Honest Behavior: Truth-Seeking, Belief-Speaking, and Fostering Understanding of the Truth in Others

Speaking truth to power?

anyone who has read Hilary Mantel’s magnificent Booker prize-winning novel Wolf Hall will be in no doubt about the fate of government advisers who give their masters the wrong advice. During the reign of England’s tudor king, Henry Viii, refusal to recant your views resulted not only in a swift fall from grace and power, but also a short trip from Westminster to the tower of London. if you were...

Rational action and truth-seeking

Speaking the truth in maritime risk assessment.

Several major risk studies have been performed in recent years in the maritime transportation domain. These studies have had significant impact on management practices in the industry. The first, the Prince William Sound risk assessment, was reviewed by the National Research Council and found to be promising but incomplete, as the uncertainty in its results was not assessed. The difficulty in a...

Truth and the Aim of Belief

It is often said that ‘belief aims at truth’. This is presented sometimes as a truism, sometimes as capturing an essential and constitutive feature of belief and of inquiry. It is a truism that to believe something is to believe that it is true, and that in this sense beliefs are directed towards truth. It is also a truism that we aim at having true beliefs rather than false ones, and that in t...

Speaking the Truth in Maritime Risk Assessment

Several major risk studies have been performed in recent years in the maritime transportation domain. These studies have had significant impact on management practices in the industry. The first, the Prince William Sound Risk Assessment, was reviewed by the National Research Council and found to be promising but incomplete, as the uncertainty in its results was not assessed. The difficulty in a...