From an Aristotelian perspective, virtue is a mean between two extremes. Just as dishonesty is a vice (a deficiency of honesty), being inappropriately truthful by oversharing in the wrong context is also a vice (an excess of honesty).
The recent surge in academic dishonesty is less about a moral decline and more a result of new AI tools making cheating easier to execute and significantly harder for educators to prove.
Paltering is a specific form of dishonesty distinct from lying. It involves strategically using truthful statements to intentionally mislead someone into forming a false conclusion. This allows the speaker to deceive while maintaining plausible deniability of having lied.
In response to AI making take-home assignments unreliable, universities are reverting to "old-school" assessment methods like in-class blue book exams, spontaneous writing sessions, and oral exams to ensure student work is authentic.
A philosophical view of honesty defines it not merely as refraining from lies, but as a deep-seated character trait. It requires consistent, morally-motivated (not self-serving) behavior across time and diverse situations, encompassing cheating, stealing, and hypocrisy.
According to "Truth Default Theory," telling the truth is our natural, low-effort state. Lying is cognitively demanding as it requires inventing and tracking a false narrative, which violates the human tendency toward cognitive ease.
Most people don't cheat to the maximum possible extent. Instead, they cheat just enough to gain an advantage while still being able to rationalize their behavior and preserve their self-concept as a fundamentally honest person.
Lying is not distributed evenly across the population. Research reveals a small group of prolific liars—about 5% of people—are responsible for half of all lies told. Most people, in contrast, report telling zero or very few lies.
We consistently overestimate our ability to detect lies by reading body language. Empirical research shows our accuracy is only slightly better than a coin flip (around 54%), yet the belief in this skill persists as a strong cognitive bias.
There is speculation that AI companies possess effective detection technology but don't release it. Doing so would risk decreasing usage from those who rely on AI for graded or professional work, thereby hurting the companies' business models.
Even with available AI detection software, professors are hesitant to take punitive action like failing a student. The risk of even a small number of false positives is too high, making anything less than perfect reliability unusable for accountability.
Philosopher Christine Korsgaard argues that Immanuel Kant's famous absolutist stance against lying is flawed. Kant's own framework allows for universalizing more specific maxims, such as "lie to protect innocent lives," which would permit lying in extreme cases.