I don't really think there is a question of obligation or 'owe' at play.

I think if you brought this down to a specific issue, liek telling a child their parent is dying, you could come to those concepts. But on your version above, I think either you decide to, or your decide not to, and this reflects on you not others. I don't think 'not knowing' carries any right. You fail to 'not knowing' millions of things every day. You don't have a choice, anyway.

Deontologically:

If the truth shall kill them, let them die. — Immanuel Kant

What a Kant!

↪180 Proof What a Kant! — Tom Storm

:lol: :up:

If one were to know the truth of a significant matter, would transparency and honesty be owed to the community on said matter, even if it meant many in the community would feel harmed/ disenfranchised by it? — Benj96

Truth can be overrated. There could be numerous reasons not to share truth. Where it might cause undue suffering or panic or create other dire reactions. Of course as humans we have to assess the potential impacts of unleashing truths indiscriminately. In life one might have small tastes of this - do we always tell people who are dying that they are dying? The ugly that they are ugly? The unintelligent that they are dim?

If one were to know the truth of a significant matter, would transparency and honesty be owed to the community on said matter, even if it meant many in the community would feel harmed/ disenfranchised by it? Ie "a tough pill tonl swallow". Couldn't they declare that their autonomy in not knowing/ (their choice to remain ignorant) was taken away from them?

Can one truly have a choice in remaining ignorant as the very state is a state of not knowing what they ate avoiding?

In this case which is more important? The integrity of the truth or integrity of free will? — Benj96

What do you mean by "truth"? What exactly is your "integrity" or "honesty"? Or "autonomy" or "ignorance"? I ask because I think you might actually have meant facts for truth and some self-serving sense of propriety or correctness for integrity and honesty. And so forth. And knowledge as a sine qua non of autonomy? Whenever were there people who were not ignorant?

An interesting subject to dissect, but you need sharper tools lest it all become a mess.

Can one truly have a choice in remaining ignorant as the very state is a state of not knowing what they ate avoiding? — Benj96

Hu?


(Edit: Oh, "Are". OK. )

If one were to know the truth of a significant matter, would transparency and honesty be owed to the community on said matter, even if it meant many in the community would feel harmed/ disenfranchised by it? Ie "a tough pill tonl swallow". Couldn't they declare that their autonomy in not knowing/ (their choice to remain ignorant) was taken away from them? — Benj96

This is an ethics question. The obligation to inform the community. Not all information fall into the category of culpability. So, the question should include 'what harm will it cause the community if they were not informed of this truth'.

In this case which is more important? The integrity of the truth or integrity of free will? — Benj96

Neither. The ethics of information includes the deliberation of whether there is a need to disclose or not.
Sex offenders must register that they are a sex offender as a public record. If they are living in a community whose residents are not informed of this fact, then the residents are denied the information regarding the history of this person. It's your task to weigh the sides of the affected parties.
On the other hand, white collar criminals do not have a required registration, neither do thieves. So, there is that.

If one were to know the truth of a significant matter, would transparency and honesty be owed to the community on said matter, even if it meant many in the community would feel harmed/ disenfranchised by it? Ie "a tough pill tonl swallow". Couldn't they declare that their autonomy in not knowing/ (their choice to remain ignorant) was taken away from them?

Can one truly have a choice in remaining ignorant as the very state is a state of not knowing what they ate avoiding?

In this case which is more important? The integrity of the truth or integrity of free will? — Benj96

I can't think of many contexts in which this particular dichotomy would apply.


One such context is those religious/spiritual apologists who think this way, who preach "at all costs" and who are willing to die for "the truth". It's from them that I've heard this almost exact same formulation of this dichotomy. These are also the type of street preachers who rattle down the message of the Gospel in 20 seconds and then tell you that you now have no excuse anymore, for you have heard the Gospel, and if you reject it, you will burn in hell, and won't be able to claim innocence on the grounds of ignorance.
It's basically an effort to unilaterally incriminate the other person.

Another example of such a dichotomy underlies the thinking of people who refuse to be citizens. In the view of such people, ignorance of the law should constitute innocence of breaking it.


But beyond that, truth and free will cannot be at odds. Free will is merely about choosing between options, but it has nothing to do with the range of those options.

Is the truth still owed even if it erodes free will?

