Sometimes it is the case that you can make educated guesses about information and turn out to be right. But as we've seen, accidentally being accurate isn't the same as being honest. If you're committed to dealing with the people in your life honestly, then presenting educated guesses as fact is dishonest.
If you're in a conversation about a subject for which you're missing information, you don't have to lie or pretend to know what you're talking about to save face or impress anyone. It's more ethical to just admit you haven't informed yourself to the degree you'd like than to pretend to be an authority on a subject for which you are not.
At the very least, if admitting a gap in your knowledge makes you uncomfortable or you are in a situation in which admitting ignorance can cost you professional credibility, you can remain Consistently Honest by softening the "I don't know" by including disclaimers ("My guess would be...") or qualifiers that let the listener know you aren't sure your information is definitely accurate ("It's probably the case that..."). Alternatively, you can promise to find out and get back to the person at a later time ("I'm not sure when their anniversary is - I'll ask them and email you"). You can also defer to an authority ("You can find that statistic in the book...") which can help deflect some of the embarrassment of not knowing the answer by at least acknowledging that you have access to the information somewhere. There are many ways of admitting "I don't know" without making yourself look incompetent; there is never a "need" to lie about partial authority on a subject.
Admitting incomplete knowledge is better than posing as an authority figure.
Misleading someone deliberately into thinking you're absolutely sure of what you're saying is lying. When people ask you for information, the implication is that they want true information. Passing off an educated guess as a fact is lying by omission: you're leaving off the strong possibility that you're wrong. It's not as ethically problematic as a total fabrication, but it's still a misrepresentation of your expertise or authority on the subject.While you may turn out to be accurate in the long run, the integrity of what you're saying suffers if you continually pass off educated guesses as fact.
My point in writing about "I don't know" is to demystify this admission for people. I think a lot of people lie or overstate their assurance about a fact-claim because they're afraid that "I don't know" will damage the listener's respect for their authority. In practice, the opposite is usually true, and the more people become confident in that fact, the less afraid of "I don't know" they usually become.
Read All the Posts in the Intentional Honesty Series:
Friday, March 11, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Comments are fixed!... I think.
I got a lot of email and comments offline from friends who wanted to comment, but couldn't, for some reason. I've wrestled the comments settings to the ground like a stubborn gator, and they should let anyone and everyone comment me to their little hearts' contents! Have at it, people!
Accuracy and Ethical Responsibility
Just because you can say something that isn't true and still be honest doesn't mean that individuals are absolved of the ethical responsibility to try to convey accurate information whenever possible. When you are conveying information to another person, you must either be reasonably sure that you're relaying the most accurate information available to you, or you must admit that there's a gap in your knowledge which prevents you from telling the information in a completely accurate way.
In the example about weather-related conversations with my grandmother from a previous post, I had checked the weather forecast prior to talking to her, and could be reasonably sure that the information I was giving her was the most accurate information available to me at the time, without going to extraordinary measures such as contacting expert meteorologists directly. This was an honest statement on my part about what I knew, even if I couldn't be absolutely sure that it was 100% accurate.
When You Just Don't Know
In the hypothetical example where I made something up about tomorrow's weather, we saw that it's possible to say something true with the dishonest intent to mislead a person. In this case, the lie isn't the weather fact. The lie is that I know what I'm talking about. If you don't know what you're talking about, and you want to deal with someone honestly about the issue, then you must express that you just don't know, or you must take reasonable steps to inform yourself about the subject enough to speak with confidence that you're relaying accurate information. If you don't, you're misrepresenting how much you know. Essentially, you're lying about your own expertise.
Think about how this works in your own relationships. If you ask a friend, relative or co-worker for information and he admits he just doesn't know, this may make you think he's less knowledgeable than you previously thought, but it doesn't damage your faith in his honesty and trustworthiness. Likewise, if he tells you something that you know he believes to be as true as it can be and you know he's made reasonable efforts to inform himself about the subject, but he later turns out to be wrong, you still won't come away from that situation believing him a liar.
