Honesty

Ethics
1

Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud— that an attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality , where you become a pawn of their blindness, a slave of their non-thinking and their evasions, while their intelligence, their rationality, their perceptiveness become the enemies you have to dread and flee—that you do not care to live as a dependent, least of all a dependent on the stupidity of others, or as a fool whose source of values is the fools he succeeds in fooling—that honesty is not a social duty, not a sacrifice for the sake of others, but the most profoundly selfish virtue man can practice: his refusal to sacrifice the reality of his own existence to the deluded consciousness of others.

So, during my reading I stumpled upon this part, the virtue of honesty. Among all the cardinal virtues - rationality, independence, honesty, integrity, productiveness, justice, and pride, I can grasp all the others pretty well, and can trace them back to the value of life. Except for this one.

Specifically, I’d appreciate some explanation concerning the bold parts. What exactly is meant and how exactly is dishonesty "an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality? And for the second bold part, how exactly does deluding the consciousness of others sacrifices the reality of one’s own existence? and exactly what does “one’s own existence” mean in this context?

2

When you lie to someone in an attempt to gain something you become *invested* in the lie, you must now see to it, somehow, that your would-be victim doesn’t penetrate the lie. So instead of focusing your efforts toward the perception of reality, your efforts must now be focused on this other person whose perception becomes, for you, *more important than reality*. So, by lying, you’re making yourself the servant of this other person’s delusions.

Once you start down that course, you’re no longer living in and responding to reality, you are forced into a position where you must manufacture a competing realm where things aren’t what they actually are. No one can sustain this sort of thing indefinitely because reality is just too damn big, it’s like entering a wrestling match with a polar bear. Honesty, in the most fundamental sense, is self-defense. You’re refusing to even attempt something so ludicrous as declaring full-scale war on all of existence because you know that it’ll smoosh you if you try.

3

That makes sense, thanks.

4

Actually, few other questions

The part where it says “that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud”. Exactly why is that?

And also, philosophically speaking, it’s true that the concept of dishonesty can leads down a path where lies begets lies (when the lied-to started inquiring about the initial lie, you have to make up more lies to cover it..etc.), but in reality, apathy and ignorance can easily cut this chain off (The lied-to never took notice of the lie or didn’t really care even as he become suspicious. Or the lying person instead of making up more lies feign ignorance upon inquiry), how does this fit into the picture? Or is it irrelevant within this moral context.

5

Honesty is all about integrity and adherence to reality.

If you were teaching a subject you would not purposefully teach incorrect knowledge. Also if you were the one learning you would not consciously seek to learn false knowledge. A scientist could not attain new knowledge working from non-truths. Objectivism is largely taking the rationality you would apply to the rest of your life, such as work and schooling, and also applying it to the rest of your life.

Honesty here is that you never try to evade reality for you or anyone else. Even if you tell a lie to someone else you are still undermining your sense of reality. Take for example anyone who tells a lie so much they begin to believe it.

Dishonesty can harm the ability of others to be effective but objectivism is mostly concerned with the self. By undermining reality, you undermine your ability to perceive and reason. That is why it is a virtue

As for love or money not being values if obtained by fraud. Love and money are considered to be forms of payment for your highest values. Money is the payment for the product of your reasoning mind, creativity, and purpose. Love is the tribute given to those who embody your greatest values as payment for the best within you. If you won a trophy by cheating it would hold no value because you had not earned it. By getting money or love which you do not deserve you once again put yourself above your ability and attempt to refute reality. Eventually you will lose these rewards unless you are fit to receive them.

Hope this helps

6

Hmmm.

Still, exactly why is a value not been a value unless you earned it? The two reasons you give - “By getting money or love which you do not deserve you once again put yourself above your ability and attempt to refute reality.” and “Eventually you will lose these rewards unless you are fit to receive them.” doesn’t exactly answer it for me. For the 1st one, the value you fraud on doesn’t necessarily have to be something above your ability, it could be a value you could easily achieve but instead chose not to for the sake of maximization (eg stealing a piece of candy you could easily afford). And for the 2nd reason you gave, you do run the risk of losing values you achieve through fraud, but exactly what does this have to do with a value not been a vlue unless you earned it?

