The first two posts in this series dealt with two dimensions of honesty: truth and morality. Truth insofar as to be honest can mean to be genuine, and morality insofar as to be honest can mean to be authentic, consistent and sincere. This final post will try to bring together the ideas I’ve already discussed in a comprehensive approach to honesty that gets at the heart of what honesty means to wine.

The best way I could think of to do this was to bring in some suggestions from a brand of ethics known as virtue ethics. I do not mean to make this a treatise on virtue ethics, nor am I promoting it as the best moral system for all questions. Instead, I think it can provide some very useful insights to the question at hand: how is honesty a virtue?

3. Honesty as Virtue

Virtue ethics is an approach to ethics that emphasizes moral character, in contrast to an approach which emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that which emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism), both of which I discussed in the second post in this series.

As a vinously-inspired example, consider a winemaker who is deciding between going fully biodynamic in their vineyards. A utilitarian would point to the fact that doing so would maximize well-being, perhaps here understood as overall health of humans and a diffuse entity known as the “environment”. A deontologist would point to the fact that doing so would be acting in accordance with some moral rule, such as “human interference with nature should be minimized to the greatest extent possible”.

Unlike these two approaches a virtue ethicist would consider the fact that making biodynamic wine is in itself an honest act. So the question remains, how can we understand what it means to make choices based on virtues as ends, and how can we determine the content of those virtues?

In the previous two posts, I have pointed to some ways in which we are able to give content to the word, and now the virtue, “honesty”. But those inquiries seem somehow insufficient in themselves. We need some way to make decisions in a complex and comprehensive environment. This ultimately leads us to ask what are the moral reasons for acting one way or another?

Virtue, and in our case, honesty, cannot be determined merely with reference to a single action. An honest person cannot be identified simply as one who, for example, does not cheat. If one acts merely because he or she thinks that honesty is the best policy, or because he or she fears being caught out, rather than through recognizing “To do otherwise would be dishonest” as the relevant reason, they are not the actions of an honest person.

A winemaker is not honest simply because he or she makes wine organically, or because he or she is worried about selling wine and so engages the larger community. And, let’s be honest, most of us are pretty savvy at discerning who is genuinely engaging with us and who is not.

Thus, instead, to possess a virtue is to be a certain sort of person who accepts a certain range of considerations as reasons for acting. And, what I have attempted to do in the first two posts is provide as many “reasons for acting” as possible. For example, to be consistent, to be sincere, or to be transparent and genuine.

This is why there is no set criteria for honesty – only a variety of reasons for acting that an honest individual considers when he or she makes his or her choices. To be honest is to be comprehensively attuned to this great variety of reasons for acting that are associated with honesty. Pure consequences, pure actions, truth-telling, consistency, etc. are all components of the virtue of honesty, but each in itself cannot determine the meaning of honesty. Honesty is the comprehensive consideration of all these reasons for acting within a given set of circumstances. Thus honesty can be diverse, multi-faceted and, in the end, is not discernable by reference to a basic set of criteria.

For example, a winemaker makes decisions every day about how to tend to the vines, the vineyard, and to every step along the way in the wine making process. Wineries also make decisions about how to market, how to distribute, how to price, and how to communicate their story. Each of these decisions, if they are to be honest, must be made with a comprehensive analysis of all the factors that comprise honesty in that situation. The ones I have suggested in the first two post provide some guidance to the sorts of considerations that an ‘honest’ person might make.

Honesty, from the perspective of a virtue ethics, is something to be assessed “in the thick of things”, as choices are being made, and with access to the full context of decisions.

Thus, an honest person’s reasons and choices with respect to honest and dishonest actions reflect his or her views about honesty and truth. Accordingly, it is impossible to easily classify someone or something as honest or dishonest. These assessments will always be dependent on the comprehensive criteria we use to determine what honesty is, and the weight we give to each criterion in a given situation.

So perhaps all I’ve done is point out that it’s really darn hard to decide whether or not someone is being honest or that something is honest. I do think this is a worthwhile exercise, however, because it highlights care in the way that we assess both our actions and the actions of others. We must think comprehensively and in context, with reference to a full gamut of reasons for acting, if we are to, ourselves, honestly assess another’s honesty.

Perhaps it is this end that best exemplifies that wine is more about dialogue and less about judgment. Judgment can be a part of dialogue, but only if it engages perspectives fully and honestly. Thus honesty in wine should apply not just to producers, but also to consumers, marketers, and everyone involved in the wine business. If we are to think of wine as more than a mere commodity, I think it is incumbent on all of us not only to be as broad minded as possible, but also to be willing to engage in debate and dialogue about what makes a wine honest. This, I hope, will help make everyone a little more honest themselves.

My first post in this series discussed honesty in wine in relation to honesty as truth. In that post I argued that truth helps us to think about how wines are made and the particular histories and philosophies behind bottles of wine. In this second installment of the honesty in wine series, I will discuss the moral dimension of honesty.

