HONESTY

THINK, DECIDE, ACT. "By doing this, I will be adhering to the following spiritual principles, Rationality, Integrity, Independence, HONESTY, Justice, Productiveness and Pride.

http://heroofyourlife.blogspot.ca/2009/11/my-mission-statement.html

Two posts ago was about Integrity, in which I contrasted integrity and honesty by stating that I felt that part of integrity was being true to yourself, whereas honesty is about being true to others.

The simple definition for honesty is about not telling lies, and is sometimes referred to as a moral absolute. However, it is obvious to any reasonable person, that there are in fact examples where lying is warranted and moral. Two that are often cited is lying to a mugger about having money hidden in your shoe, or to a nazi asking if you are hiding Jewish people in your cellar.

The definition that I prefer is "loyalty to the facts". I apologize in that I don't remember the exact source of that phrase, but my guess would be either Ayn Rand or Leonard Peikoff.

Loyalty to the facts truly is the only rational choice, which should be obvious by considering the opposite, "loyalty to .... an illusion?..... a whim?....."

A is A.

Being rational involves logically dealing with facts, or at least our best interpretation of what the facts are, if we don't yet have access to sufficient reliable information.

So, therefore "think" means considering all the facts (that we know of), and making decisions about our actions that we then follow courageously.

Like all these principles, trying to get around them, as previously stated, is like trying to ignore gravity. There will be a consequence, regardless of our whims.

Last night, I happened to watch a movie called Arbitrage, in which Richard Gere plays a billionaire businessman, who has been dishonest to business associates, the government, as well as his wife and family. As the movie ends, after seeming that he is headed for certain disaster, in terms of being apprehended by authorities, and being publicly exposed as a fraud, not to mention being divorced by his wife; through a complex series of manipulations he appears to evade all these, and my daughter, who was watching with me said, "what a terrible ending, he got away with it!"

However, I corrected her by saying that he truly didn't get away with anything, in that, he has completely lost any respect from his daughter (who is his business partner and is initially innocent but is pulled into his transgressions and could have faced prison due to choosing at one point to protect her father, and her future self-esteem is now ruined, and he has to live with having done that.) plus his wife has no real love for him, and most importantly, his self-esteem has to be decimated, as he realizes that, despite, public fame and fortune, he is nothing more that a facade.

Some would argue that his money and position compensate for this, but I strongly disagree, because like a drug addict, who tries to fill a void (where self-esteem should be) with chemical substitutes, but fails dismally, no amount of fame, fortune, etc. can compensate for the self-esteem needed to be truly happy.

Of course a person can delude themselves and perhaps achieve some semblance of occasional peace of mind by rationalizing that they were being pragmatic and that the means justified the ends. (an all too common practice)

Others may point out that some people are sociopaths, people who are supposedly born with no conscience or have no concept of right and wrong. All I can say about this, is that whatever is achieved by self-delusion is not what I would call happiness. As for sociopaths, I'm not a psychologist, and could stand to be corrected, but whatever that person is, is not a human being, and the unacceptably high price for not feeling guilt is to also be devoid of any happiness.

Either of these people may also rationalize that pleasure, hedonistic or otherwise may be the same as happiness, but they may have forgotten, (if they ever knew) what true happiness feels like, or perhaps in their dismal sense of life, accepted that happiness is not attainable for anyone and that pleasure is the best anyone can hope fo, as a fleeting respite from desperation, and the gripping fear that they may ever have to truly look at themselves honestly. This recalls the part in Atlas Shrugged when James Taggart, in the room where John Galt was being tortured, finally sees his true self absent of self-delusion and ratinalizing , and is destroyed at that moment.

Thanks again for reading.