And for the other part concerning deception and how it can undermine not only the other’s, but your ability to perceive and reason, how so exactly? You know the truth, but they don’t. And for the ability itself [deception], it’s utilized through out warfare and games, and only a person of great ability in perception and reasoning can achieve success in itself usage. How exactly then does usage of deception on others undermines one’s own ability to perceive and reason?

It’d be great if some examples can be provided with reasoning.

7

Hmmm.

Still, exactly why is a value not been a value unless you earned it?

Well, you listed a few other cardinal virtues theft would negate, not just honesty. For instance, you are sanctioning theft.

By doing that, you are exposing yourself to being treated the same way, and giving up the upper hand(morally) when dealing with (other) thieves.

“Eventually you will lose these rewards unless you are fit to receive them.”

I’d say a value obtained through fraud or theft would cost you your self-esteem, your feeling of security (having to look over your shoulder forever, possibly your social standing etc.

“By getting money or love which you do not deserve you once again put yourself above your ability and attempt to refute reality.”

The fact is that once you tell a lie, that will haunt until the end of your life: there’s a good chance you’ll have to either back it up with more deception or be perceived as a liar. A liar expects to get away with it, and in fact sees lying as a shortcut to a goal. Reality is that it’s not, there are unforeseen consequences. If you were in fact able to foresee them, see reality as it is, you would not choose to build your life on a lie, even partially. Eventually, that building block will give in and jeopardize the whole building.

And for the other part concerning deception and how it can undermine not only the other’s, but your ability to perceive and reason, how so exactly? You know the truth, but they don’t.

You are operating under the principle that “Theft is OK.” or “Evasion is OK.”

That becomes your value, or at least you face a choice: accept it as one of your values, or sacrifice your self-esteem, by going against your values.

If you want to be convinced on the importance of acting on principle, I suggest Dr. Peikoff’s lecture on the ARI website, Registered User’s Page (it’s called something like “The Importance of Acting on Principle”) .

And for the ability itself [deception], it’s utilized through out warfare and games, and only a person of great ability in perception and reasoning can achieve success in itself usage. How exactly then does usage of deception on others undermines one’s own ability to perceive and reason?

I’d say it undermines one’s ability to reason for the same reasons it would in a normal situation (explained above), but that doesn’t mean it’s not justified. In war you are defending your ultimate value, your life, so giving up other virtues temporarily is not a sacrifice.

In the games example no one is being deceived: your opponent knows you are withholding information, or misleading.

It’d be great if some examples can be provided with reasoning.

There happens to be an excellent example available on Youtube-it’s a short video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1Tmr84vUKA

8

Values are that which one seeks to gain and keep. The highest value in objectivism is one’s own life. And from here proceed the three primary values reason, purpose and self-esteem. From reason you arrive at the virtues of honesty(that reality is not to be faked in any way) and justice(that one must never seek the unearned in matter or spirit).

Still, exactly why is a value not been a value unless you earned it?

Obtaining a value by fraud will inevitably cause you to lose it. If you are loved for false reasons you will lose that love once the truth is revealed. If you are given great amounts of money but cannot manage money or yourself you will run out as you consume it without being able to replace it. You attempt to defy reality and reason by seeking something you do not have or deserve.

If you could have obtained a value and you receive it unearned then it is not necessarily bad provided you do not violate the rights of others. Stealing candy though violates the rights of the seller.

And for the ability itself [deception], it’s utilized through out warfare and games, and only a person of great ability in perception and reasoning can achieve success in itself usage. How exactly then does usage of deception on others undermines one’s own ability to perceive and reason?

Deception can be an effective tool but it has little effect on a reasoning and independent mind who respects facts. In the end reality will prevail over your deception and all your ability of deception will count for nothing. Essentially you place your worth or ability higher than it is in actuality. For example in warfare you may attempt to exaggerate your forces through deception but if a confident adversary calls your bluff it is worthless and you lose the value of an upper hand you obtained through deception

You can attempt to defy reality and seek the unearned but reality and reasoning minds will catch up with you. If you try and defy reality to yourself you counteract the process of living. Your worth will catch up to you whenever you try to obtain what you lack the ability to.

