SOME ELEMENTARY DISTINCTIONS AMONG, AND COMMENTS CONCERNING, THE CONTROL QUESTION TEST (CQT) POLYGRAPHERS MANY PROBLEMS - A REPLY TO HONTS,KIRCHER AND RASKIN

Although the title of Honts et al.'s paper suggests that it will be a reply to the specific, logico-ethical problem of the CQT polygraph (th e Polygrapher's Dilemma), the text deals only tangentially with this l ogico-ethical problem, and engages, instead, in a diffuse discussion o f related, but different, ethical, methodological, and empirical probl ems of the CQT polygraph. This paper seeks to restore some clarity to the discussion by reminding us of certain basic distinctions among log ico-ethical, ethical, methodological, and empirical problems. In the l ight of these distinctions, the relevant literature, and the essential characteristics of the CQT (which continue to be obscured by the use of systematically misleading terminology), I stand by my claim that, o n the ethico-logical grounds (i.e. the CQT Polygrapher's Dilemma formu lated in my 1993 paper [1]), as well as ethical, methodological, and e vidential grounds (which have been detailed elsewhere), the CQT should be abandoned as a serious method of detecting deception, no matter ho w useful it may be to practitioners as an interrogatory prop.