Honesty has always been touted as a virtuous trait, yet few seem to really value the ability in themselves or others. This should change.
Be Honest
The downside for being honest is only ever short-term and minimal, if there is any downside at all. A lot of the time, if another person is involved they will be quite appreciative of your honesty. For example, telling someone that they have a bit of food on their cheek, may be a little awkward (short term negative) but they will thank you for telling them and will feel better knowing they are now going to spend the rest of the night without food on their cheek.
What if your boss does things that you find annoying or downright stupid and inefficient? Should you tell them? Yes, you should. If you tell them 3 things can happen.
- They fix it and you are both better off.
- They don’t fix it, think you’re out of step and fire you.
- They do nothing, which can only happen a finite number of times before it becomes a 1. or 2.
All of these are at worst an indifferent outcome. If 1. it’s an obvious positive outcome. If 2. occurs and you are fired, you no longer have to work for an incompetent boss and can move somewhere else to make the most of your productivity.
I should note that sometimes it’s better to err on the side of caution. Not everyone is as excited about the idea of truth and honesty as you are. Perhaps they are more invested in their illusory ego. So, if you really need to hold down a job, then don’t do anything to threaten that. As you slowly get to know what kind of person someone is, you will learn how far you can push the honesty.
If you’re going to be honest, you must be willing to receive honesty. You must realise that in Locke’s words a madman is someone “reasoning correctly from erroneous premises”. That is if you go through life without correcting the premises on which your whole life is built on, you are mad. The same applies when being honest to yourself. You should always strive to be as honest as possible to yourself. If you are acting on erroneous premises you could be doing the equivalent of putting wheels on a boat. You will simply be focussing your attention on the wrong things.
A warning: Sometimes being good at receiving honesty, no matter how raw, can be dangerous. You are sometimes liable to give honesty before you’ve sussed someone out, which can cause conflict or emotional harm. While this is a warning, it’s not to discourage. After all, you cannot control someone’s emotions. All you can do is be honest, they can do with the correct information as they like.
A massive, and arguably the biggest, component of being honest is saying “I don’t know”. “I don’t know” is a phrase under-utilised in today’s vernacular. People are always trying to prove they are smarter than others would have otherwise thought. I’m guilty of it myself. Saying “I don’t know” makes it much easier for others to perform another act of honesty, described next.
Assume Honesty
Assuming honesty is the one aspect of the all encompassing “honesty” which people apply the least. Exemplifying with a quick example: If a friend cancels plans at the last second because their dog is sick and needs to be taken to the vet, I’m proposing that it’s best to assume that what they have said is true, to the extent of their knowledge. That is, the other person is not being deceitful.
The obvious counterpoint to always assuming honesty is that you can easily be taken advantage of. If the salesman wants to rip you off, it’s easy if you’re assuming they’re being honest. However, you should only assume honesty initially. If given substantial evidence to doubt their sincerity, then you should begin to doubt their sincerity. Be wary, if someone cancels plans thrice, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are lying. Maybe they are just very unlucky. If doubt arises, it is only to be doubt. It’s not about assuming dishonesty, but about being open to the possibility that it is dishonesty. That is until you can be certain of either.
Taking someone for their word also relieves you of any potential responsibility for wrong doing in the situation that: Someone has told you x, you act on information x because you have no reason to doubt the veracity of x, but x is actually wrong. There is nothing you could have done to change the outcome. The person who told you x, however, has misled you. While you took action on the information, the fault lies on the information sharer. Maybe next time they will just say “I don’t know”.
Lie
While 99.99% of the time, it’s best to be honest. There are a few cases where being honest can get you in ethical trouble. This is when you’re faced with someone of evil intent. If you were hiding Anne Frank in a secret annex and a Nazi officer asked you to reveal where she was, if you were a deontologist who subscribed to always being honest, you’d be a terrible person. This situation can still be framed in a way that you remain “honest”. To do this, “honesty” cannot be defined as “always telling the truth” or “not lying”. It should instead be defined as a strict adherence to one’s moral principles, one of which is telling the truth. In this context, the latter conflicts with your other moral principles (I hope) so telling the truth is not the right course of action. Be honest to yourself before being honest to others.
A classic situation you might point out now is something like telling your *girlfriend “that dress does make your arse look big”, because it may go “against your morals” by making her feel bad. However, this is fundamentally different to the Anne Frank situation. a) Your girlfriend is not evil (again, I hope). b) It ought not to go against your morals because you should put your girlfriend’s life trajectory above her immediate feelings. She would feel worse if later she found out that everyone at the party started talking about her big arse behind her back because you didn’t point it out? Side note, if you want to change the size of your arse, just exercise, it’s a permanent and real fix.
*substitute boyfriend and a relevant scenario if you are that way inclined
NB:
Honesty is not the same as being a dick. So don’t go around telling people they’re ugly or fat. They have a mirror.
