The first word I came up with in the Six Words exercise was Honest. The phrase I attached to this was *No False Statements*. This is probably easier to manage that the positive for: *Always tell the truth*.
Honesty intersects with the cardinal virtues in the following ways:
Courage – sometimes it requires courage to tell the truth. White lies are easy to give into, especially in casual conversations: *How are you? I’m fine*. This is usually a lie. It is also tempting to lie in Cherry Tree problems. The Cherry Tree myth told to American students that George Washington, as a child, cut down a cherry tree for no stated reason; and when his father demanded to know who had done this, he supposedly said “I cannot tell a lie, father, ’twas I who cut the tree down.” It is a lesson used to encourage children to tell the truth even if the truth would bring about some punishment.
If anyone can refute me–show me I’m making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective–I’ll gladly change. It’s the truth I’m after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in in self-deceit and ignorance.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.21 (Hays trans.)
Uncle Marcus reminds us that the truth never hurt anyone, which is true, as corrective punishments are not harmful to us no matter how much we think they are, they simply aren’t.
So my initial slogan of no false statements is a wise thing to follow because deception hurts me, and if it hurts me, it hurts those around me.
Self-Control – Honesty can bump up against self-control. When testifying in the American court system you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. In everyday life, does the complete truth really need to be given? When something has gone wrong in a system–someone made a bad decision–does it really matter who made the decision? This is an issue that comes up in my work life. Which is more important when solving a problem? Blaming the person who screwed up or fixing the problem?
(The exception is when it’s my mistake. I own up to those immediately.)
The other place honesty bumps into self-control is in that daily greeting that greases the wheels of society: How are you doing? I’m completely overwhelmed by requests and I can’t keep track of everything and my cats might be sick and I really have to use the bathroom so bad I’m about to soil my pants, how are you? Is this a temperate response? It’s perfectly honest in that it is all true. Or is it?
In discussions of religion, I work to separate Truth from Fact. Truth in a religious sense does not have to be Fact. A Fact is something observed and testable by science, but Truth can encompass so much more: God is Love, for example, is a Truth from my religious life, but it is not a Fact because God is beyond testing. The same holds true for philosophical precepts.
The tirades I tend to use to innocuous ‘how are you’ are factual, but they don’t have to be Truth. Much of our Stoic practices is about reframing our thoughts to correct faulty judgments. The task at hand is to judge when a fact is worth sharing. (I must remind myself that my ultimate goal in this series is to reduce my complaining and cultivate calmness.) My judgments that these things need to be shared is faulty, and do more to promote a reputation that I am overworked (which, to be fair, I am) but also that this person shouldn’t be bothering me and adding to my workload. I’m using “honesty” to protect myself.
Yet Uncle Marcus includes this gratitude to Alexander the Platonist:
Not to be constantly telling people (or writing them) that I’m too busy, unless I really am. Similarly, not to be always ducking my responsibilities to the people around me because of “pressing business”.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 1.12 (Hays trans.)
Justice – Another side effect of my complaining, or “brutal honesty”, just dumps my own frustrations on other people. This is the sort of thing I regard as a dick move, yet I indulge in it. I’m not asking people to solve the problems, I’m just burdening them. This is not treating others fairly, and it isn’t doing anything to solve the problems, which I shouldn’t be considering as problems anyway.
Wisdom – I suspect wisdom will always tie everything together. This virtue is about discernment. When should I tell the truth? All the time. When should I tell a slice of the truth? Most of the time. When should I stop complaining? All the time.
My conclusion to all of this is to keep No False Statements as a rule, but to also speak less (Meditations 3.5), to speak only a well-curated truth.
And be silent for the most part, or else make only the most necessary remarks, and express these in few words. But rarely, and when occasion requires you to talk, talk, indeed, but about no ordinary topics. Do not talk about gladiators, or horse-races, or athletes, or things to eat or drink—topics that arise on all occasions; but above all, do not talk about people, either blaming, or praising, or comparing them. If, then, you can, by your own conversation bring over that of your companions to what is seemly. But if you happen to be left alone in the presence of aliens, keep silence.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 33 (Oldfather trans)