Truth Has to Be Intentional

I'm back! I put this project on the back burner for a couple of months, but I've been thinking about it the entire time, and am ready to get back into blogging/ writing about the subject.

As a student of philosophy in college, I learned that to construct accessible logical arguments, I first needed to define my terms, so that my readers could understand the basic conceptual framework from which I'm working. For this blog and this subject, to talk about what it means to be honest, that means I have to first define what truth, honesty and deception mean. This is no small feat, and part of the reason I took a little break from writing was because I realized this task was more than a little daunting. Philosophers, theologians and social commentators have written countless volumes about what is true and what isn't true, how we can know if something is true and how we can distinguish claims that are true from claims that aren't. I may, in fact, look at some of those ideas in the future. But from the point of view of ethical living, definitive objective proof about the truth of an idea is incidental at best. Put more simply, you don't have to be right to be honest. You just have to be deliberately trying to tell the truth.

Telling the truth is an intentional act of communication with others. When people claim something is real or true, they either have the intent of communicating true ideas, or they don't. This carries two related considerations.

You Can't Accidentally Lie.

It's possible to say something that isn't true and not be a liar. I'll give a very mundane example of this which, while simple, illustrates well how it's possible to speak a falsehood and remain honest in your intention.

My grandmother called me this morning from Florida. In our conversation, she asked what the weather here in Boston was like at the moment. I said that today had been a gorgeous day, and that tomorrow would be even nicer. As far as I knew, it was going to be nearly 60^F tomorrow, which is quite warm compared to the 14-degree mornings we had only last week. I also told her it might rain, but only a little, and only late at night, so it wouldn't matter. When I told her this, it was based on the best available information I had at the time (satellite information from the National Weather Service), and it was my sincere intention to convey the truth as I knew it about tomorrow's weather.

Any number of things could render my statements untrue. We may get a sudden cold front tomorrow. The satellite system that recorded the data that lead to my conclusion could be wrong. I might have been looking at information for the wrong city and just hadn't noticed. Nuclear war may break out overnight and the radiation may affect climate tomorrow. That doesn't make me a liar. That just makes me wrong. My intent, though, was honesty to the best of my ability. There was nothing more I could have reasonably done in that moment to ensure that I was making a true claim about tomorrow's weather.

You Can't Accidentally Tell the Truth

It may seem like splitting hairs, but while I think it's possible to say something that's true while having the intention to lie, I don't think you can be accidentally honest. The intent behind your communication attempt is what determines its honesty.

Let's take the grandma weather report again in another direction to illustrate why truth has to be intentional. Last week, there was a nearly 50-degree difference between one day's lowest temperature and the subsequent day's highest temperature. The day of the very low temperature, I went to work in a very windy part of town severely under-dressed, and arrived at my job absolutely freezing. We're talking teeth-chattering, bone-chilled, it-took-three-cups-of-nearly-scalding-coffee-to-feel-normal freezing.

The next morning, I didn't look at the weather forecast for that day. Traumatized by the horrible cold from the previous day, I just assumed consistency, and banked on the probability that the temperature was going to be in the low teens again. So, I dressed for work that morning with very, very warm clothes... and promptly roasted on the way home from work that very warm, sunny afternoon.

Suppose my grandmother had called the evening of the very cold day and had asked what the weather would be like the next day. Being committed to telling the truth at all times as I am, I would have simply admitted I didn't know, and perhaps hopped online to check.

But suppose I had instead decided I didn't want my grandmother to worry about me freezing to death. Doting grandmothers are prone to worrying excessively, and mine is no exception. Suppose, then, to spare her the worry, or to spare myself the inevitable nagging, I had rushed to reassure her that the next day was supposed to be quite warm and sunny, and that I wasn't going to be cold - was likely to be overly warm instead. Suppose I had said this even though I hadn't looked at the weather forecast and in actuality had no idea what the weather would be like. I had just said what I thought she'd want to hear to avoid worry and annoying reminders to wear a scarf.

Even though it turns out I would have been saying something true - it was, indeed, very warm the next day - I would have been lying to my grandmother when I said this. My intent in that moment wouldn't have been to tell her the truth as I knew it. Instead, my intent was to deceive her into feeling reassured, regardless of the realities of the weather. My intent wouldn't have been honest communication; it would have been deceptive reassurance and manipulation instead. In that moment, though I would have been saying something true, I wouldn't have been honest.

So you can say something that's true accidentally, but you can only be honest if it's your deliberate intent to tell the truth. If, in the course of trying to lie, you end up saying something that turns out to be a true fact, you were still lying when you said it. Accidentally saying a true fact doesn't make you honest. It's just a happy coincidence.

When a person speaks, she deliberately chooses whether she'll say something she believes is true, or something she believes is not. Whether what she says is actually true doesn't reflect on the ethics of her decision. It's the intent behind the decision that determines the person's ethical adherence to honesty.

Establishing intent as the primary arbiter of someone's honesty is important, because a lot of the things people write off as "lies we tell all the time" or "situations in which it's impossible to tell the truth" aren't lies at all if you look at the intent behind them. Later on, I'll be looking at a lot of acts people claim are fundamentally and necessarily dishonest as well as socially acceptable as a means of justifying their own regular dishonesty. Some of these include: wearing makeup, acting in movies, amputees wearing prosthetic devices and guarding one's personal privacy. None of these things are ordinarily lies or dishonesty. But in my many discussions with people about what it means to be honest, they're continually brought up as alibis for why lying is culturally widespread enough to sometimes be both socially acceptable and ethical.

This is because accuracy and honesty aren't interchangeable ideas.

If you're deliberately trying to make someone believe something you sincerely think is true, you are being honest, even if you turn out to be wrong.

If you're deliberately trying to make someone believe something you believe is not true, you're lying, even if you turn out to be right.

Read All the Posts in the Intentional Honesty Series:

• Part 1: Truth Has to Be Intentional
• Part 2: Honesty vs. Accuracy
• Part 3: Perjury & the Justice System
• Part 4: Body Language Doesn't Lie
• Part 5: Accuracy and Ethical Responsibility
• Part 6: A Word About Educated Guesses