9

Seems like I screwed up on the candy example. You guys are right, it’s a violation of right, got nothing to do with morality anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1Tmr84vUKA

Alright, thanks very much for posting this video, finally answered that question why a value is not a value when attained through fraud/deception. The reason was not because you ran the risk of losing what you gain because your own worth will catch up (although that’s part of it), it’s because what you gained through fraud/deception will always have a greater net cost than net gain in the long run. It’s not a value anymore, it’s a liability.

10

Alright, thanks very much for posting this video, finally answered that question why a value is not a value when attained through fraud/deception. The reason was not because you ran the risk of losing what you gain because your own worth will catch up (although that’s part of it), it’s because what you gained through fraud/deception will always have a greater net cost than net gain in the long run. It’s not a value anymore, it’s a liability.

To me the emotinal cost (to my self-esteem) is the main reason why I avoid deceiving people in my life: I get an immediate feeling of dread (I guess) if I do that to someone close to me, which goes away as soon as I correct myself.

Here’s a paper on the psychology of how these things affect a person on a subconscious level (Well, the paper is more general than that, I wanted to get a specific quote, from page 10/11-the chapter called “Reason and Emotion”, but it’s a locked pdf file, so I’ll have to link to the whole thing. It’s probably for the best, since understanding the context of the whole thing is important):

http://www.fireflysun.com/ObjectivistPersp…nPsychology.pdf

However, when it comes to lying to a stranger, or to someone I deal with only through business, I guess I am less emotional about that part of my life (or I haven’t been at it long enough for this to become automated), so my emotions wouldn’t stop me right away: my rational mind does, however.

11

I say, you better stop talking about these things. Being honest is just what you choose to be. Like in a group. If there are two groups you can say, OK being honest and going into this group is what my moral says I should do. But, I gain more if I go to the other group. Well, then, you’ll just choose. If you lie, it may or may not act back on you or the person you lied to. If you lied and they found out, it’s over for you. If you lied and the other person didn’t find out, it’s just basically alright almost because even though you lied, it may never happen. When I read this back to me, I just have no idea what I just said. but, in reality, lying is a part of us. It’s what puts reality into reality. if you go into a world where you can’t lie, than it’s just horrible. You’re telling all these things that hurt others! What if you couldn’t say someone was normal. What if you HAD to say that they were too skinny or fat? What kind of world would be live in? We’d have barely any friends and the friends we would have would have to be EXACTLY like us!

12

I say, you better stop talking about these things… but, in reality, lying is a part of us. It’s what puts reality into reality. if you go into a world where you can’t lie, than it’s just horrible. You’re telling all these things that hurt others! What if you couldn’t say someone was normal. What if you HAD to say that they were too skinny or fat? What kind of world would be live in? We’d have barely any friends and the friends we would have would have to be EXACTLY like us!

What’s with the "if"s? I don’t lie to my friends. My friends don’t lie to me. And yet, we’re still friends, we’re still “in reality”. We don’t need lies to put us “into reality”.

If someone asks me whether they need to lose weight or not, I tell the truth. Are you seriously suggesting that my honesty could affect our friendship, and that if I lied to them everything would be OK?

By the way, I challenge you to come up with one thing that is true and that will hurt me. And I bet everyone on this site would be willing to challenge you to the same.

The reason why the truth hurts someone is because they were delusional. They were avoiding the truth, living in a fantasy world, which was shattered when the truth was spoken. If you live in reality (which is the only way to survive, unless you have slaves who live in reality for you, and support you), the truth cannot hurt you. You love the truth, and you seek it out all the time: that is what thinking is- a constant search for the truth.

Lying to yourself is the refusal to think, lying to others is an attempt to prevent them from thinking. It is a moral crime of the same magnitude as all the others.

13

When you lie to someone in an attempt to gain something you become *invested* in the lie, you must now see to it, somehow, that your would-be victim doesn’t penetrate the lie. So instead of focusing your efforts toward the perception of reality, your efforts must now be focused on this other person whose perception becomes, for you, *more important than reality*. So, by lying, you’re making yourself the servant of this other person’s delusions.

