I have trouble seeing why radical honesty should be seen as a virtue by default. It’s fairly clear that radical honesty doesn’t necessarily promote happiness. From a utilitarian perspective, then, it should be value-neutral.
I personally place a high value on having true beliefs. More than most people. However, I’m not sure I’d value true beliefs over my own happiness. If I were a devout Christian, for example, and derived a great amount of comfort from my faith, I’m not sure I’d want someone to convince me otherwise. Given that most people will value true beliefs even less than I do, I’d find it even harder to justify convincing others of God’s non-existence. That’s imposing my own value judgments upon others, often to the detriment of their happiness. Studies have shown that depressed people are more likely to have accurate beliefs than happy people. If there’s a causal connection between the two, what are we to make of radical honesty?
Similarly, one also finds that practicing radical honesty in the social sphere is unlikely to win one many friends, and will in fact piss a lot of people off. Little white lies are what grease many of our most important social interactions. What’s to be gained by a policy of radical honesty in that domain?
Radical honesty is a chief virtue in science and academia, of course; maybe the chief virtue. But to apply that norm to the world at large is to ignore basic facts of human psychology and social interaction.
I have trouble seeing why radical honesty should be seen as a virtue by default. It’s fairly clear that radical honesty doesn’t necessarily promote happiness. From a utilitarian perspective, then, it should be value-neutral.
I personally place a high value on having true beliefs. More than most people. However, I’m not sure I’d value true beliefs over my own happiness. If I were a devout Christian, for example, and derived a great amount of comfort from my faith, I’m not sure I’d want someone to convince me otherwise. Given that most people will value true beliefs even less than I do, I’d find it even harder to justify convincing others of God’s non-existence. That’s imposing my own value judgments upon others, often to the detriment of their happiness. Studies have shown that depressed people are more likely to have accurate beliefs than happy people. If there’s a causal connection between the two, what are we to make of radical honesty?
Similarly, one also finds that practicing radical honesty in the social sphere is unlikely to win one many friends, and will in fact piss a lot of people off. Little white lies are what grease many of our most important social interactions. What’s to be gained by a policy of radical honesty in that domain?
Radical honesty is a chief virtue in science and academia, of course; maybe the chief virtue. But to apply that norm to the world at large is to ignore basic facts of human psychology and social interaction.