The previous essay gave some examples of the motives, attitudes, skills, and
priorities for attention and concern that might go into definitions of three
specific virtues "courage," "kindness," and "love."
In this chapter I want to treat the specific virtue of honesty, introducing here
also some elements of Socratic reasoning as applied to this virtue of honesty.
Defining honesty might at first seem a simple affair: Honesty
can be defined as "telling the truth." Being an honest person is just a matter
of always following the general rule "always tell the truth," and conversely
also the rule "never tell a lie."
Defining honesty in terms of a general and invariable rule
like this assumes a "deductive" model of moral reasoning. Deductive moral
reasoning tries to discover general rules that we can be certain about. Once we
learn such rules, moral reasoning just consists in applying the rules to all
particular situations that we encounter in life, a very simple matter in the
case of the general rule "always tell the truth."
Immanuel Kant advocated a deductive model of moral reasoning,
and he also thought that "always tell the truth" is an invariable rule to be
followed in all situations. Deductive moral reasoning seems intuitively
attractive to many non-philosophers as well -- for example the Ten Commandments
appears to many people to provide basic general rules, so that being a good
person consists in just applying these rules and following them in every
particular situation in life. Religious believers typically rely on their
religion, sacred scriptures interpreted by clergy, to give them authoritative
behavioral rules. Kant and other philosophers of the European Enlightenment
wanted to replace the clergy as social legislators, but still assume that
deciding on the rules is a matter for philosophical experts.
Moral reasoning in the Socratic mode is very different. It is
not deductive but inductive. Instead of assuming that general rules are what are
most reliable, it assumes that general rules are always what is to be
questioned. They are to be questioned by individuals in the light of each
individual's direct perceptions of what is admirable and not admirable in
particular situations. These individual direct perceptions in concrete cases are
the most reliable source of moral knowledge. In cases where these direct
perceptions conflict with general rules, this is a sign of some weakness and
inadequacy in the general rule, which needs to be revised.
Inductive Socratic reasoning asks each individual to actively
seek out or make up cases in which her perceptions conflict with general
principles she thinks she believes in. Such cases are not that hard to imagine
in the case of honesty. People who have a general belief in the rules "tell the
truth," and "never lie," often encounter cases where they themselves think the
rule does not apply.
First, here are some cases where I personally think, as
probably many people do, that it is OK to tell falsehoods, sometimes known as
"white lies":
- Deceiving someone to get them to a surprise birthday party.
- Telling children that Santa Claus brings gifts at
Christmas.
- Telling an intrusive salesperson that my exhausted and
sleeping wife is not home.
- Misleading a murderer about the whereabouts of his victim.
- Giving Ann a false reason why I invited Mary rather than
Ann to accompany me on a trip, to avoid hurting Ann's feelings.
- Boosting a child's confidence by praising her scribbling as
great art.
- Being a spy in a foreign country, or a member of the FBI
infiltrating the Mafia, where one's entire life is a lie.
- Making sure an enemy gets false information about the place
of a planned invasion (as General Eisenhower did in planning the D-Day invasion
at Normandy in WW2)
Secondly, here are some examples where "telling the truth" is clearly not
admirable:
- Telling a murderer the whereabouts of his intended victim.
- Telling Susan's enemies some secrets she told you about
herself in confidence.
- Spreading malicious gossip.
- A newspaper reporter reports nothing but true facts about
some events, but carefully selects those truths in a way that gives a very
biased and misleading impression about what actually happened.
- A used-car salesman tells only true facts about a car, but
selects these truths, and omits other truths, in such a way as to give a false
overall impression.
- A cynical advertiser indirectly gives a false impression
about how his product will improve people's lives, but does so without directly
telling any lies.
All these examples could be regarded as just a list of
exceptions, leaving "tell the truth" untouched as a general rule safely followed
in most life situations. But here we have to remember the ultimate purpose of
S/P reasoning. To engage in S/P reasoning is to play the part of a spiritually
ambitious person, someone who wants not only to meet her minimal obligations to
others in social interactions, but to formulate models of outstanding personal
excellence -- to make her life a great life by coming as close as she can to
models of moral perfection she conceives in my mind.
