...One of the pillars of human social interaction is the existence of lying. An ongoing debate of whether or not one should practice honesty or deploy a deceptive lie exists in most people’s minds. While most people think of lying as something invariably deliberate, some lies can be automatic and subconscious, and are said and accepted without hesitation or further thought. While it is clear to many how abundant lying is in today’s world, the consideration of how beneficial and morally correct lying is not one that is pondered often enough. Whether or not lying is something encouraged is a topic of great debate. To many, lying is a necessary tool that exists for the benefit of those who are wise enough to take advantage of it. However, when one...
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...Richard Gunderman is the author of “Is Lying Bad for Us?”. In his article he explained why lying can be bad for us. Stephanie Ericsson is the author of “The Ways We Tell Lies.” Ericsson explains the different ways we lie and why we lie. The importance of this essay is to show that Ericsson has a strong article. By comparing tone, purpose, and evidence in the two essays, the reader can determine that Ericsson’s essay is stronger. Gunderman’s tone is formal. Formal tone can be difficult to understand his point of view. In his writing he uses case studies and quotes from scholars, which can be difficult for the reader to understand and relate. Gunderman writes: “Perhaps the most powerful more argument for honesty has to do with what the French...
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...lives, we, as a species, are deceitful. There are many reasons why we lie, whether it is to protect ourselves, protect someone we love, to escape an uncomfortable experience, for the thrill of it, or due to a disorder. In every aspect of our lives, and from every angle, deceptive stimuli bombards our nervous system and keeps our brains constantly at work to weed out the information that is correct from the information that is false. Advertisements, our parents, our children, friends, and siblings, those who we have more intimate relationships with, and even ourselves, deceive us, just as we are deceitful to them. There are many degrees to lying, varying from little white lies, to blatant deception and perjury. The motives and desired outcomes of those who lie vary greatly from person to person, as well as the degree to which they lie. Most people would agree that there are times when it is acceptable to tell white lies or even a bigger lie for the greater good, if the truth is not something of importance. I will discuss several facets of deception. To start, I will describe several types of lies and give definitions and examples of them. Then, I will talk about some facts about the frequency at which we are deceptive on an average day, and situations in which we generally increase or decrease how deceptive we are. Next, I will discuss why lies are prevalent in relationships, and how deception creates friction in the workplace. After that, I will talk about how we deceive...
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...Lying is an integral part of human life and communication. On occasion, it is easier to lie than to tell the truth. There are many reasons for lying, whether it be an attempt to protect someone or a lie out of compassion or charity. There are both advantages and disadvantages to not telling the truth. Sometimes, the truth may hurt a loved one, thereby making it easier to lie rather than see him/her get hurt. Although lying is considered malevolent by some, it's a necessary evil in life that has to be accepted. Lies out of compassion cannot be considered spiteful in any way. In my personal experience, sometimes, lying is the best, and only option. One winter, when I was eleven years of age, I was in New York City, right around the holidays,...
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...The truth between the lies The Truth Between The Lies Lying is inevitable. We see it in our everyday lives. We see it in the moments we used to tell our mothers we were done with our homework. We witness it pour out of the mouths of politicians. We even see it in those that we trust the most. Little white lies are the most common, outward lies are often less common; even so they are both considered lies. Lies come in many degrees, but their purpose is the same, lies are meant to deceive. Stephanie Ericsson plunges deep into this subject. She mentions in her article “The Ways We Lie” that a lie, whether in good faith or not is never a good thing to do. The result of a lie is always something hurtful. Ericsson says that as bad as lies are, telling the truth all the time is nearly impossible. Doing so would mean dealing with some harsh consequences, so we decide to just lie instead. In many nations lies are the status quo, they are both hidden and public. Many people though either don’t bother to point them or are not even aware of them in the first place. One type of lie is group thinking: this is when a group suppresses different, creative, or complicated ideas that unlikely to happen. By only considering some ideas and not others it leads to an ignorant sense of loyalty to the group and a not so smart final decision. For example, in Dec, 5, 1941, after many warnings about the Japanese planning a military attack the U.S just dismissed it as a fluke. The United States reasoned...
