I don’t think Zelazny’s statement makes out that “detecting falsehood and discovering truth are not the same skill in practice”. He just seems to be saying that you can have good ‘detecting falsehood’ skills without caring much about the truth (“I’m not at all sure, though, that they care much about truth”).
If I thought I was going to have to detect falsehoods—if
that, not discovering a certain truth, were my one purpose in
life—then I’d probably apprentice myself out to a con man.
I think that’s equating ‘detecting falsehood’ too much with ‘detecting tricks of deception’.
If detecting falsehood and discovering truth are not the same
skill in practice, then practicing honesty probably makes you
better at discovering truth and worse at detecting falsehood.
I’m very doubtful that practising honesty, itself, could make you worse at detecting falsehoods.
Being naive—for example, by assuming anything that superficially seems to make sense must be true—can make you worse at detecting falsehoods. We often associate honesty with a kind of naivety, but the problem with being poor at detecting falsehoods is a problem with naivety not with honesty.
A certain kind of naivity is thinking that since you have good intentions about being honest, you therefore are honest. Saying or thinking or feeling that you are honest does not necessarily mean you are actually honest. Yes, having a genuine desire to be honest is going to make you more likely to be honest, and put you on the right track to being honest, but claims of honesty don’t necessarily equate with a genuine desire.
To actually make sure you’re more honest takes work. It requires you to monitor and reflect on what you say and do. It requires you to monitor and reflect upon the ways that you or others can be dishonest. And I reckon that means that having the ability to be genuinely honest also means you’ll have pretty good skills for detecting falsehood.
The following is just sketchy thoughts:
In relation to rationality, I’d say that rationality requires certain types of honesty to yourself, and being rational is likely to make you more honest to yourself as well.
If you can be successfully rational (without any major pockets of irrationality), then you’re probably more likely to be considerate of others (because you’re better able to appreciate the negative consequences of your actions), and are thus more likely to be honest to people in matters where there could be non-trivial negative consequences.
But I still suspect you can be quite rational without it necessitating that you’re particularly honest to others.
I don’t think Zelazny’s statement makes out that “detecting falsehood and discovering truth are not the same skill in practice”. He just seems to be saying that you can have good ‘detecting falsehood’ skills without caring much about the truth (“I’m not at all sure, though, that they care much about truth”).
I think that’s equating ‘detecting falsehood’ too much with ‘detecting tricks of deception’.
I’m very doubtful that practising honesty, itself, could make you worse at detecting falsehoods.
Being naive—for example, by assuming anything that superficially seems to make sense must be true—can make you worse at detecting falsehoods. We often associate honesty with a kind of naivety, but the problem with being poor at detecting falsehoods is a problem with naivety not with honesty.
A certain kind of naivity is thinking that since you have good intentions about being honest, you therefore are honest. Saying or thinking or feeling that you are honest does not necessarily mean you are actually honest. Yes, having a genuine desire to be honest is going to make you more likely to be honest, and put you on the right track to being honest, but claims of honesty don’t necessarily equate with a genuine desire.
To actually make sure you’re more honest takes work. It requires you to monitor and reflect on what you say and do. It requires you to monitor and reflect upon the ways that you or others can be dishonest. And I reckon that means that having the ability to be genuinely honest also means you’ll have pretty good skills for detecting falsehood.
The following is just sketchy thoughts:
In relation to rationality, I’d say that rationality requires certain types of honesty to yourself, and being rational is likely to make you more honest to yourself as well.
If you can be successfully rational (without any major pockets of irrationality), then you’re probably more likely to be considerate of others (because you’re better able to appreciate the negative consequences of your actions), and are thus more likely to be honest to people in matters where there could be non-trivial negative consequences.
But I still suspect you can be quite rational without it necessitating that you’re particularly honest to others.