Why formulate perfect models? If I want to become an
excellent guitar player, I want to imitate the most excellent guitar virtuosos I
know about. I need to be sure that the closer I come to resembling some
particular model, the more excellent I will invariably become. This is what the
above cases show is not true about the rule "tell the truth." They are
"counterexamples" to this rule. Counterexamples to this rule show that I can't
be sure that following this rule ever more consistently will invariably make me
a more excellent person. In Plato's imagery, "tell the truth," as a rule for
concrete context, refers to a changing mixture of some things very good and
admirable, and some things not good or admirable. He is after a concept of
virtue that precisely represents something only and always purely good.
This brings up an additional set of considerations, having to
do with internal motivations for telling or not telling the truth. It is
obviously possible to "tell truths" for bad motives, as in the case of spreading
malicious gossip -- truths about a person's life told in out of malicious desire
to ruin her reputation. And it is also obviously possible to tell falsehoods out
of good motivations -- to get a person to a surprise birthday party, or mislead
a murderer about the whereabouts of her victim.
If this is a discussion about obligations toward others in society, then motives
perhaps do not matter that much. What we care about is that people get treated
by others as they deserve to be treated. If someone treats others well and does
not mistreat them, the motives for their social behavior is not so important. We
could perhaps make up a set of somewhat more complicated rules telling a person
when truth-telling is obligatory and when it is OK not to tell the truth.
But S/P reasoning about virtue is not about obligations in
one's behavior toward others. Someone engaged in this reasoning must play the
part of a person interested not just in changing her behavior, but changing who
she is, making herself a more excellent person by changing her inmost character,
consisting of the habitual motivations and concerns determining her most basic
attitudes toward others.
Consider Jill, whose job is selling used cars on commission.
A few years ago, Jill frequently lied to her customers about
the cars, telling them things that were not true in order to get them to pay
more than the cars were worth, to increase her commission.
Then she began feeling guilty about this, so she stopped
telling them lies about the cars. She began telling them only things that were
true. But her motives and attitudes toward her customers were still the same, to
increase her commission by manipulating customers into paying a good price for
the cars. So she carefully selected which truths to tell about the cars, and
carefully omitted others, to achieve this same goal. She got very good at this,
so she could get the same results she used to get, without telling any outright
lies.
There has been some change in Jill's behavior -- she no
longer tells outright lies about the cars. But her basic character has not
changed. This is another kind of "counterexample" to the phrase "tell the truth"
as a definition of honesty as an internal virtue.
Consider another scenario: Susan, who also sells used cars,
has always been a completely self-interested but very gullible religious
believer. She too was frequently lying to her customers, until she fell under
the sway of Pastor Liz. Pastor Liz told her that she would burn in hell if she
continued lying to her customers, but would be rewarded in heaven if she told
them the truth about the cars. So she stops lying and tells them only truths,
but this represents no change at all in her basic character as someone
self-interested and gullible. Pastor Liz is replaced by Pastor Jane, who tells
her that her reward in heaven will be proportionate to the money she gives to
the church -- it doesn't matter how she earns it. She returns to lying to her
customers to increase her commission so she can donate more money and get even
greater rewards in heaven.
One could vary this story in a number of ways:
- Susan stops lying because her mother told her too, and she
is always obedient to her mother. She will return to lying if her mother tells
her to.
- Susan has a crush on her Kantian philosophy professor who
tells her lying is wrong, so she stops lying in order to please him. If he
changed his philosophical beliefs, she would follow these other beliefs instead.
- Susan is very susceptible to peer pressure. When she hangs
around with people who strongly object to any kind of lying, she stops lying to
her customers. When she starts hanging around with other dishonest used car
salesmen who brag about fleecing their customers, she starts lying again.
These are more counterexamples showing that the general rule
"tell the truth" is ambiguous when it comes to true internal goodness. Again, if
our only concern is that people meet their obligations to be truthful with each
other, we should just say that in those periods when Susan is being truthful she
is meeting her obligations. It doesn't really matter why she is doing it, we
only want her to be more consistent about it. But if Susan became an aspiring
Platonist, concerned about cultivating moral excellence in her own character for
her own reasons, then it does greatly matter what motivates her truth-telling.
This would turn her attention to defining "honesty," not in
terms of external behavior, but in terms of basic habitual motivations, habitual
attitudes, and habitual priorities for attention and concern.
