#1268 Christian Miller: The Honesty Crisis

00:00 Ricardo Lopes: Hello everyone. Welcome to a new episode of The Dissenter. I'm your host, as always, Ricardo Lops, and today I'm joined for a 4th time by Dr. Christian Miller. He's the AC Reed Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University, and today we're going to talk about his latest book, The Honest. The Crisis preserving our most treasured virtue in an increasingly dishonest world. There is the cover of it. So Christian, welcome back to the show. It's always a great pleasure to

00:30 Christian Miller: everyone. It's great to see you again. It's a delight to talk to you. I'm thrilled to be back and talk about honesty.

00:37 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, sure. So look, we've already done a conversation on this topic before, but let's talk a little bit more about it. And for people who perhaps haven't watched our first interview on honesty, tell us first what is honesty and how do you approach it from a Philosophical perspective because I would imagine that we could also approach it from a psychological perspective and maybe we're going to talk about some of that later when we talk about the science of dishonesty of honesty and dishonesty, but from a philosophical perspective, how do you approach it?

01:16 Christian Miller: Yeah, sure. So, and this is I should say for listeners who haven't heard the earlier interview, I'm not gonna presuppose any background. And actually, I wrote this book, uh, from scratch without assuming anyone has read anything by me before. So, uh, I'm thinking of honesty from a philosophical perspective as a character trait, uh, As one of the virtues, as part of our character. And so it's not just a matter of an honest action, like one time I tell the truth, or one time I don't cheat on a test. It's more than that. It's a matter of behavior and a matter of internal psychology, but it has to be consistent over time and consistent across situations. So let me unpack that a little bit more. Um, SO an honest person is going to act. Honestly, in a variety of circumstances, whether that's the podcast interview, whether that's the party, whether that's the, in the classroom, at, at home, at the office, stably over time, so not just on Tuesdays, but every Tuesday, every day of the week, every month of the year, um, in an honest manner. When honest questions or issues arise. Now, that might sound pretty straightforward, because you might think honesty is just a matter of telling the truth, and that's what we normally gravitate towards, uh, you know, Pinocchio, Abraham Lincoln, all of our kind of cultural icons are associated with telling the truth. But actually, I think it's a lot more nuanced and A lot more sophisticated than that. Um, HONESTY has to do with telling the truth for sure, but it also has to do with preventing cheating, preventing stealing, preventing BSing or bullshitting, hypocrisy, self-deception, fraud, uh, misleading statements. So, it covers a lot of moral territory on the behavioral side. It governs a lot of our behavior. Plus, and just to wrap it up here, um, it has to come from the right kind of heart. So outwardly, you could behave honestly, and people could say, oh, that must be a really honest person, but unless we know what the motivation is for that behavior, why it's being done. We can't really say for sure whether that person is honest or not. And so they could be doing these actions purely for self-serving reasons. They could be um trying to advance in the company or not get punished in the company by getting fired. They could want rewards in the afterlife, they could want to avoid feeling guilty, make a good impression on others, get social media followers, all these kinds of reasons. Uh, COULD motivate honest behavior, but if they're just about me and benefiting myself, they don't count as virtuously honest. It has to be something, uh, that's outward looking. Altruistic, or at least not egoistic, not self-centered, if we're talking about the virtue of honesty. And so, I can unpack that more uh on the motivational side, but to sum it up, it's actually a multifaceted, nuanced, kind of complex virtue with behavioral components, as well as internal psychological components.

04:17 Ricardo Lopes: Yes, those internal psychological components are very interesting in this case because there are certainly instances where you can be honest with the intent of harming other people, I imagine, and also there are instances where perhaps you are dishonest but with the intention of not hurting other people's feelings. For example, right, right, and that, and that's not a problem if you are dishonest in that particular kind of, of way, or, or is it,

04:49 Christian Miller: yeah, so that's really nice. Um, YOU'RE right that those things can come apart. So yes, you can be honest with the intention of hurting someone, so you could say something brutally honest and cold and, you know, uh, and harm and harmful to them, um, with no feeling, a positive, warm feelings behind it, and still be honest. Um, BECAUSE everything you're saying is true by your lights, and then you guess, you can, you can flip it around too, you could say something dishonest to someone, uh, but for benevolence or compassionate reasons. So, uh, we have an expression for that. What at least, um, certain examples fall under the heading of white lies. I don't think these are the only kind of examples, but we have this, this kind of category called white lies, where, um, you know, how does the dress look, or how does the dessert taste, or how, how's a new book read, or, you know, how's the, how's the podcast going and this kind of thing. Um, AND You privately have negative reactions. You don't like the outfit. You don't like the dessert, you don't like the book, but for what you think of as compassionate reasons, you don't tell the truth because you don't want to hurt the other person's feelings. Uh, THAT can certainly happen. Now, you said that there's no, I can't remember a word, exactly word you said, like no negative or no harmful or effects or something like that, no problems. Well, I mean, it is still dishonest. Um, THERE is no getting around the fact that it's, when it comes to the virtue of honesty, it is a failure of honesty. It might, at the same time be a success with respect to another virtue. We have to know more about the case and, and unpack the details, but say, compassion or empathy or something like that, that might get a check mark there. And so all things considered, it might be that the dishonesty is outweighed by the compassion. But I do want to at least flag that if you don't get to avoid being dishonest when you tell a white lie.

06:43 Ricardo Lopes: Mhm. But, but are there specific circumstances where you think, or cases where you think that it is actually permissible to lie and it is better to lie than to be honest?

