The Insufficiency Of Honesty Essay

In discussions of deceitfulness, one controversial issue has been if it is ever right to lie. Both Anton Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog” and Stephen Carter’s “The Insufficiency of Honesty” argue that lying can be rationalized. On the other hand, some people argue that lying is never virtuous as it misleads others. However, I argue that, lying can be justified if it is not used for malicious intent, because it is often used selflessly to protect the feelings of others. This is because no one wants to be cruel and upset someone by telling the truth when the lie protects that. Being nice is considered socially acceptable and telling the truth is often the opposite. Why tell the truth and loose someone you love when a little white lie can protect …show more content…
Dimitri shows himself to be a different person than he really is, to Anna and she loves him because of who he pretends to be and he enjoys being the person he would rather be. The author states, “she had insisted in calling him good, remarkable, high-minded. Evidently he had appeared to her differently from his real-self. In a word he had involuntarily deceived her” (471). The author shows that Dimitri makes himself look good because he wants someone to look at him differently for once, not as some lifeless, secretive, judgmental man. The author shows that Dimitri is happy for once that he is seen as a good man, contrary to the life he actually lives, but all that is useless because he will not tell anyone how he really feels because of his fear of hurting his wife and destroying his life. Dimitri is deceiving Anna in that he portrays himself as a totally different man than he really is. I think that by deceiving Anna he is not only living a lie but allowing to let her believe he is the perfect man. I think if he were to tell her how who he really is she would be crushed and he would have no chance with any woman. I believe that anyone can lie to make themselves look to be different, but living a life full of lies gets tiring and it is hard to keep up with. At some point the lies will break you down and ultimately not allow you to continue on. In a way it seems …show more content…
He does not realize how it could make her feel, he is selfish in that he is just thinking about himself. After he admits his mistakes to her and passes away, he leaves her in shock as she thought she knew the man she loved. I think that in this case, not telling his wife would be virtuous in that leaving her is hard enough, but making her question the whole fifty years of their marriage is enough to make her want to die. I believe even if you spend your whole life lying, at some point you will breakdown and feel guilty for what you have done; like this man who on his death bed reveals his affair. For people who tell the truth only to clear their own conscience they do not realize that not revealing the truth could have saved hearts from being broken. Realizing how the truth effects others is what a selfless person does. Sometimes holding in the truth can hurt us, like it would have the old man, but revealing the truth can hurt others even more. Revealing the truth can make us feel like we have integrity, but not realizing the guilt we should feel for hurting others feelings can destroy that. When someone dies and you have time before with them you often get closure, yet in this case you then question everything they ever did or say to you without any