The virtue of honesty has been stunningly neglected in contemporary philosophy, with only two papers appearing in the last 40 years. The first half of this paper is a conceptual exploration of one aspect of the virtue, namely the honest person’s motivational profile. I argue that egoistic motives for telling the truth or not cheating are incompatible with honest motivation. At the same time, there is no one specific motive that is required for a person to be motivated in a (...) virtuously honest way. Instead I advance a pluralistic theory of honest motivation, which allows for motives of caring, fairness, and virtue, among others. The second half of the paper then turns briefly to the empirical literature in psychology and behavioral economics on cheating, to see to what extent honest motives appear to be operative. The upshot is that we have good preliminary evidence for the claim that most people are not virtuously honest. (shrink)

The standard view of honesty is a subjectivist one, according to which honesty concerns the facts merely “as the agent sees them”. Against this view, the present paper argues for a non-subjectivist view of honesty. It argues, in particular, that ideal honesty requires not merely expressing what one believes to be true but, moreover, expressing what is true. In that case, though one can be honest to an extent while merely expressing what one believes to be true, one cannot be (...) ideally honest without expressing the truth. (shrink)

In this paper, I highlight three objections to vice-based accounts of moral evil: (1) the worry that vice-based accounts of evil are explanatorily inadequate; (2) the worry that even extreme vice is not sufficient for evil; and (3) the worry that not all vices are inversions of virtue (and so vice-based accounts will struggle to explain the “mirror thesis”). I argue that it is possible to respond to these objections by developing a vice-based account of evil that draws on insights (...) from virtue (and vice) epistemology. In this way, I seek to defend the strategy of understanding evil in terms of vice, and to provide guidance on how best to develop such an account. I also briefly consider what vice-based accounts of moral evil might imply about evil in other normative domains where it is common to talk of virtue and vice, including the possibilities of epistemic evil and aesthetic evil. (shrink)

I propose and argue for an account of humility in Zhuangzi, which I call perspectival humility. In the opening of the article, I will present a view of humility found in pre-Qin Confucian texts; then, I will explain the idea of Zhuangist humility, which provides a contrast to Confucian humility. Zhuang Zhou does not think that any ideas of right and wrong can be absolutely correct. People must see that their beliefs may not be absolutely correct, and should always consider (...) alternative perspectives. Those who recognise the limitations of their perspective are led to perspectival humility. Moreover, perspectival humility encourages people to learn extensively and to harmonise the differences between other perspectives. The Zhuangist approach takes various perspectives into account and is an inclusive notion of humility that prompts people to appreciate different ways of life, engages in harmonious social relationships, and preserves cultural diversity. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to advance understanding of intellectually virtuous honesty, by examining the relationship between a recent account of intellectual honesty and a recent account of intellectual transparency. The account of intellectual honesty comes from Nathan King, who adapts the work of Christian Miller on moral honesty, while the account of intellectual transparency comes from T. Ryan Byerly. After introducing the respective accounts, I identify four potential differences between intellectual honesty and intellectual transparency as understood by these (...) accounts. I then turn to the question of how to think about the relationship between these traits in light of these potential differences. I make the case that intellectual transparency can either be regarded as an exceptionally strong or ideal variety of intellectual honesty, or it can be regarded as a distinct virtue from intellectual honesty which is a more cardinal virtue than the latter. Along the way, I also note some places where a case can be made that Miller's and King's accounts of honesty and intellectual honesty are in need of refinement or clarification. (shrink)

Promoting honesty is considered a key endeavor in the betterment of our societies. However, our understanding of this phenomenon, and of its evil twin, dishonesty, is still lacking. In this text, we analyze the main tenets assumed by empirical models of vigilance and sanctions. We approach our analysis in three sections. Initially, we investigate the concept of honesty as assumed by commonly used methodologies in studying honesty. This then leads us to identify the previously overlooked but essential element of epistemic (...) privilege in characterizing honesty. In the third part, we delve into how current explanatory models of honesty lack sufficient consideration of epistemic privilege, resulting in incomplete narratives about honesty. Our analysis of the extant literature suggests that both internal (including the self-concept maintenance theory) and external vigilance models fall short of explaining honesty and dishonesty because of both conceptual problems and empirical inadequacy. Identifying these shortcomings allows us to suggest some possible directions of research. (shrink)

I begin by outlining some of the central conceptual features of the virtue of honesty. But the real focus of the paper is on seeing how my account of honesty can handle certain challenging cases. One case is the "Nazi at the door" example. The other is Mark Twain's Huck Finn, who seemed to think that what he was doing in helping Jim was morally wrong, and yet we would be reticent to count it as a case of failing to (...) be honest. I argue that my proposed account of honesty can recommend plausible ways to think about both of these famous cases. (shrink)