Honesty is really a matter of two things: being truthful as opposed to telling a lie, and using language in a way that conforms to social norms. We are brought up to be honest and never to tell lies, but at such a young age we are also not skilled in acceptable and expected social behaviour. For this reason, it is often children who are the most brutally honest critics, and they see nothing wrong with telling Grandma she looks really old, or telling Dad he has a fat belly. We also don’t expect people to lie to us intentionally when we ask for information (the time, directions etc.); we think that they’re telling us what they believe to be true.

We should always aim to be truthful, and we usually have no problems with honesty. Of course, there are those situations in which we aim to protect ourselves or others by saying something other than the truth, or perhaps we are just avoiding conflict or questions. If someone asks us how our holiday was, and all we want to do is go to sleep, we might say yeah, it was good, even though we contracted food poisoning, crashed the car into a tree and lost 200. Telling someone you already have plans because you don’t particularly want to go and see the latest slasher movie with them doesn’t hurt anyone, it just avoids conflict when you try to explain why.

We live in a society which has social norms, and we must follow these to have healthy relationships with others. Set standards of behaviour and politeness help us get on and make friends. We all know that it’s socially unacceptable to tell your wife her bum looks enormous in the new dress she bought, or tell her you hate her new hairstyle. Instead, husbands lie and say she looks fine, or that the hairstyle is nice, but doesn’t suit her as much as her previous one. We tell these kinds of lies to protect others feelings, and there is no harm in doing so. Of course, sometimes people ask things because they want an honest response, but other times they want reassurance, and honesty can not always fulfil that.

When lies become serious, however, then we should ask ourselves what kind of person we are. Lies about stealing, accidents or violence prevent the truth from surfacing at the beginning, and can cause a lot of pain and upset. Situations like this are more about moral decisions, and instead of trying to protect people with lies that are bound to be found out, it should be more about what’s right and what’s wrong.

Honesty is not always the best policy, but when lies start hurting people instead of helping them out, then there should be no other policy.