Dishonesty

Dishonesty in Statements

A dishonest statement is not one that is merely untrue, for untrue statements can be offered in [Page 295]error. Rather, a dishonest statement is made when a speaker offers a statement that he knows to be counterfactual. To know that it is sunny and say that it is raining is to make a dishonest statement. Counterfactual statements about weather conditions offered when the audience is equally present to the same weather condition are not dishonest statements, however, they are absurdities. This is because the dishonest statement exploits the vulnerability of an uninformed audience by offering it untruths in the guise of truths.

Not all deliberately counterfactual statements would be labeled dishonest, however. Riddles, jokes, stories, myths, and fantasies all rely on the counterfactual; it is not dishonest, for example, to tease someone, nor is it dishonest to tell a joke, and all such counterfactuals are distinct from dishonesty in that they are presented and coded as forms of play. In play, however, as George Herbert Mead explains, the sender of a message sends signals that the pretend event is playful. For a statement to be dishonest, then, it must be counterfactual and must be offered as if it were in earnest.

“Tom's Meeting with the Prince,” as illustrated in Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper (1881). Honesty can be performed in such a way or under such circumstances that it is taken for dishonesty, as John Canty does of the words of the young prince, dressed as a pauper, in the novel.

A compliment is not a dishonest act when it is principally offered to raise the spirits of the recipient. However, obsequiousness, excessive flattery, and other language forms used to ingratiate self to other via falsehood are dishonest acts.

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