Part 2: Honesty and Morality

Morality helps us situate wines in the common world – it acts as a guidepost for our evaluation of a wine. But, what moral system we choose will have a massive impact on this valuation. So let us turn to those ‘moral’ qualities that common usage, history and literature have come to associate with honesty.

First, authenticity. This is not authenticity in terms of truth, but authenticity in terms of consistency. Someone honest is authentic because they are consistent in how they act and how they think. They don’t say one thing and do another. This aligns with the notion of sincerity. An honest person is sincere because he or she does not try to obfuscate his or her motives, values, and perceptions. Sort of like, say, what a brand like yellow tale does with its promise of fun and adventure at the cost of environmentally friendly farming, and massive use of additives.

The other side of honesty and morality are the notions of equity and fairness. To be equitable is to operate with a lack of bias, without favoritism or hegemony. In many ways, we might say an honest person is a just person, a fair person. The famous political theorist John Rawles suggested a connection between justice and fairness that has been hugely influential in the modern western world. His idea is that justice is only possible in a hypothetical state where no one knows what particular advantages they will have in society. Without knowing what benefits one will have nor what attributes or detriments, people will work together to create equitable institutions that will not unfairly favor one group or one person over another.

So, if Rawles’ theory is at all compelling, to be honest is to have the ability to act as if one has no particular advantage over another. In the world of wine this might translate into a sense of ‘fair play’ where wineries and agencies don’t try to denigrate the perspective of others in order to serve their own interests, knowing that they will benefit while those who they denigrate will not. Thus, even if one might disagree with biodynamics, to denigrate it as nonsense without engaging it on its own terms is to act dishonestly towards another perspective. Conversely, a biodynamic wine maker who dogmatically argues for a ‘natural’ approach to wine making as morally and rationally superior to other approaches is not being honest insofar as to be honest means to be fair.

This does not mean criticism is not possible if one is to be honest. It does mean, however, that both an open mind and a willingness to entertain perspectives outside of one’s beliefs and purview is necessary for an honest appraisal of wine.

Thus, with a mind to the multiple perspectives that can have a claim on our moral and ethical personae, I will address some competing perspectives on how one might determine what exactly an honest wine is – or rather, what it should be.

One of the most important and dominant modes of ethical thinking is known as consequentialism. This philosophy argues that the best way to determine whether something is right or not is to look to its end. Does it produce the right result? Thus, a consequentialist evaluation of wine would look to the final product and compare it against a set of parameters to measure its utility, i.e. the extent to which it maximizes those parameters. Utility has traditionally been defined by philosophers of the Bentham school as welfare, or happiness. Thus, one moral approach to wine could be to evaluate a wine based on how much happiness it produces in an individual who buys it, collects it, and ultimately consumes it. The methods by which the wine reaches this end point become irrelevant.  

An honest wine, insofar as to be honest means to be fair, would seek to distribute this utility fairly and equally – across a wide variety of palates and perspectives. Thus, making one single style of wine using one approach across an entire region is not honest. Making as many styles as possible to suit the huge range of individual palates and levels of enjoyment, however, would be honest, for it does not operate on the premise that any one palate is superior to another.

One of consequentialism’s staunchest foes is a brand of thought known as deontology. Don’t let the crazy name scare you away, though, for its basic premise is compelling for most. Deontology asks what is right by looking at one’s actions. Outcomes themselves do not matter; it is how we choose to act that matters. And, it is the analysis of our choices in this respect that is the purview of moral thought.

Thus, in the wine context we could ask about the methods with which grapes are grown, fermented, and generally made into wine. This is where we might insert concerns about consistency. A wine is honest if the actions by which it was produced were morally consistent. That is, they did not fall prey to hyperbole or hidden artifice. Any artifice used is frankly and forthrightly declared. Any manipulation or lack thereof derives from a consistent approach and is made known up front, rather than tucked away. Thus, if a wine is to be honest, we can question it deontologically by looking at the consistency of the actions by which it has been both made and marketed, and, ultimately, sold.

Super high prices for wines that claim great care, but show little? That is not deontologically honest. Conversely, using a brand with huge equity based on their most expensive wines to sell cheap plonk? Not deontologically honest. Wines said to be made organically, but with little care of the larger implications of environmentalism (say, for example, by packaging a wine with a 7lb bottle)? That too is not deontologically honest.

 In the end, I think, it is both appraoches – that is, consequentialism and deontology – that can help us appreciate the moral dimension of honesty and apply it to wine. By thinking of wine in this way both consumers and producers can help discover what it means to make honest wine, and to act on that promise. To do otherwise would be, well…

This inquiry into morality, and the previous inquiry into truth, leaves my overall inquiry into honesty in wine with a relatively thin sense of how to put all of these ideas together. That question will be the topic of the third post in this series on Honesty as Virtue, where I will attempt to ‘thicken’ some of the concepts I have discussed so far.

A recent debate in this blog’s comments with Matthew Sherlock of Kits Wine Cellars has prompted me to address a big and difficult question in the world of wine: what is honest wine?

