Truth to Yourself

Presented by Geoff in March 2018.

I am not so interested in truth in the Kant “Critique of Pure Reason” sense which is whether our perception of reality is the same as reality. Rather I am interested in an individual’s choice to act consistently with their truth. By truth I mean not just not lie, but be candid and authentic in actions. Sartre said it is only our actions that count. Not our dreams and intentions.

I face conflict between wanting good relationships with the people around me but being an advocate for the vulnerable. I know I am happiest when I can be myself, express myself freely and stand up to injustice. As a utilitarian I want to help the large group of disorganised people who are being mistreated by a more powerful minority. But this leads to ostracism by the powerful.

I struggle to walk the line between being authentic and avoiding offending people and thus losing my connections to people. If I see injustice I try to shine a light on it and complain. However then I suffer retribution or am avoided.

In “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, Carnegie said “never criticise, condemn or complain” But positive change often requires being candid about problems, which people take defensively.

Example cases

Your superior at work who you have a friendship with is harassing junior women in the office with sexual innuendo. They have not complained to you. Do you say something to make him stop?
Your troubled sister is kind to your mother but appears to be using your mother’s money for her own benefit. Do you advocate for your mother’s rights?
Your brother is showing signs of mental illness (saying surreal things, acting out of character). Do you persist in persuading him to get professional help despite his angry denials?
You would like to have a child. But your long term boyfriend shows no sign of proposing or being willing to give up his high-travel, transient lifestyle. Do you ask about his intentions re fatherhood?

Should we deceive ourselves by avoiding thinking about our own death?

Some Existentialist Authors

Kierkegaard said don’t be afraid of being alone by exercising our freedom of choice if the crowd chooses elsewhere. This causes “angst”, so people often give up their real self and latch on to an external identity like a job or attending church. He criticised this comfort provided by institutions. Suppressing your real self leads to losing oneself and unconscious despair (his book “The Sickness unto Death”). The self is your infinite choices and your finite actions. He advocated making a “leap of faith” to believe in God, but believed God’s role was not to tell us what to do.

Heidegger said authenticity is choosing the nature of one’s existence and identity. He said avoid being “Das Man” (the average person) and social “chatter”. Face “the nothingness” (death) to improve your life as you will then stop caring about these people who do not matter. His project of realizing one’s identity in the context of an external world with its influences, implies a complex relationship between authenticity and inauthenticity which means that they should be viewed not as mutually exclusive concepts, but as complementary and interdependent. Heidegger argued that both authenticity and inauthenticity are basic forms of being in the world, and they cannot be separated.

Sartre said there is no unchanging essence to the self. Your authenticity is the freedom of making your own choices when there are no right answers. You exist when you continually define yourself by your actions, rather than starting with your self. According to Sartre, existence precedes essence: in other words, the human being first comes into existence and then continually defines oneself, rather than coming into being with an already given nature. So for Sartre, authenticity requires taking full responsibility for our life, choices and actions. Therefore the anxiety or ‘angst’ which results from our realisation of our own inescapable freedom is an integral part of authentic living. The world is “absurd” (there are no right answers, only the choice you make. Bad faith is when you do not make choices from all options (the waiter), especially to make money or follow tradition. Remove false masks that avoid vulnerability. Allow yourself to be vulnerable.

Camus claimed that the awareness that we inhabit a universe which doesn’t care about us and offers us no salvation compels the individual to recognize that the only path to freedom is authentic self-realization. To be authentic, one must be aware of the absurdity of a world with no objective morality and purpose, and create meaning in life through rebellion against the absurdity. Such personal authenticity emerges from a disregard for any (non-existent) external consolation, and implies that the individual exists in a permanent exile, alienated from their own life, society and the universe.