06:58 Christian Miller: Yeah, I do. Um, SO we could debate these white lie cases further. So lots of people, at least in their ordinary lives, seem to think those are examples of where it's permissible because they seem to tell them all the time and they don't seem to mind too much, uh. I think we should be very cautious about white lie cases. I'm a little bit more of a, um, a skeptic or a pessimist about them. I think lots of times they're gonna be wrong, but Let's shift to another example where I think it's clearly morally permissible to lie. It's not an original example, it's a very famous one, it's the Nazi at the door example. Um, IT actually has an earlier iteration in Immanuel Kant's philosophy. Kant had an example involving an ax murderer who was looking for a victim, and you're hiding the victim, would-be victim. And then you lie to the ax murderer to save the person's life. Um, THE updated version of this is the Nazi at the door, so you're, it's World War II in a German-occupied village. You're a homeowner, you're protecting a Jewish family. The Nazis are doing a routine patrol of the neighborhood, going door to door, saying, you know, do you know where any Jews are? Do you know where any Jews are? Do you know where any Jews are? They come to your door, they knock on it, you know that if you say, I don't know where any Jews are, they'll just go to the next house. You also know that if you say, yes, there are Jews in the basement, they're gonna come in, arrest the Jews, take them to a concentration camp, probably uh take you to one as well. So you're faced with this dilemma that, you know, at least this challenge, what do I do? Well, you might think it's obvious. I think it's pretty clear what to do. I think you lied to the Nazi. Um, NOT everyone has always agreed with that, so Augustine, um, Aquinas probably, and Kant himself, so three huge names in the history of philosophy, all said that lying is always wrong. And so it seemed like they would, uh, take the opposite view, but overwhelmingly today when I asked my students, when I ask other people, uh, what would you do, and not just what would you do, but what should you do, um, they say it's morally permissible, indeed, morally obligatory, so that you're morally required to lie to the Nazis, such that if you don't lie to the Nazi, you're doing something morally wrong. Um, SO that has the seemingly paradoxical consequence that sometimes dishonesty can be morally obligatory. But I don't think that's too paradoxical because I think when we're talking about moral obligatory, all things considered. With respect to honesty, yes, wrong, but all things considered, not just honesty, but also compassion for the Jewish family, trying to protect innocent lives, all that kind of thing, when we weigh in all the considerations, then it's morally obligatory to lie to the Nazi at the door.

09:50 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, but I mean when it comes to that case, doesn't it depend a little bit on the kind of ethics that we adopt, because in that case, wouldn't we consider it necessary to lie even more so than permissible necessary to lie if we adopt a constitution. Sequentialist ethics, but if we look at it from the ontological ethics perspective or a virtue ethics perspective, that's the reason why, for example, someone like Kent would say that you shouldn't lie. And also, I, I mean, that's one point. And the other point I was also going to ask you about when it comes to that example is the problem there, I mean, if someone tells the truth, they're I mean if we just look at it like that, telling the truth, not telling the truth, I mean actually the person isn't doing anything wrong. If something wrong is done to the Jews that the person is hiding, I mean the ones doing the harm are the Nazis, right? So that's another perspective that you can take in that case. Yeah, good,

11:04 Christian Miller: very good, yeah, yeah. So lots to unpack there. Let me take it part one and then part two. Part one is about different theories. Um, YOU'RE, you're right, the most straightforward approach would be take a consequentious or a utilitarian view for listeners who aren't familiar. I would roughly say we're required to maximize overall utility or overall happiness, and what in this situation would do that? Well, lying to the Nazi would do that because you're saving the lives of this Jewish family. Uh, THAT'S pretty straightforward. Um, I think from a virtue perspective, however, you could argue for the same conclusion, um, you could consider that there are competing virtues. That are at work. Um, AND now you don't have to, I, I, I grant, um, this is more controversial and virtue, uh, people could go in different directions, but, um, you could at least make the argument from a virtue perspective that there are competing virtues, honesty on the one hand, say, compassion on the other hand, and then you weigh up the virtues, and you say, well, compassion is more important, and outweighs honesty in this situation, so all things considered, the virtuous person would lie to the Nazi. The Kantian case is by far the hardest, um, although I think even there it's, it's, uh, it's interestingly, um, not so straightforward, so. Take Kant's first formulation. So to a background for this, um, Kant said in the first formulation of the categorical comparative, you should act in such a way that, you know, your maximum, uh, is universalizable. Um, IT'S something that, you know, if we, if, if everyone were to do this, we would both, we could conceive of a world like this, and we could will to live in a world like this. Well, this is not unique to me. Uh, A very famous Kantian today, Christine Korsgaard. Made the point that if you use that formulation, You could actually support lying to the Nazi. Um, YOU can't support lying in general, but you can support lying to save innocent lives. Because you can imagine a world in which um everyone lies, lies to wrongdoers to save innocent lives, and you would want to live in that world where everyone is doing that. So she made the, the, I think convincing case that at least part of Kant's own moral philosophy would support lying to the Nazi. However, um, now to, to make a concession to you, um, his second formulation, where he says, uh, treat others as ends, never merely as means. Which I, you know, interpret in terms of treat others with dignity and respect, never with, uh, with price and instrumental instrumentalizing them. Um, IT'S harder to see in Coorsgaard herself admits it's harder to see how that would work, uh, because it looks like if you lie to the Nazi, you're not treating the Nazi as an end, you're treating the Nazi merely as a means, so it does look like that would not allow you to lie to the Nazi at the door, uh. Now, that was, that's, so that's some, some further thoughts on the different theories. Um, YOUR second point about, well, if you just tell the, the, um, The Nazi, the truth, and then your kind of hands are, are washed clean, and it's all up to the Nazi now. Um, THAT is an interesting argument. Uh, INTERESTINGLY, also, Kant makes the same kind of arguments. Um, SO, it kind of fits together with what we talked about with Kant, and a reason why, um, he even takes it further, he says, look, um, perhaps if you, um, lied, and then unbeknownst to you, the family had escaped. And gone out the back door, and now the Nazi is going to encounter the family. Um, WHEREAS if you just told the truth, the Nazis wouldn't be able to find the family. Um, SO you, you can never unders, you know, anticipate what's gonna happen in the future. Um, SO that is, I, I'll grant all that, that, that, that that is a reasonable argument. I don't think it's a very convincing argument. Um, SO, you know, uh, in, you know, in general, we can just, um, wipe our hands of all these things, which we could have prevented. I could have prevented all these atrocities. I could have prevented these harms to others, but, um, hey, I'm just gonna wipe my hands up and let other people bear the responsibility. I think there's shared responsibility in these kind of cases. Um, YOU know, the Nazi bears most of the responsibility, but I bear some of the responsibility if I'm not doing everything I can to save the Jewish family. Mhm.

