Ethics

is there any philosophical reason to be polite? A lot of being polite is just plain lying--why must the truth succumb to social conventions?

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An interesting problem.

To begin, I'd put the question differently: is there any reason to be polite? Adding "philosophical" in front of "reason" doesn't really help. And of course, there are many reasons to be polite. It helps avoid needlessly hurting people's feelings; it helps keep disagreements from turning into shouting matches; it provides a set of conventions that help keep us from wasting time sorting out how certain sorts of social interactions should operate; it's a way of showing respect for other people; it helps keep other people from concluding that I'm a jerk. And so on.

All of these reasons are defeasible, as they say. They aren't ironclad, and there are situations that call for ignoring them. But there are also plenty of situations that don't call for ignoring them.

Your worry is about truth. You say "A lot of being polite is just plain lying." Of course, a lot of being polite is not not "just plain lying." It's not polite to smack your lips at table with others. Whatever you think of that convention, it's clear that it doesn't have anything to do with telling the truth.

That said, there are, indeed, cases where politeness and the truth come into conflict. You call me on the phone and start the conversation by saying "Hi, Allen. How are you?" I answer "Fine, thanks," even though I've got a headache. Has the truth succumbed to social conventions?

I'd say that in this case, the answer is mostly no. The pattern of greeting I've just described is one we all recognize as a conventional way of starting a conversation. We both understand this, and neither of us thinks my answer is meant as a report on the state of my well-being. In other words, in a case like this, no one is misled. The exchange of greetings isn't an exchange of information.

Other cases are trickier of course. You have a new haircut. I don't think it suits you, but you say "How do you like my hair?" If I say "Nice," there's a fair case to be made that I'm misleading you. Have I sacrificed the truth to social convention?

Let's agree that I've sacrificed the truth. But I'd say it's not social convention I've sacrificed it to. It's the desire not to hurt your feelings. It's not just that we have a convention about not hurting people's feelings. It's that hurting people's feelings causes them distress. People don't like being distressed, and sometimes the distress isn't worth it.

Should I have told you what I really think about your hair? The answer may or may not be yes; it depends on a lot of things that would only become clear if the context were clearer. If you and I are only nodding acquaintances, I may well think it's not my place to tell you. I may think I don't know enough about your tastes to make the truth helpful, and I may realize that my own tastes in these matters don't count for much. And so on.

The trouble with The Truth is that it has a capital "T." Of course honesty is an important value. And of course it's generally useful to know what's actually so. But that doesn't add up to an argument that truth-telling is of transcendent importance. Honesty is one value among many.

There's a larger point about social conventions and my comment about leaving out the word "philosophy." If we look at our conventions from the outside, like anthropologists on Mars, they seem strange. But if we say a word to ourselves many times in a row ("rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb...") the word will start to seem strange. Sometimes there's a point in the outside, dare I say alienated point of view. But much of the time there isn't. The kind of sense that social life makes from the inside is a perfectly good kind of sense on its own.

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