Questions for Discussion

Definitions: What is speaking the truth? What is lying? What is deception? What is candour (Parrhesia)? What is authenticity? What is integrity? Which definitions do you most agree with?
The article “The Truth about Lying” suggests that both lying and deception are okay under certain conditions. For example, you would not reveal your maximum willingness to pay to a used car salesman. What conditions are these? Based on this, how should we guide our older children on lying and deception, when we told them as young children they should not lie?
In the article “Why Have Integrity” it explains the reasons we should try to have integrity. Are these reasons greater than the cost of integrity?
If we decide morally we should speak out, how do we build the moral character to avoid talking ourselves out of speaking the truth when we know it is going to be personally costly and socially inconvenient? In “Stop Kidding Yourself: Kierkegaard on Self-Deception”, Kierkegaard maintained that we should never think of lowering our moral ideals on the grounds that they are impossible to achieve. Freud reasons that we should not aspire to moral ideals that are unrealistic – such as loving our enemies or thinking that we should despise ourselves for sexual wishes. On Freud’s account, hyperbolic ideals make for excessive repression and its psychiatric problems. Is Freud or Kierkegaard correct?
Given the many limitations to authenticity listed in “The Limits to Authenticity” Is it possible to be authentic in modern society? Should we be partly authentic? What does this mean?
My father would not attend my brother’s wedding when he married a divorcee, believing my brother was marrying someone who was still married. What differentiates someone from being “pig-headed” versus resolute to their morals in the face of external pressure? An answer is in “Integrity and the Virtues of Reason “ where Scherkosky argues the morals we commit to must be socially sanctioned. Do you agree? How do we get socially sanctioned morals?
Harvard Professor Ibarra in “The Authenticity Paradox” suggests being authentic can hurt us if it is inconsistent with our external environment. She recommends being "adaptively authentic"; more of a chameleon and “faking it” by copying a mix of styles from peers who are successful in this environment, until we learn what is the best balance between our values and the environment. We need to edit our authentic self like we do our resume. Do you agree with this recommendation?
Given we are biased and truth is often subjective (see "Subjectivity is Truth" about Kierkegaard), should we speak out about injustice when often it may just be that we are wrong ourselves? I may feel like I am heroically restoring justice. Or am I deceiving myself like a hypochondriac with no physical symptoms who repeatedly turns up in Emergency rooms complaining about perceived symptoms? If my perception is wrong then I am creating conflict out of nothing. We live in a post-truth world of Facebook groups, non-independent press, and “alternative facts”. What if my beliefs are wrong because I don’t get outside my own “echo chamber” enough? Can I be confident enough in my own truth to stir up trouble? What does “truth to yourself” mean given behavioural economics, where we are subject to biases such as overconfidence and confirmation bias, so that what we firmly believe is the truth is not really so. Is my imposter syndrome not a syndrome? Can I be confident my authentic self is authentic?
Is it our moral obligation to give candid feedback to our employees (and by extension, our family and friends) when they screw up as is recommended in “Radical Candor”? John Stuart Mill said ‘The source of everything respectable in man, either as an intellectual or as a moral being, is that his errors are corrigible.’
But if we speak the truth, how do we best manage the flak from the discomfort caused in the other person? Can we express it in a way that avoids the defensiveness and retribution? “Radical candor” recommends showing you care for others in a sustained way before you correct them. Do you agree? Is speaking the truth diplomatically a solution? In “Speaking The Truth to Power” they suggest using non-threatening language like “I’d like to challenge that idea”. Is using non-threatening language enough to remove resistance and defensiveness? Do you agree with Brene Brown in “Speak Truth to Bullshit” that speaking with empathy and civility solves the problem because dismissal of the truth by others is mostly because others are ashamed of their uninformed opinion?
Should we deceive ourselves by avoiding thinking about our own death? Is this a good falsehood? Heidegger said It’s not until we project our lives onto the horizon of our death that authentic life can be found.

Articles

The Truth About Lying

https://philosophynow.org/issues/27/The_Truth_about_Lying

Why have integrity?

http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Ethics_Integrity.html

Stop Kidding Yourself: Kierkegaard on Self-Deception

https://philosophynow.org/issues/66/Stop_Kidding_Yourself_Kierkegaard_on_Self-Deception

The Limits to Authenticity

https://philosophynow.org/issues/92/The_Limits_of_Authenticity

Integrity and the Virtues of Reason

https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/integrity-and-the-virtues-of-reason-leading-a-convincing-life/

The Authenticity Paradox