About this episode

Greg La Blanc interviews Christian B. Miller about the concept of honesty and its challenges in the modern world influenced by technology and deception.

Christian B. Miller is the A.C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University and the author of several books. His latest title is The Honesty Crisis: Preserving Our Most Treasured Virtue in an Increasingly Dishonest World. Greg and Christian discuss what Christian calls ‘The Honesty Crisis.’ He defines honesty as a virtue involving both stable honest behavior (not lying, cheating, stealing, misleading, promise breaking, fraud, hypocrisy, self-deception, or “BS-ing”) and proper motivation (rooted in altruistic concern or duty, not self-interest). He argues honesty tracks subjective belief, so false statements can be honest and true statements can be dishonest, and discusses bullshitting, authenticity, excessive frankness, white lies and their costs, and the puzzle of self-deception. Christian cites research suggesting most people default to truth-telling, but claims that multiple “honesty crises” are happening now where technology makes dishonesty easier to commit and harder to detect: AI cheating, deepfakes, internet infidelity, political misinformation, celebrity/influencer dishonesty, and plagiarism. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

People in this episode

Host: Greg La Blanc

Guest: Christian B. Miller

Topics covered

• honesty
• deception
• AI
• philosophy
• truth
• self-deception

Keywords

• honesty
• deception
• AI
• truth
• self-deception
• philosophy
• misinformation

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Wake Forest University

Books & works: The Honesty Crisis

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