Sissela Bok Lying Moral Choice In Public And Private Life Summary

In “The Death of Honesty,” William Damon raises the concern that current apathy towards increasing dishonesty threatens democracy. In this essay taken from the online volume “Endangered Virtues ” published by the Hoover Institute in 2012, Damon initially concedes that there are situations where lying could be considered acceptable. However, with that being acknowledged, he transitions to his main premise that honesty is losing its importance in society and will lead to its downfall, and he cites examples in politics, law, journalism, and business in contemporary society where dishonesty is expected, and even, condoned. Damon finally directs his remarks pointedly at teachers and current students who accept cheating in schools. To persuade

There comes a time when a doctor, minister or politicians and an individual will tell a lie. It could be a white lie or big lie; most people almost generally resort to lying in certain situation. Often times a lawyer will lie in order to protect his client, or vice versa, a client will tell a lie in order to avoid being incarnated. There are many situations an individual will be placed in, and at some point in a person’s life they will need to tell a lie. Is it appropriate to lie? This is what Sissela Bok writes about in Lying: Moral choice in Public and Private Life. Bok acknowledges that despite numerous religious and moral statements against lying, people will still lie in certain situations. She will discuss and

An example would be during the Nazi’s reign in World War Two where the Jews were persecuted by Nazi Germany. Benevolent and intrepid neighbours would often choose to protect their Jewish friends through weaving elaborate webs of falsehood and truth. They had to live under the constant threat of death hanging over their heads, wondering if today was the day that the Gestapo would come banging on the door, carrying loaded guns at the ready. They must live the lies that they tell day and night; their truths buried deep underneath layers of deceit. Yet without these cozenage, more Jews would have been found and killed and the goal of Hitler to eradicate this race may have succeeded. Deception during times such as these are

Sissela Bok’s Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life focuses around the ethical implications around lying and examines situations when it is appropriate or inappropriate to lie. Bok’s philosophy is unique among many philosophers in that she takes an approach that recognizes that people will lie and that there are certain situations in which lying may be warranted or acceptable depending on the situation at hand and who is responsible for lying. I believe that this is a more realistic expectation of human society. In this paper, I will examine Bok’s reasoning and apply it to possible situations in my professional career that will require me to examine my ethical responsibility around lying. In addition to Bok’s book, I

In the essay The Ways We Lie, author Stephanie Ericsson writes in depth about the different types of lies used by most people everyday. While listing examples of them, Ericsson questions her own experiences with lying and whether or not it was appropriate. By using hypothetical situations, true accounts, and personal occurrences, she highlights the moral conflicts and consequences that are a result of harmless fibs or impactful deceptions. In an essay detailing the lies told to ourselves and others, Ericsson points out one bold truth; everyone lies. Through her writing, Ericsson causes the reader to look into how they’ve lied in the past and how to effects others and the general greater good of society.

Lies, they're everywhere, are they worth the trouble? Throughout these three articles, “It’s the truth”, “Honestly tell the truth”, and “Rejecting all lies”, the authors precisely analyze who agrees, and who doesn’t agree with lying, and why. Lying may be the first thing to come to mind when in a bad situation, but does anyone realize how much damage it can cause towards the other person or to the liar themselves?

In “Cheating in a Bottom Line Economy,” author David Callahan explains the fundamental reasons for the decay of simple business ethics in today’s economy in order to meet bottom line standards. Callahan draws conclusions from everyday businesses such as auto mechanic services, law offices, and even professional medical firms to prove that people will almost always choose financial stability over integrity. The economic life in America has transformed itself into a vast land of professionals focused on achieving “lean and mean” businesses in efforts to achieve the “American Dream,” but in essence lose sense of their morals.

The thought that Sissela Bok about the “whole truth” being attained is that it is impossible that it can be attained. She believes that people are lying deceived everyone, and sometime is used to protect the person. She also thinks that people that are lying is more important than anything in all of the decision that a simple lie brings. I believe she doesn’t have any faith that everyone could tell the truth. The truth is something that is hard to say, and people at times need to lie to protect their love ones. In the beginning of the chapter of “The Noble Lie” she explains how there are different lies. She explains how the lies have different reasons to for people doing it. For some of those reasons it is impossible to be completely truth. Some have to lie to protect others, and cover up the secrets that can be told. There are plenty reasons that there are to lie to people. She states, “The lies are often seen as necessary merely at one stage in the education of the public.” (Bok 166) This is something that everyone does growing up, and no one in one time of their life cannot lie to anyone.