One way of thinking about this is to think of contrasts --
not contrasts in types of behavior, but contrasts having to do with habitual
internal attitudes and motivations. What kinds of habitual motives and attitudes
caused Jill to lie to her customers before? "Manipulative" is one word I would
think of, for describing the basic attitude toward her customers causing her to
lie. This attitude determined her priorities for attention and concern. When a
customer walks on the lot, where does her attention go, what is she most
concerned about when she starts interacting? In her manipulative mode, her
attention goes to discovering facts about this person which will allow her to
take most advantage of him. Her top concern will be then to use this knowledge
to say things that will induce him to buy as expensive a used car she thinks he
can be persuaded to buy. Suppose she has done this so much that these
motivations, attitudes, and priorities for attention and concern have become
second-nature to her, part of her basic character, which spills over into other
areas of her life as well, determining her spontaneous way of interacting with
practically everyone. She not only says things that are not true on occasion,
"being dishonest" is part of her character, part of her habitual way of being in
the world and relating to others.
We might then define "honesty" as the virtue that is the
contrasting opposite to these attitudes. What exactly is not good about a
"manipulative" attitude? One possible answer: It aims to rob individuals of
their ability to make their own decisions for their own good. It does not
respect their autonomy. Jill's lying manipulates people to get them to do what
she wants for her own good.
The opposite virtue, directly contrasting with a manipulative
attitude, would consist in an habitual attitude of putting oneself in service to
other people's decision-making -- respecting their autonomy and actively
contributing to its exercise. This would give Jill different priorities for
attention and concern when a customer walks on the lot. She would pay most
attention to gathering information about what this person needs, wants, and can
afford. She would draw on her knowledge of the available cars and select those
facts about the cars that she thinks would be most useful to this person in
making his own decisions. Her top concern would be to be of service to this
person's own decision-making process.
This kind of definition of "honesty" in terms of motives,
attitudes, and priorities for attention and concern, is the kind Susan would
need if she wants to cultivate honesty as a trait deeply rooted in her own
character. This would require, not just a change in behavior through will-power,
but a long-term effort to make these motives, attitudes, and concerns an
habitual part of her makeup as a person. The aim would be to eventually become
the kind of person who does not have to think about rules, but who spontaneously
approaches all of her customers with the desire to put all of her resources in
service to their own decision-making, helping them to make the best decision
they can in their own interest. This obviously goes far beyond meeting Susan's
minimal obligations to others, avoiding conduct that is morally wrong. It goes
far beyond just telling nothing but truths and refraining from telling
falsehoods.
If Jill wanted to engage in long-term efforts to make the
virtue of honesty a deeply ingrained part of her character and way of relating
to her customers, this would mean also developing certain related skills. Skills
in this case would involve knowledge of cars, but also skill in selecting which
facts are most relevant to a given customer, and conversational skills learning
about the desires and needs of her customers, and in guiding them through an
intelligent decision-making process.
*****
When we refocus our attention on "honesty" as a set of internal attitudes,
motives, and skills rather than simply external behavior "telling truths," one
thing to notice is that different attitudes, and different kinds of
truth-telling come into play in different situations. Putting one's resources in
service to another's decision-making is an admirable attitude when it comes to
the relation between a used-car salesman and her customers, determining which
truths to tell and how to tell them. Other kinds of "being truthful" seem to be
called for in different kinds of situations.
Consider truthfulness in Jill's relation to her husband. Why
is truthfulness important in this kind of relationship? What causes spouses to
sometimes not be honest with each other, and what can go wrong in such cases?
Here we are dealing with an entirely different situation, calling for admirable
attitudes toward the other person much different from the attitudes of a
used-car salesman toward her customers.
Partly we are dealing with trust, that kind of trust as part
of an intimate bond. This bond can be damaged when partners hide things from one
another, causing distrust. Truthfulness here also has to do with openness toward
one another, communicating about private feelings, telling the kinds of truths
about oneself that one would not share with the general public, or customers at
a used-car dealership.
Another entirely different situation in which truthfulness is
important, happens when an individual has done something wrong, and is tempted
to lie to avoid taking responsibility for the wrongdoing. Here "telling the
truth" would be a manifestation of yet another admirable attitude, taking
responsibility for one's actions.
It turns out, unexpectedly perhaps, that when considered as
an internal virtue, the word "honesty" may not really be the name of one virtue,
but several.