I think the largest benefit of meta-honesty to most people is in not accidentally lying to yourself. Explicitly carving out in advance contexts where you’re fine with telling a lie means less internal pressure to contort a belief after-the-fact that a lie was true actually.
I would probably recommend being mindful about when you would or wouldn’t lie, and meta-honesty is a good forcing function to do that, but lots of things are probably better (for example some kind of daily journaling exercise where you write down things you lied about each day)
I think (for me at least) the doing-it-in-advance part really makes a difference. Adding something to a list of instances in which you lie feels like a much more morally taxing thing than just going “Oh yep, that’s a situation I already accepted lying to be okay in”, so I feel much more pressure to contort a belief that it wasn’t a lie somehow.
I do directionally agree with your conclusion in that meta-honesty isn’t the only way to do this, though. The important part (or an important part anyway) seems to be setting up ways in which you can easily admit a lie is a lie.
I think the largest benefit of meta-honesty to most people is in not accidentally lying to yourself. Explicitly carving out in advance contexts where you’re fine with telling a lie means less internal pressure to contort a belief after-the-fact that a lie was true actually.
I think (for me at least) the doing-it-in-advance part really makes a difference. Adding something to a list of instances in which you lie feels like a much more morally taxing thing than just going “Oh yep, that’s a situation I already accepted lying to be okay in”, so I feel much more pressure to contort a belief that it wasn’t a lie somehow.
I do directionally agree with your conclusion in that meta-honesty isn’t the only way to do this, though. The important part (or an important part anyway) seems to be setting up ways in which you can easily admit a lie is a lie.