If, however, you later find out that he spoke authoritatively without knowing what he's talking about, it will damage your trust in his future statements. You will never know if he's speaking with undeserved authority in a subject about which he knows little or nothing. He hasn't been honest about what he knows, so this will damage your trust in his statements - even when he's making true fact-claims. You won't trust his expertise, because he's misrepresented it in the past.
The Parental "I Don't Know"
Many parents avoid telling their children "I don't know" for fear of looking weak or unreliable, but the reverse is true. If a child asks you a question and you don't know the answer, the child will, in the long run, trust that you will only reply when you honestly know the answer - it will make you more, not less, trustworthy. As an added bonus, it's an opportunity for you to find out the information together, which is an opportunity for you to model to your child what honest intellectual exploration looks like, and why they shouldn't be afraid to say "I don't know," either. This same model can be applied to bosses and co-workers, teachers and students and clergy and congregation.
A reliable authority figure isn't one that's omniscient and infallible - we all figure out sooner or later that no one really is - it's an authority that you can trust gives you accurate, honest information whenever possible.
Read All the Posts in the Intentional Honesty Series:
In the example about weather-related conversations with my grandmother from a previous post, I had checked the weather forecast prior to talking to her, and could be reasonably sure that the information I was giving her was the most accurate information available to me at the time, without going to extraordinary measures such as contacting expert meteorologists directly. This was an honest statement on my part about what I knew, even if I couldn't be absolutely sure that it was 100% accurate.
When You Just Don't Know
In the hypothetical example where I made something up about tomorrow's weather, we saw that it's possible to say something true with the dishonest intent to mislead a person. In this case, the lie isn't the weather fact. The lie is that I know what I'm talking about. If you don't know what you're talking about, and you want to deal with someone honestly about the issue, then you must express that you just don't know, or you must take reasonable steps to inform yourself about the subject enough to speak with confidence that you're relaying accurate information. If you don't, you're misrepresenting how much you know. Essentially, you're lying about your own expertise.
Think about how this works in your own relationships. If you ask a friend, relative or co-worker for information and he admits he just doesn't know, this may make you think he's less knowledgeable than you previously thought, but it doesn't damage your faith in his honesty and trustworthiness. Likewise, if he tells you something that you know he believes to be as true as it can be and you know he's made reasonable efforts to inform himself about the subject, but he later turns out to be wrong, you still won't come away from that situation believing him a liar.
If, however, you later find out that he spoke authoritatively without knowing what he's talking about, it will damage your trust in his future statements. You will never know if he's speaking with undeserved authority in a subject about which he knows little or nothing. He hasn't been honest about what he knows, so this will damage your trust in his statements - even when he's making true fact-claims. You won't trust his expertise, because he's misrepresented it in the past.
The Parental "I Don't Know"
Many parents avoid telling their children "I don't know" for fear of looking weak or unreliable, but the reverse is true. If a child asks you a question and you don't know the answer, the child will, in the long run, trust that you will only reply when you honestly know the answer - it will make you more, not less, trustworthy. As an added bonus, it's an opportunity for you to find out the information together, which is an opportunity for you to model to your child what honest intellectual exploration looks like, and why they shouldn't be afraid to say "I don't know," either. This same model can be applied to bosses and co-workers, teachers and students and clergy and congregation.
A reliable authority figure isn't one that's omniscient and infallible - we all figure out sooner or later that no one really is - it's an authority that you can trust gives you accurate, honest information whenever possible.
Read All the Posts in the Intentional Honesty Series:
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Body Language Doesn't Lie
Behavioral psychologists such as Dr. Paul Ekman who are experts in deception detection through the analysis of human body language and facial expressions specialize in decoding and interpreting people's emotional intent in telling the truth or lying. Their research reveals further support for the idea that honesty and dishonesty are both fueled by deliberate cognitive intent.
Dr. Ekman in his research has discovered that people who believe they are telling the truth but are actually stating something inaccurate will still display all the same facial expressions and body language markers of someone who is, in fact, saying something true.
