I only have two (2) gripes. I say this as someone who 1) practices/believes in determinism, and 2) has interacted with journalists on numerous occasions with a pretty strict policy on honesty.
1. “Deep honesty is not a property of a person that you need to adopt wholesale. It’s something you can do more or less of, at different times, in different domains.”
I would disagree. In my view, ‘deep honesty’ excludes dishonesty by omission. You’re either truthful all of the time or you’re manipulative some of the time. There can’t be both.
2. “Fortunately, although deep honesty has been described here as some kind of intuitive act of faith, it is still just an action you can take with consequences you can observe.
Not always. If everyone else around you goes the mountain of deceit approach, your options are limited. The ‘rewards’ available for omissions are far less, and if you want to have a reasonably productive work environment, at least someone has to tell the truth unequivocally. Further, the ‘consequences’ are not always immediately observable when you’re dealing with practiced liars. The consequences can come in the form of revenge months, or, even years later.
Given only finite time, isn’t one always omitting nearly everything? If you believe in dishonesty by omission is everyone not dishonest, in that sense, nearly all the time? You can argue that only “relevant” information is subject to non-omission, but since relevance is a subjective, and continuous, property this doesn’t seem like very useful guidance. Wherever you choose to draw the line someone can reasonably claim you’ve omitted relevant (by some other standard) information just on the other side of that line.
I’m so happy you made this post.
I only have two (2) gripes. I say this as someone who 1) practices/believes in determinism, and 2) has interacted with journalists on numerous occasions with a pretty strict policy on honesty.
Given only finite time, isn’t one always omitting nearly everything? If you believe in dishonesty by omission is everyone not dishonest, in that sense, nearly all the time? You can argue that only “relevant” information is subject to non-omission, but since relevance is a subjective, and continuous, property this doesn’t seem like very useful guidance. Wherever you choose to draw the line someone can reasonably claim you’ve omitted relevant (by some other standard) information just on the other side of that line.