# Contested concept: honesty

_**What you are reading**: one contested-concept page in Deliberus's deliberation graph. Deliberus maps human reasoning — including claims that are contested, mistaken, or extreme — so that disagreement can be examined precisely. A claim's presence here is not an endorsement: the graph records that someone argued it, how it connects to other reasoning, and how far scrutiny has gotten. The metadata on this page describes the state of that scrutiny, not the truth of the claim._

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- **Contestedness**: criterion
- **Diagnosis**: The fundamental moral disagreement is between a deontological view (honesty as a strict duty) and a consequentialist/virtue-ethics view (honesty as subordinate to the well-being of others).
- **Canonical**: `/concept/honesty` (data: `/concept/honesty.json`)

## Senses in use
- **A pro-social virtue that is balanced against other values like harm-reduction and kindness.** — used in 4 claim(s)

## Claims using this term
- [In situations where disclosing the truth causes emotional harm without producing beneficial change, the principle of kindness should take p…](/claim/claim_0a9a6958e53a.md) _(sense: A pro-social virtue that is balanced against other values like harm-reduction and kindness.)_
- [The moral value of being kind to others takes precedence over the moral value of maintaining absolute, strict honesty.](/claim/claim_a876a3f2302e.md) _(sense: A pro-social virtue that is balanced against other values like harm-reduction and kindness.)_
- [In circumstances where telling the truth would cause emotional harm without producing any beneficial outcome, the duty to be kind outweighs…](/claim/claim_cac7d2beba65.md) _(sense: A pro-social virtue that is balanced against other values like harm-reduction and kindness.)_
- [The moral value of acting with kindness is superior to the moral value of maintaining absolute, strict honesty.](/claim/claim_f178a8ec517a.md) _(sense: A pro-social virtue that is balanced against other values like harm-reduction and kindness.)_