I’m writing about honesty, and wanted to say something about the idea of a “sin of omission.” I initially proposed that to commit a sin of omission is to omit relevant information for some ulterior motive. But without a clear notion of what relevance is, this is very hard to apply–what is the relevant sense of relevance, what considerations are ulterior?

An alternative is that sins of omission are only such when they involve deception. Possible counter-example: not telling someone who repels others with bad BO that he has bad BO, for fear of causing a fuss. I’m initially inclined to say that this isn’t a deception, and James Mahon’s definition of deception (see previous link) provides an abundance of reasons why: if the person isn’t reflecting at all on his BO, it’s not clear whether he has any attitude at all towards the proposition “I have bad BO.” Also, it seems that if he does have a false belief, the continuation of that belief isn’t caused by anyone, even though there may be many people who could easily intervene. Therefore, it seems that there is a sin of omission without deception.

Solutions to my bafflement would be much appreciated. Tentatively, though, I’m sticking to the Gricean solution with details unspecified, and counting on people to know what I’m saying.