The Importance of Honesty
It is not just honesty that mattersbut also ethics and virtue. A killer can be honest. That does not necessarily make him a good man or one with integrity. Truthfulness is a good character trait to havebut as Vole shows one can perhaps even deceive oneself into thinking one is being honest when one is not. It appears that Vole is an example of the latter: he seems to have convinced himself that he has done nothing wrong, and thus he is able to come across as so genuinely innocent.
If somebody is convinced of his own innocence or guilt, does that make it so? I think we draw the line on considering peoples honesty and integrity in a very relativistic way. No one really likes to think about universal truth or ultimate guilt or innocence. We all tend to judge ourselves honest more or lesseven though we might not be 100% truthful with others or even with ourselves all of the time. We are more likely to be quicker to judge others for not being honest than we are ourselves. In other words, we expect others to...
We want our employers to be honest. We want our family members...
…remain a last resort acknowledges the weakness of evidence and
testimony, especially when honesty is in question. Voles case shows how personal feelings can distort perceptions of truth.
In our daily lives, we assume honesty; we need honesty; our interactions with others do not work without it. We depend upon honest people for simple things like getting an oil change or food preparation. If honesty cannot be assumed, society breaks down. Butdo we really want to know to what extent people around us are honest? Not really! I think wed rather be left in the dark for the most part, so long as possible, and so long no one is really being hurt by anyones dishonesty. But who can be sure of…
