front cover of The Challenge of Honesty
The Challenge of Honesty
Essays for Latter-day Saints by Frances Lee Menlove
Dan Wotherspoon, editor
Signature Books, 2013
In the inaugural issue of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought in 1966, Frances Menlove bravely wrote: “The very nature of the Church demands honesty, which is inherent in its mission to seek truth. What are the motives behind dishonesty? Perhaps it is the desire in everyone to protect that which they love. If one admits to past disasters, misdirection, failings, then it is possible to wonder if the Church is not in some way faltering now. But if we believe that truth and knowledge have limitations, we must welcome diverse opinions, even criticisms. Only by honestly receiving and scrutinizing all positions can we come close to an understanding of the truth.” 

These words remain as fresh and bracing today as they were nearly fifty years ago. The sixteen other essays and devotionals in this collection, some published here for the first time, are equally bold, exposing injustice masked as God’s will. They contain an underlying theme of personal integrity and striving for spiritual transformation. They stand perceived wisdom on its head in the same way that scripture so often does. Readers will want to share these essays with family and friends but will also find the concepts again and again occupying their own private thoughts.
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front cover of Reputation
Reputation
Studies in the Voluntary Elicitation of Good Conduct
Daniel B. Klein, Editor
University of Michigan Press, 1997
"Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools that have not wit enough to be honest," wrote Benjamin Franklin. This volume explores ways in which the honest establish trust and enjoy good fortune, even without policing. The central mechanism at work is reputation. To work, information about the individual's conduct must be observed, interpreted, recorded, stored, and transmitted. Different forms of "seals of approval" develop to communicate the quality of an individual's reputation to others.
The studies in this volume reveal how vast information systems like Dun & Bradstreet and TRW generate reputation and beneficial exchange, and how brand names, middlemen, and dealers give their own sort of seal of approval. One chapter describes the origins of Underwriters' Laboratories, an organization that sells its inspection services and mark of approval for product safety. Another argues that J. P. Morgan's investment banking service was in large part applying astute judgment in granting the Morgan seal of approval to firms in need of capital. Other, less formal, reputational mechanisms such as gossip, customary law, and written correspondence are also explored. Contexts range from trust among merchants in Medieval Europe, social control in small communities, and good conduct in a vast anonymous society such as our own.
Throughout these broad-ranging studies, the central theme of the volume emerges: in an open, competitive environment, honesty can recruit cleverness to assert itself and to drive out the dishonest. Contributors include Bruce Benson, Harry Chase Brearly, J. Benson De Long, Avner Greif, Benjamin Klein, Keith B. Leffler, Sally Engle Merry, Paul R. Milgrom, J. Wilson Newman, Douglass C. North, Marc Ryser, Adam Smith, Gordon Tullock, and Barry R. Weingast.
Daniel B. Klein is Assistant Professor of Economics, University of California, Irvine.
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