Intellectual Honesty

[chezlaw]

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Right. Convictions by necessity are a cessation in reason. Usually, there is some external (psychological, cultural, etc.) motivation behind a conviction, which the debator fails to sufficiently examine. The intellectual dishonesty, therefore, is not to others, but to himself. Dishonesty is a harsh word because it is not intentional, but the conviction is still a lie of sorts: it gives the false appearance of truth.

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I don't agree that conviction is the source of the dishonesty. For example some religous posters readily admit that their religous conviction is a matter of faith - nothing intellectually dishonest about that. The problem starts if we kid ourselves (or pretend) that our beliefs are the product of logic/evidence and then ignore logic/ evidence to the contrary.

chez