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...whether it is to protect the ones we love or to cover up something we don’t want others to find out. Lying is the new moral of our modern day society. It's much easier to lie to someone than to tell the truth. In Ericsson’s essay The Ways We Lie, she describes nine descriptions and examples of lies we all say in a day. No matter how honest you try to be, most people ends up saying a lie. Sometimes lies are necessary, but does that really mean someone should build their life upon lies on top of lies. We tend to not pick them out as “water is to fish”. Throughout the essay it tells about how humans can lie in many different ways. As the quote states “our acceptance of lies becomes a cultural cancer that eventually shrouds and reorders reality until moral garbage becomes as invisible to us as water is to a fish." Both cancer and garbage are used to describe the lying. Cancer is used to describe a...
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...Since the early age, we have taught that lying is wrong and hurts people including ourselves. Moreover, we also have educated that it is better to accept the consequences of any actions than to lie. However, the more they grow up, the more they know about using of lying because telling the truth cannot always solve the problem. From the point of view, some lying is acceptable, some is not. It depends upon what purposes that make people tell lies. The first point to note is that although telling lie is easy to get things in the short period of time, it will create a bad impression on the next generation as well as it does not give any benefit on long way. For example, if you tell some lies to the children such as smoking doesn't effect on everyone around, what will they learn in their future? It is dangerous for everyone too aware of wrong way because of adult. Another point they would like to mention is that if they always cheat others many times, one day lie will befall upon anyone and will lose prestige in relationships. The story telling about a shepherd rearing the sheep is typical example. It cheats villagers many times that there was wolf on the hill. When they run to save it but found no wolf, they became angry with it. And then when the wolf really came, no one bothered it. Finally, the wolf attacked it sheep and also killed the boy. It was due to the own sin that the boy got the kill. On the other hand, in some situations, telling the truth leads to more bad than...
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...3000 Ethics Dr. Wolfe March 25, 2013 We all have ethics that we follow even if we do not realize that we are following them. They are applied in the decisions we make in are day to day life and even the choices we make for our future. For many their ethics and morals are things that they learn through their upbringing and their life experiences. Others also apply their faith to their already instilled ethics and morals. In the paragraphs below I will be defining unqualified absolutism, conflicting absolutism, and graded absolutism and give examples of different scenarios involving all three ethical systems. Then finally I will conclude by identifying which ethical system that I use most often when making ethical decisions. Unqualified absolutism is defined by the book as the view that there are many moral absolutes that never actually conflict; all alleged conflicts are only apparent, but not real. Under unqualified absolutism it states that we are able to avoid doing wrong. Under this system it states that right and wrong is determined by Gods laws and those laws are what we should follow in order to not do wrong. Under this system lying is not permitted because it is wrong. Under no circumstance should you lie to solve any issue that you might incur. The philosophy of this system tells us that there are no true moral conflicts, because God always provides us with the solution to our problem (Geisler, 2010). To me the best example of unqualified absolutism would be a young...
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...When someone tells the truth, are they telling a lie? According to Stephanie Ericsson’s essay, “The Ways We Lie,” Ericsson states, “We lie. We all do. We exaggerate, we minimize, we avoid confrontation, we spare people’s feelings, we conveniently forget, we keep secrets, we justify lying to the big-guy institutes” (Ericsson Paragraph 3). In today’s world, people lie. I believe that what Ericsson has said about lying and the ways we do it is absolutely true. In the play, “The Crucible,” people lied about witchcraft. In real life, different people lie about different things. In society, like the 2016 Presidential Nominees, they lie about many things so they can get your vote in November. Arthur Miller, author of “The Crucible,” based many of...
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...self-reflexivity inherent in the novel gives readers an insight into the working of the mindset we would otherwise be strange and empathetic of. Therefore, the distinctive features including subjectivity and difficulty about communication/truth are conveyed throughout the novel. Christopher’s condition causes him to see the world in an uncommon way, and much of the novel allows the reader to share Christopher’s unique perspective. To take one example, he tells us about the trouble he has recognizing facial expressions and the difficulty he had as a child understanding how other people respond to a given situation, explaining his preference for being alone that we see throughout the novel. In this way both difficulty and pain are subjective. The use of anaphora when Christopher says “And father said, ‘Christopher, do you understand that I love you?’ And I said, ‘Yes,’” makes the reader anticipate to the next sentence trying to figure out what Christopher’s perspective may conclude to as it is difficult to comprehend of his unique perspective. Although the reader recognizes that Christopher has an uncommon perspective of the world, the novel suggests that everyone, in fact, has a subjective point of view. When Christopher quotes “Loving someone is helping them when they get into trouble”, the novel allows the reader to empathize with Christopher by giving them an explanation of his unique mindset and the way he goes about his meaning. As a result, the reader is able to take on Christopher’s...
