What Makes Lies A Lie Essay

In “The Ways We Lie”, Ericsson describes the different types of lies: white lie, facades, ignoring the plain facts, deflecting, omission, stereotypes and clichés, groupthink, out-and-out lies, dismissal, and delusion. First Ericsson claims that white lies is when a person “assumes that the truth will cause more damage than a simple, harmless untruth” (Ericsson 181). A person decides that it is better to tell the lie rather than to tell the truth because of how he or she perceives the outcome will be. Ericsson believes that people who use white lies decide what is best for the other person and it “is an act of subtle arrogance to decide what is best for someone else” (Ericsson 181). When people use white lies they’re assuming that what they are doing something that is beneficial for the other person. Although they do not know

Why do people lie? Why do some people seem to NOT be able to tell the truth even when the truth is clearly obvious or evident? What makes a person tell lies instead of the truth?

Or does it?” (Ericsson, 495). “But if I justify lying, what makes me any different from slick politicians or the corporate robbers who raided the S&L industry?” (Ericsson, 496). “What far-reaching consequences will, or others, pay as a result of my lie?

Lying is a common habit that everyone has had experiences with. I have lied and have been lied to numerous times. Everyone has. However, not everyone exposed to a certain lie is aware of it’s true power. In her essay “The Ways We Lie”, Stephanie Ericsson criticizes our bad habit of lying. She explains many different types of lies and even gives examples to show how harmful they can be as “our acceptance of lies becomes a cultural cancer that eventually shrouds and reorders reality until moral garbage becomes invisible to us as water is to a fish” (128).

A benevolent lie is when someone tells a lie, but not with the intentions of harming anyone in the process but to help the person to whom it is told. This type of lie is better known as the harmless little white lie. After reading chapter three I have concluded that to many unconscious benevolent lies are told at my house. Learning about this topic pointed out how often it happens without notice, for example my little girl just lost her front teeth and asked me if she will look pretty for her school pictures. My reply was “You’re going to be the most beautiful girl in the world!” Which she is beautiful to me no matter what but not to the world. I have told her the tooth fairy is real leaving money under her pillow in exchange for each tooth she loses. Also guilt for the story about Santa and how he gives presents when she’s been good or no presents if she’s been bad that year. This benevolent lie is to benefit me I guess to threaten her when she misbehaves. Another example is my second born goes around saying she is my favorite child so, I just agree that she is my favorite child but not to tell her sisters so their feeling won’t get hurt. They’re all my favorite in their own special little way not just her. These benevolent lies just keep coming. This one my oldest daughter had a pet fish that she cared for. The fish recently died so I had to replace it before she came home. She noticed it looked a little different and asked if I noticed anything dissimilar. I replied, “No

Honesty and deception both play valuable roles in all parts of personal lives and society. Richard Gunderman stated, “To tell the truth is to live authentically and responsibly, to really live.” Living honestly is a way to have less stress to your life, proven by Richard Gunderman in “Is lying bad for us?” However, dishonesty seems to at an all time high with the growth of communication as stated in “On Bullshit” by Harry Frankfurt. In addition, lying can provide incredible short-term benefits discussed by Stephanie Ericsson in “The Ways We Lie.” Gunderman’s claim on authenticity is valid because most cultures see honesty and trust as two of the more lauded values. Telling the truth relieves stress and adds trust. Yet, there is a seemingly

Each lie is based on a true subject. Little Johnny's hamster died? Technically, he just ran away... to heaven. Little Johnny just did not happen to hear the last part. The point of all this is that the truth can be easily distorted, even to the point where

As a general articulation, there is very little contention that would emerge when one expresses that lying is wrong. However, when proffered theoretical circumstances start to crawl further into different circumstances, people will start to dodge and legitimize why lying would be satisfactory in specific circumstances.

An amazing literary example of the usage of lies is “The Drawer Boy” by Michael Healey, where one character named Morgan dug himself a hole that was almost impossible get out of without

Lies starts when we’re young. Initially, as children, we lie to our parents, more likely than not, to get out of trouble. An example used by Joseph Shrand, in his article “Why do people lie?” He tells the story of his three year old son, who was caught red-handed, stealing cookies from the pantry. Shrand walked into his kitchen and was welcomed by the sight

Those who choose to believe in lies can be affected in ways they would have never imagined. As Lichenberg shared in his quote, deceitful words are one of the most harmful powers of

In Article #2 Immanuel Kant, who believes lying is never justified, says, “‘A lie, even if it does not wrong any particular individual, always harms mankind individually’”. Here, Kant is trying to portray the fact that all kinds of lies, even ones that would save one’s life, will always end up hurting the society as a whole. Not only will it hurt everyone, involved in the lie or not, but it will also damage the liar’s credibility. However, the solution to this idea of all lies are never justified is to know how, and when to lie about a situation; “The key to being good at lying is keeping it simple” (Article #4). Keeping the lie simple and short is a sufficient way to keep it under control.

First, he states that it is okay to lie so you can save yourself from embarrassment.(516) Secondly he claims that consistently telling the truth has it’s advantage in trust.(516) To this he says there are exceptions to this rule. Namely that if withholding information from someone results in saving them from evil occurring to them.(516) Even with these exceptions, he says that we have to recognize that the lie may be breaking down trust so we can truly weight the cost and the benefit of both.(516)

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.

What are lies? A lie is defined as follows: To make a statement that one knows to be false, especially with the intent to deceive. There are several ways that lies are told for instance, there are white lies, lies of omission, bold faced lies, and lies of exaggeration. No matter what type of lie that one chooses to tell many people believe that lies do more harm than good.