A clever thief may do acts characteristic of honest people to gain our confidence. These do not suffice to make him honest. Rehabilitation is not merely a matter of doing good and refraining from evil. There is another aspect to be considered. One purpose of traditional religious rituals of atonement is to reestablish an individual's status as trustworthy.
Moral status is granted as a whole piece, so to speak, rather than incrementally.
No specific tests of honesty can establish a person's honesty. That person, may, after all, be trying to deceive us. This is an important point. Certain characterizations of learning are not so much summative descriptions of a learner as ascriptions , acts of acknowledgment on our part that a learner is entitled to be recognized in a certain way. It is important to realize that much that occurs in schooling is a matter of social ascription, rather than a summative description of achievement.