I’ve previously contemplated the virtue of courage a bit here. Today, let’s ponder honesty.
Bullshit vs. Honesty
It is fairly obvious that honesty is not the same thing as saying true things. There are many ways to use truth dishonestly. One such way is referred to as “humbug”, which Max Black defined thus:
HUMBUG: deceptive misrepresentation, short of lying, especially by pretentious word or deed, of somebody’s own thoughts, feelings, or attitudes.
The modern version of this is “bullshit”, which Harry Frankfurt describes in On Bullshit. To a first approximation Frankfurt’s bullshit is the same as Black’s humbug — but Frankfurt has some refinements on offer. Lying and bullshit are different in that lying is focused on truth (in that the liar wants to steer people away from truth) while bullshit is orthogonal to truth (the bullshitter cares about getting what they want, and doesn’t care what the bullshittee believes). Apparently, our culture has a lot of bullshit:
One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it.
…
Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about. Thus the production of bullshit is stimulated whenever a person’s obligations or opportunities to speak about some topic are more excessive than his knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that topic.
Now let’s say that bullshit is contrary to honesty. One way to increase honesty in the world is to decrease bullshit. To my eyes, the following anti-bullshit recipe is suggested by Frankfurt’s account above:
Decrease the amount of bullshit you speak by:
Knowing more.
Not being put into situations where you are required to talk about something you don’t know about.
Knowing more seems straightforward (yes, let’s all go and do that, knowing more is both fun and virtuous). How can you avoid situations where you are required to talk about something you don’t know? Some ideas:
Surround yourself with people who emphasize transparent ignorance as a virtue.
Tsvi Benson-Tilsen’s frame of graceful deference (here and here) may help. In short, the idea here is to say “I believe X because Y believes X, and I defer to Y on these matters.” We can’t all be experts on everything. We also don’t want to give the appearance of false independent consensus by deferring in your head but not with your mouth.
Don’t have your bank account depend on maintaining kayfabe, or on making your peers and customers believe false things.
Internalize the externality by punishing yourself for bullshitting.
Noble Lies vs Honesty
Plato believed that truth is the same as the Good. Surprisingly though, he did believe that lying is permissible. In Book III of the Republic, Socrates says that rulers may lie for the benefit of the city, but that citizens must not lie to rulers.
Falsehood is useful to men as a kind of medicine.
Lies in the soul (e.g. ignorance, confusion, self-deception, avoiding philosophy) are always bad, as they draw you away from the Good. Lies in words are permissible, particularly when they:
Correct existing ignorance (e.g. teaching physics students incorrect models of the atom).
Prevent harm (e.g. lying to a madman to get them to put down a cleaver).
Promote social harmony.
This last one is the category of noble lies. Plato’s most famous noble lie is the “myth of the metals” wherein the three-tiered class system of his ideal Republic is buttressed by a fabricated mythology. It says that all children were born from the Earth, and their souls were mixed with different metals:
Those mixed with gold are the rulers and philosopher-kings
Those mixed with silver are the soldiers
Those mixed with bronze are the farmers, craftsmen, and laborers
Sometimes children are born with different metals than their parents, allowing social mobility. But most learn to be content with their station, promoting stability and social meaning-making.
I personally reject this lie (we all do, we don’t need feudalism, obviously), but it is plausible to me that noble lies are justified in principle, and that there are modern noble lies worth defending. I am a simple utilitarian. Societies with the most happiness are best. It seems plausible that happiness-maximizing societies believe in consensus-preserving social mythology which are worth defending because they assuage some element of human nature that is otherwise naturally geared towards value destruction.
One of the noble lies I believe in is the equality between groups. I do not think large, salient social groups can believe that they are inferior by nature to another large, salient social group. I also do not believe that the superior group will be able to accurately assess their own superiority over time. To my imagination, this is the road to genocide and class warfare. Much better, in my view, is to insist on equality as a basic value. This runs counter to bullshit-minimization, as propping up this noble lie does necessitate quite a lot of bullshit.
Strategic Lying
Obviously, warfare necessitates lying. A virtuous person may need to go to war. Therefore, any theory of virtue that says that a virtuous person must never lie is clearly proving too much.
Most believe, as I do, that proportionality matters in war (I believe that many wars are justified, but I do not believe that it is appropriate to cause 100,000 enemy deaths in response to 1 allied death). Does proportionality limit how much lying may be done in war? It seems to me that an infinite amount of lies (to your enemy) is permitted during warfare, if the lying is of a certain type (e.g. not telling your enemy what you are doing to try and kill them). Lying damages the institution of honesty, and so it seems that any lie can harm the norm. But during war, this is shielded off. We’re already killing each other.
Is it plausible that any marginal lie during warfare can cause lasting damage to the institution of honesty (which is not shielded off by the act of killing itself)? I suppose there are:
Lying about how you treat prisoners of war now will cause harm to future prisoners of war.
Entering a treaty and then strategically pulling out of it undermines future peace efforts.
Lying to your enemy sometimes requires lying to your own citizens, which potentially damages domestic institutional trust.
So there are strong reasons to not do wartime lies like these. Nevertheless, (as stated earlier) it seems to me that you are permitted to do unbounded amounts of lying of a certain type.