This might be a bit “deep” but bear with me.
There is an underlying reality that exists beyond our control. To interact with it, we have our own approximation of reality so that we know how to operate or expect what is going to happen. When we communicate with each other, we are communicating this approximation of reality to each other.
Honesty is merely the act of conveying what one’s actual approximation of reality (which is what they actually use to operate on reality).
Lying is merely the act of conveying an approximation of reality that one does not really use.
Understanding lying this way is important, as it gives us a way to really understand what it means to lie. Notice how this definition of lying cleanly excludes ignorance or misunderstanding. As long as one is honest, one is not lying.
Suppose your boss is asking you the timeline for a project, “How long do you think this is going to take?” What should your answer be based on?
To be honest in this instance is to convey how long you think it is going to take under normal circumstances. To lie is to know that the time taken to finish it is probably X, but purposely say it’s smaller or higher than that.
What if you don’t know? To be honest, this is the answer to a lot of questions. When I deeply ask myself how long something should take, I find it tough to give a concrete answer. Is it a year? No. Is it a month? No. Is it a week? No. Is it 2,3 days? Maybe? Is it 1,2 days? Maybe? Perhaps that is what I should have said; it takes 1 to 3 days. But for certain projects, this timeline is not useful. So what should the answer be here? Well, the honest reality is that you don’t know. That ignorance has to be communicated as well. That is what it means to be honest, it is simply the act of conveying your approximation of the reality as you understand it as close as possible.
Let’s take a step back. Why do we care that our approximation of reality is as close as possible to the underlying reality? Why should we care that it is out of sync?
We care because the underlying reality is uncaring and will move along regardless of what we think of it. On one extreme, one can believe that one can survive a bullet to the head, but reality will soon prove otherwise. In a less extreme example, we care because we react and act in the world based on that approximation; for what else do we have?