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...Will we ever be able to 100% accurately perceive if someone is lying? Lying is apart of everyday life. It can be done in a positive way, to benefit a situation, or can be done in a negative way to make something worse. It can be done in something so simple as lying about what you were doing earlier to your friend, when really you were at the mall buying her a birthday present for her birthday that weekend. A negative example of lying would be a girlfriend cheating on her boyfriend, and lying about what she was doing instead. Then you have situations where you lie and agree with someone just to keep a conversation going. You also have compulsive liars who feel the need to lie about everything they do and talk about. Sometimes these people get so convinced on what they are lying about themselves, that they don’t even know how much they do it or when they do it. Both men and women lie in approximately a fifth of their social exchanges lasting 10 or more minutes; over the course of a week they deceive about 30 percent of those with whom they interact one-on-one. (Phycology Today, 1997.) Now if you’re in a criminal situation and they only have your feedback to go off of, they need to test whether or not you’re lying. In order to do this, they need to use a polygraph or brain scanner. These lie detecting technologies aren’t 100% effective. My question is if they will ever be improved or 100% accurate. While looking up how we benefit ourselves with the lie detection technologies...
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...Ever since the early age, we have taught that lying is wrong and hurts people including ourselves. Moreover, we also have educated that it is better to accept the consequences of my actions than to lie. However, the more we grow up, the more we know about using of lying because telling the truth cannot always solve the problem. From my point of view, some lying is acceptable, some is not. It depends upon what purposes that make people tell lies. A white lie is allegedly one which is done for someone's good and which harms no one. There’s no such thing. The philosophical view that allows people to think that lies can be harmless is one which counts the self as nothing morally interesting. The first point to note is that although telling lie is easy to get things in the short period of time, it will create a bad impression on the next generation as well as it does not give any benefit on long way. For example, if you tell some lies to the children such as smoking doesn't effect on everyone around, what will they learn in their future? It is dangerous for us to aware of wrong way because of adult. Another point I would like to mention is that if we always cheat others many times, one day our lie will befall upon us and will lose prestige in our relationships. The story telling about a shepherd rearing his sheep is typical example. He cheats villagers many times that there was wolf on the hill. When they ran to save him but found no wolf, they became angry with him. And then when...
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...What if you are against lying but, under some circumstances, it might be the only thing left to do. Lying is not always the best thing to do because it will affect others depending on how often a lie is told. After a lie, the feeling of telling a lie is so terrible that it might have gotten the other people into trouble for something that did not even occur. In the article, “The Ways We Lie” by Stephanie Ericsson, she talks to us about the different types of lies there are. She explains how lying comes out in a person’s everyday life even when is inevitable. However, “In the Pale Moonlight” from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine shows how one of the main characters, Captain Sisko, felt guilty because of the lies he had made. The lie he makes, cost...
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...Lying is an issue many people in society are faced with. As society as a whole we are a mixture of Kantians, virtuous, and utilitarian’s. All three ethic philosophies have a different way to interpret whether or not any type of lying is okay. The scenario in this case is whether or not to tell a friend a small white lie to save their feelings. It seems that the solution to our problems is determining what the right thing to do is. One perspective, with deontology is philosopher Immanuel Kant, who said that lying was always morally wrong. He said all people are born with an "intrinsic worth,” also called human dignity. This dignity derives from the fact that humans are capable of freely making their own decisions and guiding their conscience...
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...This question can fill volumes so I am going to tackle the two most prevalent aspects to what will happen if you lie. Health Ramifications Most of us can remember when we last told a lie, or when the lie required you to recall details of what it was about. You may recollect feeling stressed, anxious and actually having an adverse physical reaction because you had to guess at the specifics of the lie? What’s even more daunting is what you thought was believed to have been forgotten, may now be overwhelming your thoughts despite your efforts to forget about “it”. Psychology researchers at the University of Notre Dame conducted a 10-week study on a group of 110 individuals, half of which were asked not to lie, and the other half told to keep track of how many times they actually lied. [1] The researchers followed each participant’s mental and physical health with survey’s...
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