Honesty

Has anyone written well about both the positive and negative duties of honesty from a perspective which acknowledges that we live in an absurd world?

Nobody gives a shit about honesty

Camus did in The Stranger.

Did you feel that the stranger was mostly about honesty? What led you to believe that?

He got himself executed because he didn't feel like lying about being repentant and religious or about his motivations to kill.

He could have easily spun a story about the Arab being a threat, how he feared for his life, how he's a good buy that dindu nuffin and loves Jesus and feels sorry and loves his mom and such. He could've lied to his gf to make her think he loved her.

His life was basically a series of complications by not willing to be be untrue to himself for the sake of social conventions.

Apologies for writing like a mess I'm a bit pickled.

literally babylonians :3

...
>- Slave, listen to me!
>- Here I am, master, here I am!
>- I want to lead a revolution!
>- So lead, master, lead! If you do not lead a revolution, where will your clothes come from? And who will enable you to fill your belly?
>- O well, slave, I do not want to lead a revolution!
>- Do not lead, master, do not lead a revolution! The man who leads a revolution is either killed or flayed, Or has his eyes put out, or is arrested and thrown to jail!

>- Slave, listen to me!
>- Here I am, master, here I am! I want to make love to a woman
>- Make love, master, make love! The man who makes love to a woman forgets sorrow and fear!
>- O well, slave, I do not want to make love to a woman!
>- Do not make love, master, do not make love! Woman is a real pitfall, a hole, a ditch, Woman is a sharp iron dagger that cuts a man´s throat!

>- Slave, listen to me!
>- Here I am, master, here I am!
>- Quick! Fetch me water for my hands and give it to me. I want to sacrifice to my god
>- Sacrifice, master, sacrifice! The man who sacrifices to his god is satisfied at heart. He accumulates benefit after benefit.
>- O well, slave, I do not want to sacrifice to my god!
>- Do not sacrifice, master, do not sacrifice! You will teach your god to run after you like a dog. Whether he asks of you "Rites" or "Do you not consult your god?" or anything else!

>- Slave, listen to me!
>- Here I am, master, here I am!
>- I want to invest silver.
>- Invest, master, invest. The man who invests keeps his capital while his interest is enormous!
>- O well, slave, I do not want to invest silver!
>- Do not invest, master, do not invest! Making loans is as sweet as making love, but getting them back is like having children! They will take away your capital, cursing you without cease. They will make you lose the interest on the capital!

>- Slave, listen to me!
>- Here I am, master, here I am!
>- I want to perform a public benefit for my country!
>- So do it, master, do it! The man who performs a public benefit for his country His actions are exposed to the circle of Marduk!
>- O well, slave, I do not want to perform a public benefit for my country!
>- Do not perform, master, do not perform! Go up the ancient tells and walk about. See the mixed skulls of plebeians and nobles. Which is the malefactor and which is the benefactor?
...

I love this piece but what does it really have to do with honesty?

the slave makes completely honest statements there and both encourages (the positive duty of honesty) and discourages (the negative duty of honesty) his master

it also acknowledges the absurd world because his honest statements contradict each other

Good point. Often the message of works I agree with the most are lost on me because I don't see the protagonists actions as strange.

Are you pathologically honest, user?

when I say of the positive duty of honesty I mean the duty to tell the truth that can't be requested because the other doesn't know they don't know it. As opposed to the negative duty to not misrepresent requested information.

"duty" of honesty is a weird concept by itself because duty isn't a property of idea

so, without an explicit definition what you mean, everybody simply assigns to that phrase their own meaning, especially when you are that specific in what you actually meant

as for me the reason of honesty it's to say the truth, either good or bad one

Yes to the degree that I am looking for a work to try to elucidate when I should be bringing unsolicited truth to a conversation.

I do. Honest people do as well.

Duty to yourself is one thing, for most people this is a selfishness by proxy -- which is redundant in itself.

Duty to yourself as you see yourself is another thing, this is wholesome action for yourself unmitigated by selfishness -- hubris. The realigning of the individual with itself. Optimization.

Duty to others is the maturation of duty to yourself, because once the individual optimizes himself, he begins to optimize the collective. Thus the wheel turns.

That's fair. My problem with your definition as "saying the truth" is that there are an infinite quantity of irrelevant truths that I have no duty to say but there are some truths that omitting would constitute lying even if they are not solicited.

Good points. That being said, it seemed to me like he's sort of sociopathic. His ability to be so honest comes from feeling so detached from everything. People who are more emotional would get different results from being that honest.

Like what exactly? Your conclusion of him being sociopathic because he was unwilling to dupe people into believing he was everything people wanted him to be -- despite their own attachments to the idea - is backwards. He refuses to let people believe in a pretty lie; pernicious seduction. This to me is empathy. He can't live the lie either, no matter how pretty. This is what empathic, thoughtful people do. The whole story is about the hyperbolic sacrifice of a guy who was basically too real to live.

The author was no doubt lamenting his own losses because of a stubborn adherence to what is real.

Was he unwilling to dupe people or unable to?

Unwilling to lie, unable to lie.

They say the more earnest you are with people the more they assume you're being facetious with them. It's irrelevant.

The fact remains: the lie could not be perpetuated.

Yeah but he wasn't doing it out of empathy or thoughtfulness. He couldn't help it.

If he couldn't lie, why?

If he was unable to lie, why?

I've gotten in trouble with the welfare office that way because they want me to get a job but I don't lie on job interviews.

When the potential future employer asks why I want to work there I tell them that the welfare folks have threatened to cut off my income if I don't look for jobs so I comply, but I have otherwise no interest in working.

The welfare people don't want me to do that, but when I then ask them directly "do you want me to lie to potential future employers and mislead them about who they are about to hire?" they don't feel comfortable saying yes, even if that is what they want me to do.

Honesty is interesting to be honest.

There's a sense of detachment but I'd say it's far from sociopathic. If anything sociopaths are habitual liars and manipulators and try to get what they want by any means possible.