That the "truth is owed" becomes a pressing consideration for whoever can tell or withhold it, as a dilemma or trade-off, brings up the concern as to whether whoever is deciding has much free will in the matter.

We could use is a long list of interesting real world dilemmas or hypotheticals which could give us something to work with.

If there was a collaborative effort to drop informational goods, flash drives and pamphlets over North Korea to inform North Koreans about how life is elsewhere as "truth owed", that effort might come with considerable state backlash (harm to its citizens).

Why shouldn't we meet and educate the isolated tribal peoples of the Sentinel Islands? Would educating them about what lies beyond their own way of life increase or erode their free will? We need a lot more information for a harm-benefit analysis. Maybe life is awful there from our perspective.

Is it ok to be an invisible voyeur for data collection, like in Star Trek when they observed technologically limited cultures.

If there was a collaborative effort to drop informational goods, flash drives and pamphlets over North Korea to inform North Koreans about how life is elsewhere as "truth owed", that effort might come with considerable state backlash (harm to its citizens). — Nils Loc

Really? If you were to tell the North Koreans about, say, the homeless in the US or the suicide rates in Switzerland, the government there would punish them?

What would be that "truth" you would tell them, and how complete would it be?

Really? If you were to tell the North Koreans about, say, the homeless in the US or the suicide rates in Switzerland, the government there would punish them?

What would be that "truth" you would tell them, and how complete would it be? — baker

If we were to believe that the North Korean peoples ought to be liberated and nations endeavored to do so, information of all kinds about the outside world might be helpful. Flash drives, if they have the ability to view contents, could contain a lot of miscellaneous content, including documentaries on suicide and homelessness in other countries. Flash drives are probably taboo, no matter what content is on them but I don't know.

Am not saying that we should, but we are not being hard pressed to convey "truth" (truth bearing information) to North Koreans for the sake of potentially expanding or eroding their free will. The problem is the consequences of reorganizing a state, waging war, fomenting coups, changing social identity, are likely always worse than leaving it be.

If one were to know the truth of a significant matter, would transparency and honesty be owed to the community — Benj96

Who is this “one” who “knows the truth” of a “significant matter?” I want to be that guy.

The “integrity of free will” - doesn’t that rely on truth? How are you freely choosing between A or B if A is a lie or B is something I’m actually ignorant of? There’s no freedom there, just a stone falling down a hill by what forces it knows not.

Are you just saying “what they don’t know won’t hurt them?” In which case what do you mean by “significant matter” because it seems running around the world with no knowledge of a significant matter could lead to harm.

Without an example of how one could protect ignorant bliss in other people, I don’t see why one would keep truth hidden for the sake of the “integrity of free will.”

Seems Orwellian to me, and a recipe for slavery.

Buddha retreated from Nirvana to tell us all the truth. Jesus said he is the truth. US Constitution protects free speech so that all can express their thoughts and reveal what they believe is true.

Truth is like guns. Once you let truth loose in the world, if you don’t make it available to all, those without it will be oppressed. Seems to me hiding truth will hurt any chance at free will.

Why shouldn't we meet and educate the isolated tribal peoples of the Sentinel Islands? Would educating them about what lies beyond their own way of life increase or erode their free will?

I think we can even extend this question, from knowing about these secrets to thought itself. Take the following dilemma: Imagine you were taking part in a lottery where several of your closest friends were each offered the choice of either immediately taking $1400 dollars or declining with the understanding that if all the other players declined then you would all receive $2000 each. What would you do? Now what would you do if it it were random people, each from a different continent of the world?

What's interesting about this example is one has to ask onesself 'what am I thinking' in order to imagine what will someone else think. But more importantly, it is the answer to this question that actually occurs in others and governs the outcome of the game. So it is also the case where knowledge of who is playing determines the outcome. If they are all well-off educated Westerners, then it's more likely they will abstain from the $1400, but if they are extremely poor from a third-world country, maybe they would rather play it safe.

I think what we touch on here more or less the basis of objectivity, as the domain where the individual recognizes or acknowledges the universal will through a negation of their will-unto-themselves. What more are we talking about when we use words like 'justice', 'custom', 'social ethics', etc. None who thinks only about their individual will can really represent these higher ideas, even if they are able to reproduce them in ends and existence.

A problem arises when, even presented with the truth, a certain part of the population will prefer comforting lies. We see it in religion and politics all the time.