Introduction

To be sincere or truthful means above all to mean what we say. This does not entail that we have to say everything we think. Sincerity differs from candour: it does not require people to disclose all their feelings to others, to tell them all the details of their past or present lives, or to make all their political or religious opinions public. ¹ Sincerity is perfectly compatible with people keeping secrets, withholding information, or more broadly, being entitled to privacy. The concept of ‘sincerity’ is perhaps best defined in terms of its contrary, that is, untruthfulness. At its core is the idea that although there is no duty to speak and even less to say everything we think, from the moment we say something we ought to mean it, that is, we ought to believe in its veracity. Of course, we can be wrong about the facts: some of the things we say may, as a matter of fact, prove to be false. But what matters from a sincerity perspective is that, at the time we express these things, we also believe them to be true. That is, we are not allowed to try to deceive others or to try to ‘make [others] believe what we ourselves do not believe’ (Bok 1999: 13). This rules out the telling of lies to others – which consists of making ‘intentionally misleading statements’, that is, making statements that we hold to be false with the intention that they be believed to be true (Bok 1999: 14; Mahon 2009: 203) – but also other less flagrant ways of misleading others as, for example, purposively exaggerating or concealing certain aspects of a given state of affairs to gain some control over others’ beliefs and actions. ²