15:28 Ricardo Lopes: But I mean, what, what an honest person is then is not someone who necessarily tells the truth 100% of the time, right? I mean, it's just that they are consistent in being honest, right? I mean that they are consistently

15:48 Christian Miller: honest. Yeah, yeah, good, so. I mean, Uh, first, just, just to, to finish up the Nazi case and then talk about honesty more generally, I mean, honesty by itself, if it was a perfectly honest person, it would demand that that person tell the truth to the Nazi. So, in isolation, that virtue by itself would demand that. Because we're talking in a richer picture with other virtues at play, I say a fully virtuous person who has practical wisdom and has to balance all these different virtues, that's a different story. Now, on the point of, does honesty always lead the person to tell the truth? Well, uh, Honesty as a virtue, like all virtues, comes in degrees. Um, AND so what does that mean? That means that, um, you can have someone who's weakly honest, moderately honest, strongly honest, and fully honest. Uh, SO if that's right, then look, a moderately honest person doesn't always tell the truth, doesn't always not cheat or steal or something, they mess up from time to time. But when they mess up, that's not their honesty being expressed, it's despite um they're having some honest character, it's not fully honest, and so it doesn't perfectly lead to telling the truth or not cheating or not stealing. Um, SO, a fully honest, so now I've rephrase the question, a fully or perfectly honest person, when acting in character. Well, um, I think that's a different story. Then, um, yes, that's going to lead to honest behavior in every situation where honest behavior is relevant. Not every situation is like that. I mean, when you're sleeping, um, when you're, you know, I don't know, going to the bathroom or something like that, uh, you know, it's not always gonna be the case that honesty even applies, but when it does apply, and you're fully honest. Forgetting the other virtues. Honesty will always lead to honest behavior.

17:48 Ricardo Lopes: What about omission? I mean, is it that uh every time that we omit information to other people, it necessarily constitutes dishonesty?

18:00 Christian Miller: I don't think so. No, that's a great question. Um, LIKE all ethical issues, when we start getting into them deeply, uh, I think it really depends on the situation and the context, and we need to know facts about what's going on. Um, BUT, yeah, as a general matter, the answer is clearly not. Um, SO right now, I'm not telling you facts about my bank account, or my per, you know, personal life or my private life, my family. Um, YOU know, am I doing, is that I dishonest because of that? No. Um, WHAT if you ask me those facts, and I didn't tell them to you? I'm still not being dishonest because it wouldn't be appropriate and the relationship we have wouldn't be appropriate for me to disclose like my bank account number or something like that. Um, SO it has to be with respect to this particular situation, is it appropriate to leave out certain details or not? Now, here, I'll give you an example where it wouldn't be. Um. Uh, THE husband and wife, um, the husband has been out, uh, last night at the bar with the guys. The next day, his wife asked him, what were you doing last night? Where were you last night? And he says, uh, I was at the bar with the guys. Um He gives a misleading answer though, because he leaves out one crucial word, only. I was only at the bar with the guys. As a matter of fact, he went to the bar with the guy, so he's telling the truth, um, but then afterwards he went home with another woman and etc. ETC. Um, HE admits that and gives a very misleading response to his wife, with the intention of trying to get her to conclude. That he was not engaging in. An affair or adultery or up to no good. Um, THAT'S the case where he intentionally admitted something that would have been appropriate to share an honest person would have shared, and that's dishonest.

20:04 Ricardo Lopes: OK, but then let's just tweak that example a little bit and let's say that the guy went to the bar. Let's say with the intention of cheating on his wife, but he controlled himself and he decided not to do it, and then the next day his wife asked. Hi, so where were you at? And he tells the same thing that you mentioned before, but leaves out the fact that he had this temptation of cheating, but he didn't go through with it. I mean, because he didn't do it. Do you think that he's still being honest or that he should just lay out that he felt tempted

20:54 Christian Miller: to do

20:55 Ricardo Lopes: it?

20:55 Christian Miller: Yeah, that's, that's a harder one, and that's why it's always tricky when we get into the details of situations. I, I, I don't know, I have to probably think about that more. My initial inclination is to say that he's not being dishonest with his wife at that moment, um, because he, you know, he is telling the accurate truth of where he was last night. He's not leaving out any additional places he went to because he didn't go anywhere else, he was just at the bar with his friends, um, and then, uh, that's what he tells his wife. Um. There is a way in which, though, last night he was dishonest, or at least might be more properly to say failed to be honest, because that temptation itself is a mark of failure of honesty. Um, AND that is what Aristotle would call a consonant or or a person of strength of will, but that's not the same thing as a virtuous person, because a virtuous person would not struggle with that temptation in the first place. So we have admirable that he overcame the temptation, for sure. That's why he's not dishonest. He didn't give into it, and, and, you know, pursue another woman, um, but it's still not the same as being virtuous, because a virtuous person would have gone to the bar, and never, you know, had the thought of, uh, spending time in a, you know, sexual manner with someone there. Um, SO that I would say is a, a sign of failure of honesty, um, but I, I'm at least, least inclined to say the next day, he, he wasn't dishonest to his wife.