Once you start down that course, you’re no longer living in and responding to reality, you are forced into a position where you must manufacture a competing realm where things aren’t what they actually are. No one can sustain this sort of thing indefinitely because reality is just too damn big, it’s like entering a wrestling match with a polar bear. Honesty, in the most fundamental sense, is self-defense. You’re refusing to even attempt something so ludicrous as declaring full-scale war on all of existence because you know that it’ll smoosh you if you try.

Jenny, can you elaborate on exactly how reality will “smoosh” you if you are dishonest?

14

I think the point not being grasped by those who have a difficulty with honesty being a virtue is that existence exists and only existence exists. To be dishonest means to keep some aspect of non-existence uppermost in your mind – following non-reality instead of reality. If you try to do that, well reality is not going to disappear due to your whim of ignoring it; it will still be there but you will run up against it if you try to follow non-reality. That’s why honesty is phrased as recognizing that the unreal is unreal – if the unreal is not real, why put a lot of effort into it? what do you expect to get out of it? why do you think everyone else will go along with your delusions that the unreal is real? In other words, what are you trying to gain by focusing on the unreal when it is not real and cannot offer you any values? The unreal doesn’t exist, so you cannot get anything from it.

But I have to say that I am perturbed by those who come on this board and question honesty as a virtue. Some are honestly just trying to integrate, but some have a very difficult time even making a start at understanding it. Have you guys been dishonest all of your life? Have you faked your entire life up to the point where honesty as a virtue is spelled out? I just don’t understand why this issue is so difficult to grasp.

15

I think the point not being grasped by those who have a difficulty with honesty being a virtue is that existence exists and only existence exists. To be dishonest means to keep some aspect of non-existence uppermost in your mind – following non-reality instead of reality. If you try to do that, well reality is not going to disappear due to your whim of ignoring it; it will still be there but you will run up against it if you try to follow non-reality. That’s why honesty is phrased as recognizing that the unreal is unreal – if the unreal is not real, why put a lot of effort into it? what do you expect to get out of it? why do you think everyone else will go along with your delusions that the unreal is real? In other words, what are you trying to gain by focusing on the unreal when it is not real and cannot offer you any values? The unreal doesn’t exist, so you cannot get anything from it.

But I have to say that I am perturbed by those who come on this board and question honesty as a virtue. Some are honestly just trying to integrate, but some have a very difficult time even making a start at understanding it. Have you guys been dishonest all of your life? Have you faked your entire life up to the point where honesty as a virtue is spelled out? I just don’t understand why this issue is so difficult to grasp.

(bold emphasis mine)

Thomas, will you specify what you mean by the part in bold?

My question is essentially, how does reality “run against you” when you lie, and why is this harmful to you? Is the main reason a lack of self esteem because you’re not focusing on reality?

Also, I never saw honesty as important or something life sustaining, although I never liked lying

16

My question is essentially, how does reality “run against you” when you lie, and why is this harmful to you? Is the main reason a lack of self esteem because you’re not focusing on reality?

Also, I never saw honesty as important or something life sustaining, although I never liked lying

I don’t want to step on Thomas’ toes but as you describe in your last sentence here, the damage is done mainly to your self worth, to your sense of self-efficacy, yes, to your self-esteem (though, obviously, there can be external consequences as well).

Why do you think you get that bad feeling when you lie? Have you ever told a real whopper? It felt even worse didn’t it?

I’d be glad to elaborate but the perfect answer is given by Peter Schwartz in the youtube video that Jake Ellison linked to here:

There happens to be an excellent example available on Youtube-it’s a short video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1Tmr84vUKA

It is only 4 minutes long, give it a watch.

There is also one important nit to pick from earlier in the thread:

Values are that which one seeks to gain and keep.

Values are that which one acts to gain or keep.

It is important to make the distinction since one only really values something if he takes action to obtain it.

17

My question is essentially, how does reality “run against you” when you lie, and why is this harmful to you? Is the main reason a lack of self esteem because you’re not focusing on reality?

I’ll give you a simple example: Suppose you are standing in front of a wall, and you lie about its nature, saying there is a doorway in front of you. Now, walk towards the doorway while claiming that it exists when it doesn’t. What’s going to happen? You lied about there being a doorway there, but existence exists, so you will walk into the wall, since the doorway does not exist. In essence, this is what happens when you lie about reality, the facts get in the way because they don’t disappear just because you lied about them. This is yet another aspect of Objectivism being a Primacy of Existence philosophy; essentially, those who lie are taking a Primacy of Consciousness approach, yet that will not change reality to suit their whims.

