We can come to understand that people who adhere to accuracy and sincerity are sometimes not rational, at least in a utilitarian sense. For example, if a reporter attempts to seek the truth, doing so might harm her and lead to bad outcomes. From a purely utilitarian perspective, if people only follow benefits and pursue their own interests, then in many circumstances, maintaining illusions or complying with the common sense of a certain culture becomes the safer choice.

Yet, as humans, we still have a tendency to pursue the truth and feel terrible about lying, even when it costs us. This demonstrates that the pursuit of truth and accuracy is not instrumentally rational; it is a stable and autonomous function of our agency. An honest person does not primarily consider interests but speaks autonomously according to what they genuinely believe.

This is one reason we trust language: language concerns both what we say and what we believe. It seems Williams believed that while we often think honesty stems from rationality, the reality is that rationality stems from honesty. The reason we humans can engage in complex rational activities is that, at a fundamental level, we have a stable commitment to honesty, accuracy, and sincerity.

If everyone treated the pursuit of truth purely as having instrumental value, we could simply adjust our truth-seeking based on personal interests and our position in social structures. However, if that were the case, it would be difficult to explain how public knowledge systems accumulate over time. The history of science and law would become mere strategic outcomes rather than genuine progress.

The pursuit of truth occasionally requires us to fiercely hold on to what we believe. While this may seem unwise in specific situations, without this commitment, we would lose the very structure of rationality. In postmodern discussions regarding power structures and standpoints, we might expose social frameworks, but doing so does not automatically generate normative guidelines about what accuracy and sincerity should be. Because of our fundamental inclination toward truth, we gain the intellectual freedom and structure needed to understand social structures and history in the first place.

If we abandon the pursuit of truth, we lose the freedom to critique and the possibility that anything could ever become more accurate. From this perspective, the pursuit of truth and accuracy does not come from suddenly grasping some pre-existing metaphysical structure. Rather, it is about deeply understanding history, society, and humanity itself. Truth is what manages to survive across human history.

我们渐渐能够理解，那些坚持准确与真诚的人有时并不“理性”，至少在功利主义意义上是这样。例如，如果一名记者试图探求真相，这么做可能会伤害她并带来糟糕的结果。从功利主义的计算来看，如果人们只追逐利益，那么在许多情况下，维持幻象，或者盲从某种文化内的常识，反而是更安全的选择。

然而作为人类，即便需要付出代价，我们依然倾向于追求真相，并且会对撒谎感到不安。这表明，对真相和准确的追求并非只是工具理性，它是我们能动性的一种稳定而自主的功能。一个诚实的人首要考虑的不是利益，而是根据自己真切的信念自主地发声。

这也是我们信任语言的原因之一：语言关乎我们说了什么，也关乎我们相信什么。威廉斯似乎认为，我们通常以为诚实源于理性，但实际上，理性源于诚实。人类之所以能够进行复杂的理性活动，究其根本，是因为我们对诚实、准确和真诚有着一种稳定的承诺。

如果所有人纯粹把追求真相视为一种工具价值，那么我们完全可以根据自身利益和所处的社会结构来随意调整对真相的追求。若是如此，公共知识体系随时间的积累就很难解释了。科学与法律的历史也将仅仅沦为某种策略博弈的结果。

追求真相有时要求我们坚定地捍卫自己所相信的事物。在局部层面看，这或许显得极不明智，但若没有这种承诺，我们将失去理性本身的结构。在后现代探讨权力结构与立场的讨论中，我们或许能够揭示出社会结构，但这并不能自动为“准确”和“真诚”提供规范性的指导。正是由于这种追求真相的根本倾向，我们才具备了理解社会结构和历史所必需的自由与智识结构。

如果我们丧失了对真相的追求，我们就会丧失批判的自由，也就断绝了事物变得更加准确的可能性。从这个角度来看，对真相和准确的追求并不是因为突然把握了某种先验的形而上学结构，而是关乎理解历史、社会以及人类自身。真相是在人类历史进程中幸存下来的东西。