22:31 Ricardo Lopes: OK, so, and, and what do we know about people's honesty and dishonesty actually, because, uh, OK, we, we're, I'm talking here with you. You are a philosopher, of course, we're going to tackle things here, mostly from a philosophical perspective of what honesty is and what's an honest person, but what do we Actually know about how dishonest or honest people are in real life.

23:00 Christian Miller: Yeah, so very good. And I'm, although I'm a philosopher, I spent a lot of time reading psychology and other fields. I do a lot of just interdisciplinary work. So I, I very much care about the facts on the ground and not just what I can think of in, in the famous philosophy armchair. Um. So, that's a big question, and there's a lot to say. Uh, AND, and as a matter of fact, uh, a lot of my earlier research was along these lines, uh, both about how good people are in general, not just honest, but how people, good people are with some some of my earlier books. And then the first honesty book, uh, really dive into detail about the experimental lecture. Um, So let me just give you a kind of quick summary of some of the findings, uh, OK, and I think what I see is, um, so first of all, to answer this question, we could go in a variety of different directions. We could go to religion, we could go to history, we could go to current events, we could go to, um, you know, your own personal life or people around you. I go empirical. I go to, to carefully controlled studies. Uh, IN social psychology, personalized psychology, and other fields like that, which put people in specific situations and see what they do in those situations. Um, AND, uh, The overall picture that emerges for me is at least with respect to North America and Europe, often there are not many studies that are, uh, international in scope, um, and at least with respect to the last 20 years, because we don't have a lot of studies going back further in time, uh. The picture is of a mixed bag here with some good sides to our character, some bad sides to our character. So most people are not good enough to count as honest. Most people are not bad enough to count as dishonest. It's a mixed character. Uh, LET me, let me, uh, highlight a little bit of the good and a little bit of the bad. Um, OK, uh, a little bit of the good. Uh, IN chapter two of the book, I talk about empirical research on lying frequency, um. So, how frequently do people tell lies? And you might think that that's gonna be bad, and that can that lies is good, um, and indeed earlier research was kind of pessimistic about 2 to 3 lies on average a day. More recent research though, has found that, well, if you actually look at individuals, And survey them, most people don't lie, or at least don't report that they lie. We can, of course, question that self-report of lying. Um, SO in one study in particular, uh, 60% of people said they've not told a single lie in the last 24 hours. Most of the rest of the people told very few lies in the last 24 hours. Only 5% of people told a significant number of lies in the last 24 hours. So, this has led to an actual well established theory called truth default theory, which says that most people tell the truth most of the time. That we default into truth telling. That's our default mindset. We're not neutral. Like, I might tell the truth, I might lie. I have to kind of decide, and we don't default into lying. We default into telling the truth, and we default into assuming others are telling the truth to us. So we're default truth biased in what we expect from other people. So I think overall we can, of course, challenge that and question it in some ways, but, but I think that's, that's pretty positive, um. Now, on the flip side, um, let's switch to a different kind of behavior, let's switch to cheating. When you put people into different situations where there's a monetary incentive to cheat. They will often, and and and they know they won't get caught. They will often cheat. So, uh, a quick study, um, Uh, uh, put people in a situation where they take a test, 2020 problems on the test, 50 cents per correct answer, US money, uh, they come in, they take the test, they turn in the test, it gets created by the person in charge. They have no control over anything other than their own performance. In this, uh, study, I'm thinking of, they got 7 out of 20 on average. Another group comes in, same test, same 50 cents, however, they get to grade the materials themselves, destroy their materials, and just verbally report how well they did. In the same study, uh, 14 out of 20 was the average for this group. Um, 7 out of 20 versus 14 out of 20, clear, I think, evidence of a willingness to cheat if you think you can get away with it, and there's some reward for you. Also clearly not compatible with the virtue of honesty. Um, SO some evidence that in certain areas we're inclined to be dishonest, in other areas, we're inclined to be honest, and so the overall mix. Mixed character position emerges.

27:55 Ricardo Lopes: Do you think, let me just ask you this, do you think that perhaps another limitation of those studies, particularly when we're talking about, uh, self-reporting, is that, is the way that people understand what a lie is? I mean, could it be that Some of the things that we've been talking about here, like what people tend to consider white lies, if they are asked, they would just say, Yeah, I didn't tell any lies today, but they actually told white lies, but they just don't consider that a lie.

28:29 Christian Miller: Yeah, good, good, good. Uh, THAT definitely could be a limitation, and I, I don't recall off the top of my head how carefully the studies were run with that in mind. I would hope that they defined what a lie is to the participants and made it very clear, this is what we're, what we're talking about is what we're asking you about. However, I suspect that not all of them did do that. Um, LET me, at least though, in their defense of the studies, not knowing what the answer to this, to your question is, um, Uh, they did at least find individual differences. So it it would have been highly suspicious of people like across the board said, I don't tell any lies. And I, I would wonder, like, either they're just deceiving themselves, or they're just lying about the number of lies they told, or they're confused about what a lie is, um, because they have the wrong definition in their minds. But, um, not only were those, I already told you the individual differences, like 5% telling a lot of lies, in another study, uh, they Uh, they tracked participants over 3 months. And so the same people were asked every day over the course of 3 months, and that's just, not only were there individual differences across people, but there were individual differences in terms of from day to day. So a person would say, I told no lies on this day, and the next day, oh, I told 2 lies. Next day, I told 5 lies. Um, SO they, they understood themselves to be telling lies of some kind or other, and varying in the frequency of it. Um, ALTHOUGH I, I, I fully admit, um, it probably, uh, was not as carefully done as you and I would have liked.

