Intellectual dishonesty

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Intellectual dishonesty is dishonesty in performing intellectual activities like thought or communication. Examples are:

• the advocacy of a position which the advocate knows or believes to be false or misleading
• the advocacy of a position which the advocate does not know to be true, and has not performed rigorous due diligence to ensure the truthfulness of the position
• the conscious omission of aspects of the truth known or believed to be relevant in the particular context.

Rhetoric is used to advance an agenda or to reinforce one's deeply held beliefs in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence. If a person is aware of the evidence and agrees with the conclusion it portends, yet advocates a contradictory view, they commit intellectual dishonesty. If the person is unaware of the evidence, their position is ignorance, even if in agreement with the scientific conclusion. If the person is knowingly aware that there may be additional evidence but purposefully fails to check, and then acts as though the position is confirmed, this is also intellectual dishonesty.

The terms intellectually dishonest and intellectual dishonesty are often used as rhetorical devices in a debate; the label invariably frames an opponent in a negative light.

The phrase is also frequently used by orators when a debate foe or audience reaches a conclusion varying from the speaker's on a given subject. This appears mostly in debates or discussions of speculative, non-scientific issues, such as morality or policy.

Intellectual honesty

Intellectual honesty is an applied method of problem solving in academia, characterized by an unbiased, honest attitude, which can be demonstrated in a number of different ways:

• One's personal beliefs do not interfere with the pursuit of truth;
• Relevant facts and information are not purposefully omitted even when such things may contradict one's hypothesis;
• Facts are presented in an unbiased manner, and not twisted to give misleading impressions or to support one view over another;
• References are acknowledged where possible, and plagiarism is avoided

Harvard ethicist Louis M. Guenin describes the "kernel" of intellectual honesty to be "a virtuous disposition to eschew deception when given an incentive for deception."

See also

• Intellectual dishonesty
• Scientific method

External links

• On Intellectual Honesty

See also

Specific fields

• Wikipedia:Academic dishonesty
• Wikipedia:Journalism scandals
• Wikipedia:Scientific misconduct

Other

• Anti-intellectualism
• Ethics
• Wikipedia:Self-deception

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