In the same vein, lie detector tests measure the amount of anxiety a person feels in relation to the information he or she is speaking. The theory is that increased anxiety is a tell-tale sign that the speaker knows he or she is being dishonest - it's a "tell." However, a person who thinks he is telling the truth, but is unaware that he's saying something inaccurate, will pass the lie detector test with flying colors. He won't feel the unconscious anxiety that comes with deliberate deception, because he isn't being deliberately deceptive.
Cognitively, someone who is intending to tell the truth but speaks erroneously is the same as someone who intends to tell the truth and speaks accurately. The difference between an honest and a dishonest person is not the quality of the information, but the intent to be honest or dishonest.
Read All the Posts in the Intentional Honesty Series:
Dr. Ekman in his research has discovered that people who believe they are telling the truth but are actually stating something inaccurate will still display all the same facial expressions and body language markers of someone who is, in fact, saying something true.
In the same vein, lie detector tests measure the amount of anxiety a person feels in relation to the information he or she is speaking. The theory is that increased anxiety is a tell-tale sign that the speaker knows he or she is being dishonest - it's a "tell." However, a person who thinks he is telling the truth, but is unaware that he's saying something inaccurate, will pass the lie detector test with flying colors. He won't feel the unconscious anxiety that comes with deliberate deception, because he isn't being deliberately deceptive.
Cognitively, someone who is intending to tell the truth but speaks erroneously is the same as someone who intends to tell the truth and speaks accurately. The difference between an honest and a dishonest person is not the quality of the information, but the intent to be honest or dishonest.
Read All the Posts in the Intentional Honesty Series:
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Perjury and the Justice System
Most justice systems, regardless of the governments in which they are based, recognize a distinction between accuracy and honesty. The penalties for unintentional inaccuracy in legal testimony and documentation are far less severe (and sometimes non-existent), compared to the penalties for deliberate, intentional dishonesty. This is also known as perjury, and in most justice systems, it's a crime.
People unintentionally give wrong testimony in courts all the time. Sometimes witnesses truly believe they saw something they didn't, either because they interpreted events incorrectly or, human memory being an imperfect mechanism, they're just plain remembering wrong. In the case of police testimonial, sometimes the witness is relying on failed technology, such as faulty radar detectors or inaccurate DNA samples.
If you say something on the witness stand during a court case that later turns out to be inaccurate, and the judge determines you truly believed it was accurate when you said it, this may discount your testimony in that particular case, but the judge can't legally charge you with perjury. This is because most legal systems acknowledge room for human error in legal proceedings and don't consider it criminal behavior.
If, however, the prosecution can prove that you knew you were lying when you gave the testimony, you can be charged with perjury, which is intentional dishonesty. This is criminal behavior. The law makes a distinction between the deliberate attempt at dishonesty and simply making a mistake, because perjury is an intentional attempt at manipulating the outcome of the case under false pretenses, verses just having the wrong information at hand. The former is criminally negligent, whereas the latter isn't.
This is further proof that accuracy and honesty are somewhat independent concepts, and that honesty and dishonesty both require deliberate intent.
Read All the Posts in the Intentional Honesty Series:
People unintentionally give wrong testimony in courts all the time. Sometimes witnesses truly believe they saw something they didn't, either because they interpreted events incorrectly or, human memory being an imperfect mechanism, they're just plain remembering wrong. In the case of police testimonial, sometimes the witness is relying on failed technology, such as faulty radar detectors or inaccurate DNA samples.
If you say something on the witness stand during a court case that later turns out to be inaccurate, and the judge determines you truly believed it was accurate when you said it, this may discount your testimony in that particular case, but the judge can't legally charge you with perjury. This is because most legal systems acknowledge room for human error in legal proceedings and don't consider it criminal behavior.
If, however, the prosecution can prove that you knew you were lying when you gave the testimony, you can be charged with perjury, which is intentional dishonesty. This is criminal behavior. The law makes a distinction between the deliberate attempt at dishonesty and simply making a mistake, because perjury is an intentional attempt at manipulating the outcome of the case under false pretenses, verses just having the wrong information at hand. The former is criminally negligent, whereas the latter isn't.