30:12 Ricardo Lopes: Mhm. OK. Let me ask you this because the title of your book is The Honesty Crisis. I mean, uh, do you really mean that, that there is an actual, uh, crisis, an actual honesty crisis that we're living in? Um.

30:29 Christian Miller: Well, I, I probably should be honest, I mean, it seems appropriate for like a topic like this, right? Um, SOME of that was probably rhetorical flourish or just, you know, to grab attention. Um, IT seems like there are crises everywhere and putting that in the title is, is going to stand out. However, um, I did mean it intentionally. Um, Let me first define what I, uh, I have in mind by an honesty crisis. So I, I do have a definition in mind. Um, AND then, um, let me give you an example where I think it's probably accurate to say it really is a crisis. Um, uh, SO I mean by this something specific, uh, two features. One, dishonesty has become much more tempting than it was before. We have an honesty crisis when dishonesty is much more tempting, much more appealing than it was before. So it's not that there was never any dishonesty before, there was, but now it's more appealing, and at the same time, it's easier to get away with and not get caught. So you've got two of those two features more tempting and easier to get away with, put them together, that's a bad combination, and that is going to, I think, incentivize. Dishonesty a lot in people's minds. Now, in the book, I go through 6 case studies, and I think we'll probably get into a couple of them as we go along. Um, BUT here's one just to illustrate this and make a little bit more concrete and also back up the crisis word. Um, IN education. All teachers, whether it's college, high school, middle school, even some like lower school teachers I've, I've heard of, are facing a real honesty crisis when it comes to AI, uh, use by students. So, students who are for, for, for at-home assignments, um, whether it's a paper, right, you know, at home, or a problem set or coding assignments, um, whatever is being assigned for the students to be, to do at home. Um, AND then, uh, turn it in for a grade. The, you know, look, how the students cheat on that in the past? Sure. Might they have gotten together with their friends and then, you know, shared some answers? Sure. When the internet came along, did they sometimes go on the internet to find answers? Sure. Uh, BUT now, with AI you can go online. To chat GBT or cloud or something like that, and have it do your problem set for you in a matter of seconds, or give the paper prompts and some examples of your previous writing, um, and, you know, give us some, some, some additional instructions, and it will produce in a span of 10 seconds, a paper that's not just acceptable, but better than you probably would have written yourself. And so it saves immense amount of time. And we'll probably get you a better grade. Than what you would have done on your own. And given that opportunity, given that capacity that we now have, which we didn't have before, it's extremely hard for people to resist using it. And so it's, uh, as a result, I think a real crisis here because uh left unchecked. Majority of students are gonna do this. Claim it as their own work, of course, they're not gonna acknowledge it, they're gonna claim it, they did, they did the work. Get better grades, and uh, in the, in the process, plagiarize from the AI, do something dishonest, do something morally wrong, and we've got a crisis on our hands. And I think you talk to most teachers, and it would not be an exaggeration to call that a crisis.

34:07 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, so I mean, please tell me if I'm getting this right, because I mean when you say that today there's more incentive to be dishonest and it's easier to get away with it, I mean, doesn't it, OK, perhaps boiling boiled down is too strong an expression, but doesn't it have a lot to Do with the technological developments that we've seen over the past, I don't know, 1015, 20 years with particularly the internet with AI and with social media, because I mean I was just thinking about it while you were answering my previous question, and it seems to me that really, particularly when it comes to online space. AND online tools, it's really what allows for people to be dishonest in a way that is easier and they can more easily get away with it.

35:08 Christian Miller: Yeah, yeah, so, so we haven't mentioned what the other honesty crises are. Um, SO let me just rattle them off real quickly and not expand on them, and then I'll, uh, you'll, I'm just gonna say yes to everything you said. Um, SO, the other ones I talked about are, um, so in addition to the AI student cheating. We have deep fakes, which are connected to AI. We have, um, celebrity and influencer culture, um, which is connected to social media. We have sermon plagiarism and other kinds of, uh, dishonesty in the religious context, that's also connected to AI. Um, WE, we have, uh, political misinformation and fake news that's being shared, that's connected to social media. Um, WE have internet infidelity, that's connected to the internet. Um, I think I got them all, maybe I forgot one, but, uh, so, all the, now that we have them on the, on the table, we can see, yeah, what's the thread running through all of these, um, it's technology. Um, NOW, I don't hear me wrong, I'm not someone who's anti-technology, and I'm not gonna say technology is inherently dishonest. I don't think, I don't believe that. I don't think it's inherently honest either. I think it's inherently neutral, but it can be used in different ways. And so what we have now are these tools, which we didn't have 20 years ago, that if used in with intentions of, uh, dishonest intentions. Yeah, I mean, uh, they're very effective in, in that regard. Um, THEY'RE very hard to detect that, uh, afterwards that they were used in that way, um, and they just make, uh, make honesty harder to preserve in our culture. Um, SOME people have wondered if there are other factors involved too, and I don't discount that. I mean, some have wondered like, is there erosion of moral values in society, um, is there a decline in religion? Is there, you know, uh, objective standards of right and wrong? People don't believe in that as much, and so that's also contributing to us. Crisis. So I don't want to completely boil it down just to technology. I mean, after all, it's people who are using the technology and people have moral values and standards and beliefs and the worldviews and this kind of thing, and those can change. So I'm sure it's more than just technology, but the big piece for me is the technology, no doubt.

37:24 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, and I mean, I was actually going also to ask you, I'm not sure if there's research done, psychological research or sociological research done on this topic exactly, but do you think that people, the same people, tend to be more dishonest online because they have that opportunity than in their real lives, or not?

