Honestly Lying
Dishonesty, A flaw of all humans that seems to have always existed. “By the age of three, children have told a lie or know the difference between a lie and the truth.” Examples of dishonesty such as something as little as wearing a counterfeit designer handbag to a fraud scheme taking place in the stock market. The following, all a form of dishonesty; lying, stealing, cheating, deceiving. Such thing have occurred and made known for over centuries. All of which ways affect someone in some type of way. No matter how strong one may think they stand morally, it still takes place. Reasons for doing ensue justifiable but it does not change the simple fact of what has taken place. This concept roots its evidence within the people
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All of the contributors are head of their education departments in their respected universities. The three authors in this study conducted an investigation among college students and their lack of academic integrity. The study took place in Taiwan and dealt strictly with Chinese education. In many ways, the studies are parallel. The fact that both studies took place on different sides of the world justifies Ariely’s claim, that it is something all humanity does and not just his surrounding environment.The study showed that there was no discrimination among gender or course major, all students knew of or took part in academic dishonesty. In the article the students not only admitted to academic dishonesty but gave reasoning behind it. Promotion was often a reason for academic dishonesty to transpire. The students simply did not want to fail. On top of that, students were opportunistic. If the chance to cheat arose they simply took advantage. The study also shows that the students in courses dealing with social sciences and business blamed it on insufficient ability. No one wants the feeling of fraudulence. Thus is a popular trait among humans. Convincingly Ariely does state that self promotion acts as a major factor towards lying. Data proved that when presented with a chance to improve one's self perception or value …show more content…
The Bible argues strictly against lying. By the law of the book, lying is a sin and is wrong. All humans are born containing a moral compass, knowing right from wrong and the truth and a lie, which points towards religion and a superior being. The Bible concurs Ariely’s claim that lying and dishonesty are wrong and speaks negatively concerning liars and deceivers. “the Lord detests lying lips but he delights in those who are trustworthy” (New International Version, Prov. 12: 22). Which leads to the fact that in the time period that the Bible was written liars existed. In addition the Bible says “ You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires...for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (New International Version, John 8:44). It gives both an assertion that people lie, and a theory for how the trait of dishonesty carried on towards all of humanity. God standing as the superior being over the universe completely detest the humanistic trait of lying and wants all of his children and followers to do the
According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, lying means to tell an account of an untrue event or give false information.
In “The Ways We Lie” by Stephanie Ericsson, the author uses her knowledge to talk about the different ways of lies and how those lies affect the liar, as well as the people who had been told lies. According to the author’s essay, there are 10 types of lies that people encounter every single day: the White Lie, Facades, Ignoring the Plain Facts, Deflecting, Omission, Stereotypes and Cliches, Groupthink, Out-and-Out Lies, Dismissal, and Delusion. Throughout the essay, it is connoted that people are lying in various ways even though they are not intended to. I had been taught that lying is a bad habit. According to Ericsson, there are many types of lie and I did three of them in my life: the White Lie, Omission, and Out-and-Out Lies; however, I can defend my lies for good purposes.
The people who claim that they do not lie are probably lying when they say it. Whether it is to deceive authority or just to play a joke on a friend, it is part of human nature to lie. In the novel The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby takes on a character of wealth and luxury. Gatsby wants to win back his love interest from five years ago, so he secretly becomes wealthy through owning an illegal drug business, using his abundance of money to impress her. In contrast, in Tobias Wolff’s “The Liar,” he tells a story of teenage James as he lies about his life to appear more fascinating. He lies not because he wants to, but because it comes naturally to him. Both stories convey people struggling to find the purpose of their
One common trait that is seen throughout all individuals, is that all of them lie or in some way deceive others or themselves. It is seen that people are constantly lying, whether it is the smallest lie or even the largest. No matter how much a person remains truthful throughout their life there is a point where he or she lies. It is inevitable to avoid, people lie to gain something, to come into power, or to even mask the truth that they do not want others to hear (Bhattacharjee 1). It is seen in the two articles “Why We Lie; We like to believe that a few bad apples spoil the virtuous bunch.
Lying is being deceitful. It is construed in more cases than not, as the opposite of being truthful. Yet, there’s more to it than that. A person can lie without actually saying anything false. There’s such a thing as ‘lying by omission’ and little ‘white lies’ to keep people baffled as to what dishonesty is. In reality, mendaciousness is a sickness that haunts its nurturers without letting go. Then, after a while, a person can get so good at this ‘skill’ that they even begin to lie to themselves.
At the same time, however, even though people have the tendency to be dishonest, not all lies are legally prosecutable. When asked to judge another person’s appearance, for example, some tend to lie in favor of that person, just to make the person feel better. When trying to avoid doing chores, some tend to lie about being too occupied with homework. Those are what I considered to be lies in the names of politeness and laziness; lies that cause no harm to others.