This is a loaded question, and one filled with many potential biases, opinions and, sometimes, accusations. I do not want to write something in this vein. Rather, I propose to address the question of honesty in wine by looking at what we mean when we say ‘honesty’. What exactly are we trying to say? And, what have others tried to say when they’ve used this term?

Importantly, this is not a treatise on biodynamics in wine, although I will address that topic. Instead, it is an inquiry into what may distinguish some kinds of wines from others in ways with more intellectual complexity than a blueberry versus a raspberry.

In my perusing of dictionaries, essays, and literature I have noted varied associations with the word honesty, not all of which coalesce into a single meaning. Some might say that to be honest is to be genuine, to be characterized by truth, and importantly, not to be misleading. Others might consider honesty as authenticity, sincerity, equity, and fairness. And still others have conjured up connections with integrity, uprightness, and dependability.

Along these lines I propose to divide my investigation of honesty in wine into three categories: honesty and truth; honesty and morality; and honesty as virtue. Accordingly, this ‘article’ will comprise a series of three posts, each dealing with one of these aforementioned aspects and investigating how these associations help us to understand the relationship between honesty and fermented grapes.

I begin the series with a look at honesty and truth.

Part 1: Honesty and Truth

We’ve all read the latin maxim in vino veritas, or ‘in wine, truth’. I cannot hope to uncover all possible dimensions of this argument in a simple blog post. Philosophers have been debating such questions for thousands of years. What I do hope to accomplish, however, is suggestive – a suggestion as to how one might conceive of the relationship of these two concepts insofar as they impact wine making and appreciation. And mostly, as with every post in this series, I hope to facilitate thought and discussion about wine that goes beyond the tasting note, beyond that limited mode of comparative analysis, and towards something more robust, and perhaps more contemplative.

I want to discuss this topic in relation to an important distinction in ancient Greek philosophy between techne and episteme. I will focus mainly on the ideas of Plato and Aristotle, but will try to keep everything grounded.

Techne is traditionally translated as ‘craft’, whereas episteme is traditionally translated as ‘knowledge’. One engages techne when learning how to perform a task based in the world, such as being a doctor, or, more akin to us wine folk, being a farmer. One engages episteme when considering the essence of things, say as a pure scientist might do when looking at the fundamental properties of chemicals.

The big debate in ancient Greece was about how these two ideas connected to each other. Did one gain access to truth simply through episteme, or was some form of techne also required? Could one influence the other?

These questions are important to us because they highlight the connection between the craft of farming and of wine making, and the knowledge of the deeper meaning of these activities.

So, whereas crafts require knowledge of specific skills, such as how to grow healthy grapes, they also involve knowledge of the function or goal of the application of skills, such as producing wine. Knowing the craft (techne) of wine making is not enough to have access to the knowledge (episteme) of winemaking. That requires deeper reflection on the meaning of what one is doing when growing grapes and making wine.

Honesty, insofar as it means genuineness or truthfulness, requires not just techne as craft, as knowledge of what to do, but also episteme as knowledge of the goal, of the meaning of the craft. And importantly, this meaning cannot derive simply by connecting the craft of wine making to some other craft, such as commerce.

Rather, meaning has to come from the basic components of the craft at issue – in this case, grape growing and wine making. In other words, one’s knowledge of the craft of grape growing and wine making, in order to be honest, must include some form of knowledge or reflection on the nature of that craft itself, the patterns of its existence, its history, and its role in culture and society.

To avoid stilted claims to ‘authenticity’ and absolute notions of truth, we could say that an honest wine, in its truthful capacity, does not mislead the wine drinker as to its historical, cultural, and social particularity – in other words, as to the knowledge of the reasons for the craft. This is the same principle as knowing where your food comes from, as taking care for the products you consume, and thinking about their histories and the processes employed to create them.

The meaning of the craft of making wine must appreciate how that craft mingles the natural and the cultural in order to produce an object that is not abstract or minimally defined, but which is rich, particular, and emphatically an expression of craft and knowledge, of techne and episteme.

Thinking about a bottle of wine simply as a consumable object, for pure pleasure, or for pure commerce, belies the particular series of events that have come together to produce it and make it possible. In other words, such minimalist thinking misleads. It is not genuine because it does not connect the consumer with the forms of knowledge that constitute the underlying complexities of a bottle of wine.

This suggests to me that a wine’s honesty cannot solely be determined objectively, as a product of a certain set of processes (whether they be organic, biodynamic, low cropping, etc.), but must also be determined subjectively, by the wine drinker’s willingness to engage in a bottle’s particular history.

Thus, if a wine is to be honest, insofar as honesty relates to truth, it should not obfuscate its history, trump up its origins with puffery and false claims, or seek to prevent the wine drinker from taking those subjective steps into thinking beyond the immediately apparent.

What sort of wines are these? I am not so sure that this question is easy to answer, and it may vary from person to person, even as it cannot derive from purely relative subjectivity.

Perhaps it is this demand put upon an honest wine by the claims of truth that pushes us to consider how to situate a wine and its particular history in the common world – in other words, to consider the moral dimension of honesty. It is this question that will constitute the second part in this series.