37:51 Christian Miller: Yeah, so. There is a bit of research, um. But it's going to be complicated here. Um. So, let me approach it from this direction. Um, ACTUALLY, in the chapter where I try to give a little bit, chapter two, I try to say things aren't terrible, and there's some optimistic results and some positive news where I talk about that lying research and how people tend to not lie very much. I end that chapter by saying, look, when it comes to social media, there are areas of social media where people are remarkably honest. Um, SO it complicates the picture a bit here. Um, AND then I'll come back to your point, and then say, yeah, I think there are other parts of social media where it's not so much the case and what's going on. Um, SO, look, um, perhaps counterintuitively, when it comes to parts of social media, people are no more dishonest there than they are in their real life. Uh, OK. What, what parts? Um, EMAIL, text messaging, uh, Facebook, at least parts of Facebook, um, even, uh, dating websites. Um, Uh, LET'S just stick with those. Oh, and, and, and LinkedIn. So like, uh, you know, like, um, something more employment oriented, uh, more, more corporate. Um, AND so there are these studies which find that there's no, no, really no disparity, maybe a slight disparity, but not a significant disparity, um, versus, uh, uh, real life. For example, um, LinkedIn resumes are no more dishonest than traditional paper resumes. Well, what's going on here, there's a name and a record. Um, IN all these cases, your name is attached to the thing, and there's a, uh, capacity for screenshots and, you know, a track record of, uh, of, of what you said in the past, that could be used against you and you could be held accountable to. Um. Now we come to the other side of uh social media and the online spaces. What I'm talking about are typically ones where there is no such track record. Uh, YOU can get away with doing these things, and not be traced to you. So, um, take, you know, take the one we've, we, the only one we've unpacked a bit so far is the student case. Um, IN the student case, they can use this AI, submit the paper, and, uh, at least given the tools we have now, it's very hard, even if the professor is suspicious, it's very hard for the professor to document and prove that the student used this technology. In a, um, in a deceitful way. So there's that anonymity there and it's also gonna apply in other contexts too, this is anonymity, um, that protects the person from being held accountable, and it opens up a space for more dishonesty, just like, I mean, I'll I'll end here, um. It's not so dissimilar from that game I was telling you about, right? Like, you go in, you take the test, uh, 2020 pounds, 50 cents per correct answer, you verbally report, well, there's a, you're shielded because no one's gonna know how you actually did, so you can present yourself in a way that's different from the true facts and not get caught. Same thing here, you can present yourself in a different way, um, and be shielded from the truth, and that opens up spaces for dishonesty.

41:26 Ricardo Lopes: Right, I mean, when it comes to the ways that people can be the most dishonest online and actually harm other people by behaving that way, I mean, earlier you mentioned deep fakes, for example, and I guess that that can be very harmful, not only because you're being dishonest by creating a picture that is not real of some other person or even yourself if you want. So, but, but, uh, but also if you're using the image of another person, you're violating, er, their consent. I mean, because they're not, you're not using it with their consent and it can harm them in several different areas of their life depending on what the image is and the context where it's shown. But also, I mean on social media and even places, for example, like Instagram, it seems like people tend to present. A very filtered image of their life. I mean, in a, in a way that they try to transmit to other people that their life is much better, much more positive than what it actually is, and it can harm other people, perhaps even more so young people, because they go online and they think that everyone else except themselves is doing great in life.

42:50 Christian Miller: Yeah, yep, yep, yeah, so I can, I can react to that. On the Instagram, and I'll come back to the defakes. Um, THAT actually reminds me of our earlier discussion of omissions. Um, SO you're presenting a part of your life, uh, but a very filtered part of your life, and you're omitting other parts of your life in it, I, I, I think in a context where it probably would be appropriate, uh, I expect that you present a, a complete picture. Uh, SO I, I understand where you're coming from there. That does seem to be, to be problematic, um. I think the deep fakes one though can be much more problematic and much more harmful, depending on what type of deep fake we're talking about. However, the by far the most common kind of deep fake is the most problematic as well, and that's non-conceptual deep fake pornography. Um, SO where someone's like, typically it's a female actresses. The picture of her face is imported onto a pornographic actress's body, and then it seems the way the technology is right now, so, uh, sophisticated technology, it seems like that actress Scarlett Johansson or Taylor Swift or something like that, um, was actually engaged in these sexual acts. Um, THAT'S, that's just, you know, obviously, I think, wrong, but it's dishonest in so many levels, um, which I, in the, in the book I unpack, like, sometimes 1015, 20 different ways in which it's dishonest, that this, I think, uh, it is now being exploited. I mean, you might say, well, what is, how is Taylor Swift harmed? I mean, you know, she's a huge celebrity, she's got billions of dollars, you know, what, what difference does it make to her? I think it's still there, there are clear ways in which she's harmed. Even worse today is when this technology is being used to um directly punish people that the person knows in their real life. So there are now versions of this, uh, in the US it's a real problem at the high school level, where high school boys are taking pictures of high school girls, and putting them into these pornographic videos, and then disseminating that in amongst their classmates. Bringing great embarrassment and, you know, shame and so forth on those girls. Of course, they didn't do it, but just having that image in the minds of all the classmates, and then having to, that, you know, come to school with that image in their minds is extremely psychologically traumatic and, and devastating. Uh, SO that's all, all terrible stuff. Now, um, one last note though, uh, to, to balance out the picture a bit. There are all kinds of deep fakes that are being generated right now for things like educational and humanitarian purposes. And you might think, well, you know, let's, let's present a balanced picture, like, can it be used for good? I mean, can it be used to actually help people? And I think maybe in some cases, yes, but not without dishonesty. Um, SO I, I, I know I'm giving you a long answer, but I'll, I'll wrap it up with, with an illustration. Um, uh, THERE was a deep fake made of John Kennedy's speech that he was supposed to give. Before he was ass or so the speech he was supposed to give, were he not assassinated. And so it's an educational video that's out there on a historical channel, um, and, you know, people can learn from that. They could go and say, oh wow, this is, this is what he was gonna talk about, and this is how he probably would have delivered the speech, and I could learn something more I didn't know before. But without a disclaimer or disclosure, that's a deep fake. IS still dishonest, um, because it's presenting itself as if it were real. When it's not. So we need to always with deep fakes, no matter even if they are for good purposes or intentions, we need to keep in mind, um, and there needs to be some disclosure, some honesty. About how this was made, where it comes from, and the fact that it's not in fact real. That's what I insist on.

