Most people avoid saying literally false things, especially if those could be audited, like making up facts or credentials. The reasons for this are both moral and pragmatic — being caught out looks really bad, and sustaining lies is quite hard, especially over time. Let’s call the habit of not saying things you know to be false ‘shallow honesty’[1].
Often when people are shallowly honest, they still choose what true things they say in a kind of locally act-consequentialist way, to try to bring about some outcome. Maybe something they want for themselves (e.g. convincing their friends to see a particular movie), or something they truly believe is good (e.g. causing their friend to... (read 2537 more words →)
Thanks for bringing up the comparison points of radical honesty and explicit honesty. It does seem like deep honesty is in between the two.
But the characterization of deep honesty that you've posited doesn't feel very respectful? It leaves space to patronizingly share things the listener doesn't want to hear, because you've determined that they're relevant. Our notion of deep honesty is closer to being grounded in a notion of respect, perhaps something like "being completely honest about information you perceive that the receiver would want, regardless of whether the information has explicitly been requested". Sometimes that could involve some leaving of trailheads, or testing of the waters, to ascertain whether the person... (read more)