The Honesty Crisis: Preserving Our Most Treasured Virtue in an Increasingly Dishonest World

A tidal wave of fakery, hypocrisy, and cheating is eroding society’s moral fiber, according to this earnest if underwhelming investigation. Miller (The Character Gap), a Wake Forest ethics professor, surveys a panorama of fraud, pretense, and BS, now supercharged by the internet. This includes video deepfakes, adultery websites like Ashley Madison, college students’ ubiquitous use of AI to write papers, conspiracy theories shared over social media (though this isn’t technically dishonesty, Miller contends, if the theorist genuinely believes the hoax), and pastors who preach moral purity while indulging in extramarital hookups and plagiarizing sermons. Along the way, Miller explores the psychology and philosophy of honesty, noting that people lie when the truth is an impediment to their goals, though not especially frequently (studies show the average person tells between one and two lies per day, but a few prolific liars bring up the average). With technology amplifying dishonesty’s impact, the author calls for guardrails ranging from punishments for manipulating and disseminating individuals’ images without their permission to generally promoting a culture where people (especially public figures, like celebrities) call out BS. Miller’s gently moralistic take on the subject mainly reiterates basic truisms—honesty is the right thing to do to avoid hurting others—in stolid prose, offering few new insights. The result is a dry, prosaic defense of honesty as the best policy. (May)