47:02 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, no, I'm just going to give you an example from my personal life because I mean, I've always been a very big George Carlin fan, and I mean he died in 2007, very unfortunately, but Uh, I mean, uh, 2 years ago, yeah, I think it was 2 years ago, 2024, someone put out on YouTube video of a supposed stand-up made by the dad, George Carlin. I mean, it's at least they were honest that it was completely AI generated, but I mean, the, the thing that really bothered me the most about it is that If you go and listen to what he's saying, not only does it sound like the real George Carlin, but even the jokes sound like real George Carlin jokes. I mean, people who used to love his comedy very easily notice that they sound like jokes written by the actual George Carlin. And I mean it really bothers me because I don't even want to give them that, but it really does sound like George Carlin and it's it's, it's terrible because it's absolutely the er I mean it even if it's not completely dishonest because at least the person is saying that it's AI generated, but I mean it's like them, er it's like profanity

48:36 Christian Miller: almost. Good, good, good. Yeah, I've not seen that video, but I understand where you're coming from. I, I might not worry too much about the dishonesty, as you noted, um, we can debate whether there is some dishonesty or not. Um, BUT there, there can be other moral concerns here too. Um, THERE are questions about, is this disrespectful, um, is this kind of violating his autonomy? Is this, uh, you know, violating his dignity? Can you, can you actually wrong people who are dead? Um, CAN you wrong someone's memory? Um, ALL kinds of other moral questions are in the neighborhood here. And I, I would share your view that, um, even if dishonesty is not the main issue, uh, there are other ways in which this is still probably the wrong thing to do.

49:23 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, so I mean, do you think that people are just inevitably dishonest, at least to the extent that we've already talked about when we talked about the psychology of it, the science? Do you think that even those times or those specific domains or Particularly certain places, circumstances like social media where people perhaps in particular ways tend to be particularly dishonest. Do you think that's just inevitable or we can do something to improve people's lives?

50:03 Christian Miller: Yes, yes, yes, it's a lot to say here, a big question too. You know, I, my overall picture is a mixed character, so I don't think people are inevitably dishonest in general, because I don't think people are, are in general, dishonest. Um, I think they're, they're mixed. Um, BUT your question is more precise in, in these certain circumstances where they tend to be dishonest, is that inevitable? Uh. I, I would like to say no. Uh, I don't think it's inevitable. Is it common? Could be yes. Um, IS it frequent? Could be yes. Uh, BUT it, are people able to change their characters over time. There's actually good evidence in, uh, you know, with character in general and personality in general, there's, there's plenty of good evidence that character changes. So whatever character you have now, you're not stuck with, um, you're not, it's not fixed in your, in your psychology. And that you can take active steps to change your character. So, for good or for bad, of course, it always has to be for better. Um, AND also that there are age differences, so people's character on average at 20 is different than at at 60, and it tends to be better at 60 than at 20. Uh, SO those are some general points. More specific points, um, You know, uh A couple thoughts, um. One, going back to that test-taking scenario, we had with the 20 problems and the 150 cents per correct answer, there was a variation that I didn't mention, where students first signed an honor code, uh, a code of ethics for their university, pledging that they would not lie, cheat, or steal, steal or anything like that. Um, And then they took the test, they graded themselves, they verbally reported how they performed, and in this variation, the verbal report was back down to the control level. So on average, the performance was showing no signs of cheating. So there's a way in which uh the environments could be manipulated by, uh, in such a way as to incentivize honesty, and it prevented, it seemed like the upshot was that it prevented people from being dishonest in that scenario. Uh, SO, broader, now, some broader, uh, implications. One is, uh, I think we can push back against dishonesty, uh, at the institutional level and at the, um, political level. Um, WE can have, uh, legislative initiatives, I think, in with respect to things like, like deep fakes, um, we need to have legislative initiatives. It needs to start at the top with laws that prohibits, for example, non-consensual deep fake pornography, um, and, and have fines and even, uh, criminal, uh, sentences associated with things like this, um, that will, I think, change people's behavior, not eliminate, of course, but disincentivize them. Um, ALSO, I think that there are some individualistic concrete things that we can do. Um, I'll mention just one in the interest of time. Um, uh, WELL, sorry. I've already mentioned one that's uh more cultural, which is things like honor codes, and more reminders in our environment, but I, but it's something proactive that you can do individually, that I haven't mentioned yet, um, is to Keep in mind the perspective of people who are impacted by your dishonesty. Uh, RIGHT, so, you know, if you feel like, yeah, you, you're dishonest a lot, here's something that you can do to try and get away from that pattern. Not gonna eliminate, of course, but just try and shift yourself out of, out of that pattern, is to empathetically. Try to project yourself into the mindset of someone who's going to be impacted by your dishonesty. I talk about this in particular with respect to um internet infidelity, which we haven't looked at. So, for people who are going online and looking at pornography websites or Ashley Masson infidelity websites or uh chat rooms where you can have, uh, these certain kind of conversations, uh, Think about the emotional impact. That might have. On your significant other, were your significant other to discover that you're doing that. Now that obviously doesn't apply to someone who does have a significant other, but for those who are in relationships where there's expectations of sexual and emotional exclusivity. Imagine how that person would feel, anger, resentment, hatred, bitterness, betrayal. Disloyalty. All these things could well up and powerfully. Shape how they respond to you. And if you're empathizing with them, because you're in this relationship, but you still care about them, and you understand, this is what they're gonna go through. Mhm. That could be a powerful emotional, it's always philosophical here, it should perhaps shouldn't be primarily philosophical. Emotional change can be more impactful sometimes than intellectualual change, you know, that could move you. To not engage in these behaviors anymore. Because of the impact They could have on someone you care about.

