Essence of Lying in the Society

Running head: ESSENCE OF LYING

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ESSENCE OF LYING
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Essence of Lying in the society
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Lying is considered as one of the undesirable characteristics of the society as individuals are always urged not to lie or give a false statement but to be honest and always to be truthful in all the statement that we give in our daily lives. Religious teaching has been at the forefront to discourage individuals from being liars and always to ensure that they remain truthful regardless of the impacts of what such truths will bring in the society. The societal values also require individuals to be truthful all the time. It is, therefore, correct to say these religious doctrines and societal principles makes us believe that lying is always wrong and a sin and thus refraining individuals from being liars in the society. No one on the planet ever needs to be lied to as this makes them feel duped. On the aspect of psychology, it is always perceived that an individual always desires to be told the truth and whenever he/she is given false information, the person always feel like he/she is being denied the benefit to have full disclosure of the truth.
Parents always teach their children that lying is wrong and teachers also enhance the element of truthfulness among the children by explaining to them the consequences of lying. Everyone always wants to be told the truth, the whole truth concerning an issue. Notwithstanding, there is a developing school of however in which some individuals always suggest that in some exceptional cases, lies might be necessary to help solve a problem or even to prevent further damage from taking place. One of the proponents of such ideas was Gerald Dworkin who came up with ten outstanding examples in which lying might be tolerated and might be perceived to be important. This paper, therefore, tries to analyze the philosophical ideas brought forward by Gerald as to why he thinks that lying at some point might be necessary. This article sheds much more light on to the reason why individuals and society in general always suggest for truthfulness when people are giving out their opinions or suggestion or even evidence.
In the public arena, the electorate will always show their concern and even decry whenever their politicians and other government officials lie or give a false statement to the media. The understanding of the aspect of lying is considered to be complex and challenging to understand, and this is because while an individual might find it wrong to be lied to by another person, the same individuals always find it easy most of the time to lie to others. Individuals often tell lies to each other almost all the time. Politicians lie to the public on various occasion whenever they are questioned on the reason why they decided to act in a certain manner. Corporate organizations always lie to their shareholders and the general public concerning the state of business performance and even sometimes manipulate their book of records just with an objective of convincing the public and the shareholders. Parents sometimes lie to their children in case they have some problems with themselves and still expect the children to believe them and that these children become truthful in the future. Religious leaders who in most cases are perceived as the role model of the society and the people who should enhance truthfulness and honesty always violate these expectations and lie to their congregation yet being truthful and honesty are some of the common issues that they advocate among their congregation. Societal ethics and morality principles clearly stipulate the various acts which are perceived to be undesirable, and thus individuals are always expected to avoid undertaking. Some of these acts include killing, robbing, stereotyping, being respectful to others, or even lying. It is, however, surprising that individuals never justify immoral and evil acts such as theft and killing the same way that we explain the issue of lying in the modern society. This makes people question the uniqueness of lying which makes it exceptional to other societal acts which are deemed to be undesirable yet lying also belong to the same group of undesirable and immoral actions in the society.
It is common to see individuals deny their actions that they commit which are undesirable and always makes them feel remorseful. If today we were the one asked to allow the Nazi’s army to know where the Jewish are, many people would say that it will be rational for them to lie if the above act would mean the shedding of the blood of the innocent Jewish people. Parents would feel that it would be logical and rational to lie to their children that they are all in good terms yet, in reality, they are undergoing through marriage crisis and even the children themselves can see that. We either deny that these words appropriately describe the acts we committed, or we feel guilt or remorse. The above two examples show that in some cases there is no an absolute prohibition of lying and this, therefore, means that in some special occasions lying might be substantiated and assumed to be rightful for the better right of an individual or society in general.Be that as it may, maybe this illustration just demonstrates that there is not a flat out denial on lying. In the above argument, it is not my view that lying might be perceived to be morally neutral as earlier alleged by Gerald regarding the exceptionality where lying might be authenticated and allowed to be used in a typical situation in the society.
Lying is defined as the failure of an individual to disclose the truth about an issue. In psychologist believe that when lying, a person is always motivated to deliberately give a false information so as to convince another party to believe that what he/she is saying is the truth. Regardless of whether lying is right or wrong, one thing that we must accept is that it would be difficult to live our lives without telling the lies because whether we like it or not, lies are part of us and we cannot deny such a fact.
In the past, I needed to lie so as to protect the interest of another person and not my own benefit as normally perceived as most people think that people only lie so as to protect their benefit. One day while I was reading inside my room, I had some quarrels outside our house. I, however, did not take much emphasis on such simply because to me it was normal for people to have a confrontation with one another. However, after a short time, I heard someone knocking my door. Without hesitating, I went and opened the door when I found my best friend John standing right at the door while tears are rolling his cheeks. . He told me that his father was beating him and that he had to come and hide in our house. After some minutes, his father comes to asked me if I had seen John and whether he was in our house. I had to lie just to save John from a thorough beating from his father. Whether I did a wrong thing by lying to John’s father or not isn’t important. What is important is that my act of lying was necessary to help my friend. I, therefore, believe that at some point, individuals always have to lie to make things right just like argued by Gerald Dworkin.

References
Dworkin, G. (2013). Lying and nudging. Journal of medical ethics, 39(8), 496-497.