Ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 3

Ethics - Essay Example Among the main ethical issues, which various people faced with on a day-to-day basis, is whether to be deceptive or to be honest. Is deceptions justified or is honesty always the best policy? This paper will discuss the ethical dilemma in detail and give examples where both situations are favorable. Honesty and deception From an early age, people are taught that honesty is a virtue and that we will succeed if we continuously conduct ourselves in an honest manner as often as possible. However, it does not take long for people to realize that honesty does not always lead to success, as people who are most deceptive prosper on a daily basis throughout the world. This therefore leads people to have internal conflicts as to whether to adhere to the principle of honesty, since the urge to lie becomes greatly magnified (Dal Cero, 2009). All the great world religions teach that honesty is the desired virtue that all people must try to cultivate. They thus show honesty as being good. On the o ther hand, these religions teach that dishonesty and all its forms is a society vice and should therefore be discouraged. Thus, the religions paint dishonesty as being bad. Due to this, a person’s conscience is calmed if he/she is being honest. However, a person’s conscience is not at ease if he/she is being dishonest. The individual’s conscience is not usually at ease due to the possibility of damaging their reputation if they are discovered to have lied. In most instances, the individual comforts himself by the fact that the negative repercussions of telling the truth would be far much greater. Hence, by lying one avoids negative repercussions (Dal Cero, 2009). However, in most situations, the consequences of lying are much more complicated than their face value. Lying leads self-guilt, damage of the reputation and lack trust by other people should they discover that one was lying (Hall, 2010). Deception can be either verbal or non-verbal. In verbal deception, the individual willingly tells the other person information, which is generally not true. The individual may offer the misleading information in order to benefit from a certain situation. Non-verbal deception is a situation where the individual does actions that he wants to be interpreted in a way that is generally not true. Secrecy or the unwillingness of an individual to offer vital information willingly or upon request may also be considered as deception (Garner, n.d). Deception may also occur in the form of diversionary information. The individual may attempt to control the information that he/she offers and thus substitute the relevant information with information from another topic. By so doing, the individual attempts to reveal information he/she would like the listener to perceive as valuable, which is not the case (Turner, Edgley & Olmstead, 1975). Most people require that their friends and other people who they associate with are honest. However, people always leave room for some lies since the truth may sometimes be painful, hence making lies and pretence to be appropriate at certain times. Telling the truth at all times usually has dire consequences; for instance, imagine a situation where your wife asked you whether she looked fat in a certain dress when it was