If when you lie it bothers you, this is what you are grasping implicitly – that what you said does not match reality and doesn’t change reality, so the facts will eventually catch up with you, because they didn’t go away just because you lied.

Honesty means recognizing that the facts are the facts and that the non-facts are not facts.

On the other hand, if someone is initiating force against you, since he is being dishonest in believing that what is yours is his, you are free to lie to him about where your valuables are or even tell him – say when he hears the police sirens – that if he runs fast enough, he can escape from the side door that you know doesn’t exist, so that he runs into that non-existing doorway in trying to make his escape.

As an example of this principle, a school bully once tried to cheat off me on an important test. He had been doing this all semester and no one would challenge him, not even the teacher. So, I let him cheat off me and deliberately gave him all the wrong answers. I then went back and gave myself the right answers. He failed, I passed. But what is mine is not his, so I made sure he ran up against that doorway that wasn’t there.

18

that an attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality

Ayn Rand States, “…that an attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality.”

If reason and rationality is man’s basic means of survival, or more generally, if consciousness is his basic means of survival, i.e., if the process of perceiving, then conceiving reality, getting it right, and then acting on those conclusions, is basically how values are produced, then this is the basic virtue, i.e., the basic means of sustaining our lives.

However, when we are dishonest, we are not going through this productive chain of necessary conditions needed for producing a given value.

(Ignoring self-delusion, white lies, and lies of self-protection, for the moment)

On the contrary, we are making up our own fiction, and trying to pass it off as “reality,” for the purpose of getting some value; a value, which by its nature, needed to be produced by a rational productive process. In other words, in acting to gain values via dishonesty, we are counting on rationality, in the fact that rationality was needed to produce the value we are lying to get.

Therefore, in the act of lying, there is necessarily a victim, because the purpose of a lie is to short-circuit the necessary conditions for sustaining our lives; those necessary conditions being the values we need, and we must remember values must be produced.

For an honest man, reality is king, i.e., the facts of reality are king because the production of values requires objective, rational thought, conclusions, and actions every step of the way. That is to say, for the honest man, he has to keep his mind focused on the facts and the full context of his given endeavor, if he’s going to be successful, and produce a value.

For example, to lose track of the facts, or to neglect some part of the full context of the facts for a moment, can lead to all kinds of loss. E.g., if your job is to provide a service such as fixing a car, and you don’t pay attention to the symptoms the customer tells you, you may lose time, or do unnecessary work, or may lose a customer. If your job is to stock shelves, and you don’t pay attention to where the goods belong, and you put them in the wrong, unexpected place, then the customers may not be able to find them and sales suffer. If your job is to sweep the floor, and you don’t pay attention to where you have swept you may miss a part.

But, when we lie, reality is not king, the facts are not our concern, therefore, our mind is no longer being used as a tool of consciousness, but it is being used as a means of faking reality, of making up a fiction for the purpose of getting around the work, required in working. The person we are trying to fool is now our king, as we have made our mind’s primary task to create a short-term, substitute for the facts, elaborate enough to fool our victim into “parting” with the value we are after.

If our goal is to get paid without having to do the work of fixing a car, we can make up a lie and tell our customer we diagnosed and resolved a non-existent problem, and accept his money for work we did not do. If we want to get paid for not stocking shelves, we may tell our boss we have stocked the shelves, when in reality we took a break and let Bob stock them for us; or we may put the goods on the first available shelf, and lie and say we have finished. If we are being paid to sweet the floor we may sweep the dirt under a rug and say we are done.

In all cases, the deception of others becomes the primary activity of our mind, and not the perception and/or proper conception of reality. We turn our mind, which is our means of being conscious of reality, into an instrument for deluding others into believing they have been conscious of reality, so we can get away with our small or large act of theft.

In this context, our victims become king, and faking reality becomes king, so consciousness is no longer our paramount concern, and instead faking the consciousness of another becomes our highest purpose. In other words, we make non-perception and improper conception our highest purpose, and the recipient of those improper conceptions (our victim), higher in our hierarchy of values then reality.