55:30 Ricardo Lopes: Right, I, I mean I will just add one thing and ask you, of course, if you agree with this, but also when it comes to personal relationships and romantic relationships, more specifically, if you betray someone er that can have a long lasting impact in their lives, because it might be the case that they will live with that in their mind. In every single future romantic relationship that they have that they might be expecting to be betrayed by other people who might not even be dishonest at all. So I mean it's not just the impact that you have in the moment or the next few weeks or months after they find out that that could be a And everlasting impact. Yeah,

56:22 Christian Miller: I know, no, no you're right, I mean, so, um, this. Highlights something that uh I think it's really important to highlight, which is honesty is a virtue, and it's connected to other really important moral values too, one of which is trust. So trust and honesty are highly correlated with each other, uh, empirically and conceptually, and so if you break honesty, if you're disloyal or dishonest towards your significant other, Well, that is also tends to violate trust. With this, you know, with that significant other, that the significant other's trust with you, but not just. That, as you said, in the moment, it's gonna be harder in the future for that person to trust other people too. Um, THEY'VE been betrayed, they made themselves vulnerable. And where did it get them? It got them betrayal, so they need a probably even more convincing the next time that this person is trustworthy. So that they don't have to go through the whole thing again and be betrayed all over again, which could arguably could be even worse again, it's like, I can't believe it happened to me again. I was so, you know, I was foolish enough the first time, and now I let myself get betrayed again. That's, yeah, that's, that's that. So, so honesty and trust are highly linked, um, and they're, they have to be earned. And if they're betrayed, it's hard to get them back again.

57:52 Ricardo Lopes: So I have just one last question, and this is actually something that I just thought about last week or something like that because it came to mind when I was thinking about honesty. I mean, do you think that Uh, inconsistency, I mean people just being inconsistent in terms of their commitments, in terms of saying that they're going to do something, but then just almost out of nowhere, uh, changing their minds when they're very volatile and erratic with their behavior. Do you think that that can itself be a form of dishonesty? Even more so if the person is already aware that they have those kinds of tendencies, but they don't disclose it and they just commit, for example, to doing something that they know there's a high probability that they will not fulfill that commitment. Interesting,

58:53 Christian Miller: yeah, yeah, this is. I haven't a direct answer, but I, I have a, uh, but it's not directly to your question, um, and then I, I will say I haven't thought about your question specifically in, in a lot of details. It's quite intriguing. The, the direct answer um is that there are forms of inconsistency which are clearly dishonest. Um, AND I don't think there's much debate about it. So, for example, hypocrisy is a kind of dishonesty. Uh, YOU know, you're presenting yourself one way, like, you present yourself as, uh, You know, crusading for animal rights, and we need to be vegans, and it's terrible to consume animals, and then secretly, you're eating hamburgers and hot dogs and so forth. So that's just straightforwardly hypocritical, um, as a kind of inconsistency, and it's also straightforwardly dishonest. Similarly, with um self-deception. It's got inconsistency there, that's also dishonest. Um, WHAT you're talking about is, I think more, more nuanced and subtle, and that's where I don't have a thought out a response, but I'll, I'll at least say some things, um. So you're thinking about about someone who's a bit, it's just more um inconsistent in their day to day lives as far as maybe they have kind of uh erratic tendencies, or they, um, they kind of have trouble focusing on one thing and they kind of go from here to there, um, or they have emotional outbursts that lead them to not follow through on their commitments. Um, THOSE kinds of behaviors by themselves, I wouldn't automatically think of as dishonest. Um, THAT just like seemed like part of their character and, and, and how they behave, um. But they're not, it's not like they're um violating their moral, their expressed moral commitments to others, um. This way. However, what you added to this was, what if they know this about themselves, and then they don't disclose this to others, knowing this about themselves. That I think is, is problematic, yes, um, so, you know, if you like something really important, like a big project at work, and you say, yeah, no problem, I'm gonna deliver, I can deliver on that project, and the whole team is counting on you. And yet you know about yourself that you're actually quite flaky or erratic, or, you know, like, sometimes you deliver, sometimes you don't, and you don't disclose that to the team. Um, uh, THAT, that I think is, is problematic, um, and, uh, problematic from an honesty perspective. Um, THAT'S, that's probably something goes back to also our missions, that's probably something that the team should know about. And if they still trust you, that's OK. Well then you've, you, you've wiped your hands, also going back to your point about like wiping your hands. Uh, YEAH, at least I, I told you. I tried my best, but I didn't deliver because I, you know, I'm this kind of person. I, I, I, I disclosed that. I was honest, you were on board with me doing it, you trusted me, comes back to trust too, um, uh, then I think, yeah, OK, um, no problem. But if you don't disclose that to the team, and you know that about yourself, and then you don't deliver on the project. Yeah, your dishonesty has come back to haunt you.

1:02:13 Ricardo Lopes: Mhm. Yeah, I, I think that we would have more to discuss about that topic specifically, but uh I mean, we've already done an hour here, so, uh, the book is again The Honesty Crisis Preserving our Most treasured virtue in an increasingly dishonest world, and there's the cover for the hardcover again, so. Uh, Christian, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show again. As I said, it's always a great pleasure to talk to you, and I hope to have the opportunity of having you on the show again somewhere in the future.

1:02:50 Christian Miller: Always a great pleasure, honestly, and I'd love to come back in the future. So thank you for your time.

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