There are several occasions in one’s life that he should have spoken up or had not said a lie to where it hurt another, yet the fact is, he is only human and everyone is guilty of making these choices. Why does this become habitual? Is it because integrity is holding him back? These questions are always hard to answer, because no one really thinks about integrity, honesty, or the need to speak up. William Buckley and Stephanie Ericsson, however, do address these topics with a huge amount of thought and purpose. Buckley and Ericsson, under the thematic concept of ethics, have valid points concerning ethics within their rhetoric and style.

The Ways We Lie addresses the main topic of avoiding the truth promptly. Factions of lying, especially those not ordinarily considered deceit, are presented, and personal anecdotes as well as historical precedents magnify personal appeal along with logic. The purpose of this essay is to encourage people to abstain from dishonesty. For illustration, the author states,”I cannot seem to escape the voice deep inside

Paternalism is the belief that someone knows 'better' than the individual him or herself what is the right way for that individual to live. For example, for centuries, many men had paternalistic attitudes about middle-class women, deeming it unseemly for women to work. Paternalism was used by self-interested whites to justify enslaving African-Americans for 'their own good,' or to colonize non-white people to 'carry the white man's burden.'

In chapter 1, Levitt and Dubner describe how many people in different cultures and walks of life, which are otherwise inclined to be honest, find subtle ways of cheating to advance their position or increase monetary awards when incentives are strong enough. The authors define an incentive as “a means of urging people to do more of a good thing or less of a bad thing,” and identify three varieties of incentives. Economic incentives are those, which a person responds to in the marketplace. Social incentives motivate people to respond in a certain way because they care or are worried about how they will be viewed by others. Moral incentives appeal to a person’s sense of right versus wrong. Three case studies of the

Paternalism is in place to look out for and enforce what is in our best interest, whether they are choices we would or would not make. If decisions we make now are likely to be regretted in the future and are more likely to be irreversible, paternalistic intervention is there to step in and aid the decision. For example, someone chooses to drop out of school at a young age. That person will eventually regret this decision because they will find it hard to get a job with limited education, and also find it virtually impossible to put themselves back through school with limited funds to do so. This situation is a justified situation for paternalism to step in. Paternalism is mainly used in large decisions in people’s lives, decisions that involve high stakes. The advantages of having paternalism in place is that in the long run, with paternalistic intervention, our decisions will be better made. Paternalism is used by officials when make public policy. They look at your surface preferences and judge them on a standard of deeper preferences when configuring limitations and freedoms. There are, however, four types of preferences that prevent paternalistic intervention. They are relevant, settled, preferred, and your own preferences. As

Carr argues that bluffing in business is closer to the strategic bluffing normally found in poker, than it is to bluffing in private life. (Carr paragraph 2) He uses a quote from Henry Taylor to describe bluffing in poker and business: “falsehood ceases to be falsehood when it is understood on all sides that the truth is not expected to be spoken” (Carr paragraph 3). He argues that several people lie about their opinion if their job or their business could suffer if they answered truly, and that this is considered an acceptable business strategy (Carr paragraph 4). Two examples of deception in the hiring process are given; one where the applicant chooses the options he thinks his employer would most agree with and another where the applicant lists himself as younger than he actually is in order to increase the odds of being hired (Carr article, section: Pressure to Decieve). The author mentions that both fall within acceptable business ethics. These examples serve to illustrate the discrepancy between private ethics and the ethics of public business.

This is because silence is not the truth, so by remaining quiet, that person is not telling the truth. A more recognizable form of lying is outright lying, such as when a student claims to be working hard on her philosophy paper when she has in fact been partying at Myrtle Beach for the last two days. Deception is yet another form of lying, because by tricking another person into believing something false, one is withholding the truth from that person. By withholding the truth, the truth is not being told, so the deceiver must be a liar. Regardless of the form in which a lie is being presented, all lies have one thing in common. By giving others false thoughts or perceptions of an event, lies can have a strong influence on our free thinking. Therefore, they are all violations of human reason, something that many people strongly respect. As we will see shortly, the ability to reason is also considered valuable to both Mill and Kant, since it underlies both of their moral theories.