The society that we live in today is built around lies. Banks lying to customers in order to feed the capitalist mindset, politicians lying to citizens in order to gain power, and charities taking donations with open arms however are stingy when giving back to the cause. The common reason why these organizations lie is to hide what they truly are. People also deceive others in order to hide who they truly are. From a young age, lying becomes engraved into one’s mind, we are taught to walk, talk, and lie.
The Ninth Commandment in the Bible states, “thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” (Exodus 20:16). This Commandment is crucial to everyone who believes in God and studies the Bible. It applies to all forms of lying. If God commands for humans not to lie, why does everyone do it? An example of this is shown in The Crucible by Arthur Miller, a fictional play, loosely based on events that happened during the Salem Witch Trials in Salem, Massachusetts at the end of the seventeenth century. In this play, people are executed for being honest, as well as punished for being dishonest. The article titled, “Why People Lie” by Paul Ekman explains the different reasons behind why people are deceitful. Some of his reasons were that people
Although it is considered wrong to tell lies, it seems that literature has offered us situations where telling lies isn’t necessarily bad. Of course, lying often has a tragic outcome, but not always for the person or people who told the lie or lies. Oftentimes, these unfortunate outcomes are directed at the person about whom the lie was told. Furthermore, these stories have explained that dishonesty can result in success for both the liar and the target. Maybe we have been teaching the wrong values to our children.
Stephanie Ericsson’s The Ways We Lie, analyzes and reflects on how lying has simply become the norm in our society. We all lie, there is not one person in the world that does not lie. Most people lie because they are afraid of telling the truth, however what they do not know is telling a lie can lead them in the wrong direction because many things can happen when lying to a person. The person can find out when everything unravels that person will not have trust in you and you would be known as a liar. To every action there is a consequence, so why not deal with just one consequence when telling the
The article “Rejecting All Lies: Immanuel Kant by Sissela Bok also presents the same argument. Sissela Bok presents the ideas and viewpoints of Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher. Kant believed that lying was bad and that “truthfulness is statements which cannot be avoided is the formal duty of an individual to everyone, however great may be the disadvantage.” He believed lying was always bad no matter the situation. Kant said that lying “vitiates the source of law,” or makes the source of law weaker. Our whole purpose of the government is to serve justice and if everyone is lying in court, it gets harder to serve justice. The purpose of the government would not be fulfilled if people lie. According to Kant, lying also “harms the liar himself, by destroying his human dignity and making him more worthless even than a small thing.” Kant says lying makes the liar lose his or her pride and honor. And I think it probably makes the liar feel bad and makes them feel guilty. In the article “Teens Do their Share of Lying” by Loretta Ragsdell, a quote from Sabrina, a college freshman, takes about how she lied...
We lie all the time, lying is not something new to our culture. We lie to our parents, we lie to our friends, we even lie to our significant other, but why do we do it? There is not one set reason on why we lie but they can vary from an insignificant reason to something more nefarious. A good operational definition of a lie is “A lie is a false statement to a person or group made by another person or group who knows it is not the whole truth, intentionally.” (Freitas-Magalhães) We have been raised to know that lying is usually a bad thing, and it’s better to tell the truth, not to mention the circumstances get exponentially worse if you are caught lying. No one wants to be labeled as a liar, or untrustworthy. This may sound unorthodox but I personally think lying is perfectly fine; depending on the situation. If you have a prima-facie duty to be dishonest it’s perfectly acceptable. Ross says a prima facie duty or obligation is an actual duty. “One’s actual duty is what one ought to do all things considered.” (Carson) I’m not the only one who finds this too be true. Ross would also agree with me, He says “Lying is permissible or obligatory when the duty not to lie conflicts with a more important or equal important prima facie duty.” (Carson) As I was doing research on this topic I did read one extremely compelling argument on why we ought not to lie. Aristotle basically said a person who makes a defense for lying could never be trusted. (King.)
As today’s society evolves, so will its values and morals, lying will be a small
Modern students face many pressures for academic success. They are often unwilling to disappoint their parents or spouses. Some fear that not cheating will weaken a student’s ability to compete with their peers. They rationalize their unethical behavior, unwilling to accept a poor grade, consequently justifying cheating as the only means to that end.
It’s just not me, on average people lie twice a day; it's difficult to believe, but it's true (DePaulo, Kashy, Kirkendol, Wyer, and Epstein, 1996). If we start lying around age 3 and live until 70, we would have lied 48910 times and that’s a lot of lies. It is unfortunate that deception has become a major factor in social interaction and people admit that they use it in 14% of their emails, 27% during face-to-face conversations and 37% during phone conversations (Hancock, 2007). If we say that we have never committed a sin in our life, we just deceived ourselves says the Holy Bible. Each and every one of us would have lied at some point. Just because we lie frequently it doesn't mean that it's an easy job. In fact, lying is very demanding because lairs have to work hard to hide their emotions and expressions. Also, deceivers invest a great deal of effort to protect themselves from being caught so they carefully release ...