This is further proof that accuracy and honesty are somewhat independent concepts, and that honesty and dishonesty both require deliberate intent.
Read All the Posts in the Intentional Honesty Series:
Monday, March 7, 2011
Honesty vs. Accuracy
When I tell people it's possible to say something that isn't true while remaining intentionally honest, many of them are very taken aback. To many people, you can't say something that isn't true and still be an honest person. In fact, this seems like a contradiction in terms, or even a paradox - it's just impossible to them. This is because many people confuse accuracy with honesty, when they aren't the same thing at all.
Mistakes Aren't Lies
Hundreds of years ago, many people believed the earth was the center of the universe. Towering Greek intellects such as Aristotle and Ptolemy worked out complex scientific explanations for how this was true. Mystics, scholars and scientists set up mathematically-based systems of astronomical calculations which all banked on this idea that the earth was at the center of the entire universe and everything else revolved around it. Teachers in the best universities taught the principles of geocentric astronomy to their students for generations with absolute conviction that it was an accurate theory about the known universe.
Years later, during the Renaissance era, Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus published a theory that the sun, our solar system's star, was the motionless center of the universe, and all other objects, including the earth, revolved around it. Copernican heliocentrism took science and religion by a storm at the time. Theologians even considered it heretical, because it made a liar out of the Bible, which they interpreted to say that the earth was God's primary focus of attention and also, presumably, the center of the universe.
Both theories were wrong, of course. With just as much conviction as both Copernicus and Ptolemy, we know now that there is no such thing as the center of the universe (with the possible exception of New York City, hee).
However, if tomorrow it's discovered that the universe does have a center, we'll simply be wrong, not liars. Likewise, the Ancient Greek people who believed that the earth was the center of the universe past weren't lying when they taught this principle to their children. They weren't even ethically responsible for having based their opinions on flimsy research. All their knowledge and scientific data available at the time pointed to the fact that the universe revolved around our planet.
So, they were just wrong. In this way, people can be wrong and still be honest, when the intent was to convey accurate information. No one is omniscient, but we can all make the effort to consistently relay the most accurate information we have available. This is the ethical crux behind the philosophy of Consistent Honesty.
Read All the Posts in the Intentional Honesty Series:
Mistakes Aren't Lies
Hundreds of years ago, many people believed the earth was the center of the universe. Towering Greek intellects such as Aristotle and Ptolemy worked out complex scientific explanations for how this was true. Mystics, scholars and scientists set up mathematically-based systems of astronomical calculations which all banked on this idea that the earth was at the center of the entire universe and everything else revolved around it. Teachers in the best universities taught the principles of geocentric astronomy to their students for generations with absolute conviction that it was an accurate theory about the known universe.
Years later, during the Renaissance era, Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus published a theory that the sun, our solar system's star, was the motionless center of the universe, and all other objects, including the earth, revolved around it. Copernican heliocentrism took science and religion by a storm at the time. Theologians even considered it heretical, because it made a liar out of the Bible, which they interpreted to say that the earth was God's primary focus of attention and also, presumably, the center of the universe.
Both theories were wrong, of course. With just as much conviction as both Copernicus and Ptolemy, we know now that there is no such thing as the center of the universe (with the possible exception of New York City, hee).
However, if tomorrow it's discovered that the universe does have a center, we'll simply be wrong, not liars. Likewise, the Ancient Greek people who believed that the earth was the center of the universe past weren't lying when they taught this principle to their children. They weren't even ethically responsible for having based their opinions on flimsy research. All their knowledge and scientific data available at the time pointed to the fact that the universe revolved around our planet.
So, they were just wrong. In this way, people can be wrong and still be honest, when the intent was to convey accurate information. No one is omniscient, but we can all make the effort to consistently relay the most accurate information we have available. This is the ethical crux behind the philosophy of Consistent Honesty.
Read All the Posts in the Intentional Honesty Series:
Saturday, March 5, 2011
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:
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:
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