Watching the watchmen: Vigilance-based models of honesty fail to explain it

Abstract

Promoting honesty is considered a key endeavor in the betterment of our societies. However, our understanding of this phenomenon, and of its evil twin, dishonesty, is still lacking. In this text, we analyze the main tenets assumed by empirical models of vigilance and sanctions. We approach our analysis in three sections. Initially, we investigate the concept of honesty as assumed by commonly used meth odologies in studying honesty. This then leads us to identify the previously overlooked but essential element of epistemic privilege in characterizing honesty. In the third part, we delve into how current explanatory models of honesty lack suffi cient consideration of epistemic privilege, resulting in incom plete narratives about honesty. Our analysis of the extant literature suggests that both internal (including the self concept maintenance theory) and external vigilance models fall short of explaining honesty and dishonesty because of both conceptual problems and empirical inadequacy. Identifying these shortcomings allows us to suggest some possible directions of research.