Lying Is Ethical Essay

Improved Essays
Have you ever experience the feeling of watching some bad news, such as watching how many innocent people are brutally being killed, and then you start thinking about yourself being in the same situation? The U.S. Declaration of Independence reminds us that, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” So even if we have created bad stereotypes that limit certain rights to some people, we all should treat everyone in the same way. Humans must be moral in order to contribute and make this world a better place to live. First of all, we have to understand what makes an …show more content…
Socrates recognized that God’s commandments “cannot be the ultimate basis of ethics” (Rachels and Rachels 156). According to God’s commandments, lying is bad. The doctrine of utilitarisim assumes that any activity, including lying, cannot be wrong if it makes people happy, as long as it does not harm anyone (Rachels and Rachels 162). Joaquin Perez says that the topic of morality is very contradictory when following religious beliefs and beneficiating a society. Perez believes that no matter if it isfor a good or bad cause, lying is against God’s commandments. He confesses however that he lied several times to their parents to not cause them stress or worry about his problems, which he says was a good cause. In addition, obeying authority figures can also play a major role in our moral behaviors and it could be the ultimate cause of a culture’s standard of right and wrong. Milgram’s experiment help us to understand how authority figures can make us go against our own values. In this experiment, volunteers were asked to manage electric shocks to another participant labeled as the learned, who in reality was an actor. Even though the learner was pretending to be shrieked in pain, the majority of the volunteers continued to harm the learned just because the experimented ordered to do so (Roan). Similarly, most people are capable of abandoning their moral values and could misplace their sense of right and wrong when obeying authority figures (Roan). In our society, we may obey the laws and rules of the government to avoid negative consequences, such as getting a ticket or going to jail. But Carter argues that positive consequences are more important that negative consequences because as a society we should try to benefit each

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Many societies throughout history have placed an emphasis on religion when it comes to differentiating between right and wrong behavior, and when an individual was in the wrong in such a society, the religion dictated the punishment. However in Mill’s society where the harm principle is in place, a person who has done wrong forcibly performs kind acts for others, participates in community service, or serves in the military (2002, p. 9). By Mill recommending a person alter their bad behavior by performing altruistic services, one can see that Mill believes people learn more from correcting their wrongs, and seeing what a positive action looks like, rather than by being punished.…

    • 1315 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Inspired by the horrific acts committed by thousands of seemingly “normal” individuals during the Holocaust, Stanley Milgram set out to discover the causes and triggers of unquestioning obedience. He inquired why so many people from uneventful backgrounds followed orders from the most tyrannical and prejudice leader ever facing this world. Basing his theory from that of a grade school friend and famous situationist—Philip Zimbardo—Milgram began to explore the possibility of a situation to force a person to act in opposition of their deepest values and morals. His curiosity resulted in the perpetually debated Milgram Obedience Experiments.…

    • 919 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Most individuals generally like to think of themselves as moral human beings. They often directly link their moral judgments to reason alone. However, in the 18th century, Hume made the suggestion that moral judgments could be based on emotions rather than unadulterated reason. In his Moral Philosophy, Hume argues that moral distinctions are not derived from reason, but rather determined by moral emotions: feelings of approval, or disgust felt by spectators who contemplate a moral trait or action (Owen, 1992). Moral judgments find their foundation in an assessment of actions of people with respect to the set of merits ingrained in their society (Haidt, 2001).…

    • 589 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    How Is Lying Justified

    • 1040 Words
    • 5 Pages

    June Hyung(Eric) Kim Mr. Shimazaki American Literature 9/22/17 The Line of Morality for Unethical Decisions The purpose of lying varies depending on the situation. Although people often utilize it to benefit themselves, it is also sometimes necessary for people’s lives.…

    • 1040 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “The Perils of Obedience” written by Stanley Milgram and “Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience” written by Diana Baumrind are both intriguing articles about Stanley Milgram’s experiments on obedience. Diana Baumrind believes that Stanley Milgram failed at his experiences on obedience rather than succeeded. Stanley Milgram believed that he succeeded on his experiments if an authority figure tells the test subject to do something then the test subject will. “Stanley Milgram designed an experiment that forced participants either to violate their conscience by obeying the immoral demands of an authority figure or to refuse those demands” (Milgram 77). While both authors address experiments on obedience, Stanley Milgram approaches…

    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Stanley Milgram, a Yale University psychologist, shares his results from an experiment he conducted in regards to obedience of authority in 1963 in, “The Perils of Obedience.” His experiment illustrated that when put under particular circumstances, ordinary citizens have the capability to perform terrible and unexpected actions (Milgram 85). Milgram rationalizes these proceedings through the conclusion that the average individual will decide to please the experimenter rather than resist his authority to protect the wellbeing of the learner (Milgram 86). Diana Baumrind, a psychologist who worked at the Institute of Human Development at the University of California, writes in response to Milgram’s experiment “Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments…

    • 1334 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One of the most famous studies in psychology was done by Stanley Milgram (theatlantic.com). In 1961, Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, created an experiment to study obedience (simplypsychology.org). The experiment showed “that most people will hurt their fellows rather than disobey authority,” as said in Milgram’s words (harpercollins.com). The same experiment was performed again for television in 2007 that yielded close results. Could people really be capable of hurting others if told?…

    • 931 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Milgram’s experiment on obedience to authority is one of the best known studies in social psychology. It was repeated several times in different variations. These replications extended our knowledge about the phenomenon of complying to authorities’ orders. One of them was the experiment conducted by Hofling et al. This essay will outline the similarities and differences between these two studies.…

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Code Of Ethics Essay

    • 1007 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Ethics can be defined as the moral principles that dictate a person or groups’ behavior and decisions. Throughout the years, the human race has created a certain code of ethics, that most civilizations live by. When making a decision based on ethics, one must take into consideration all applicable variables that might be affected such as how this decision might benefit some people, and hinder others. Another thing to consider is the long term implications this decision might have. Ethical decision making is exceedingly important because in the long run, it’s what’s gotten our society to where it is today, humans make decisions based on ethics everyday, whether it be what movie to watch, or who to vote for.…

    • 1007 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The test proved that seemingly normal people are likely to follow orders given by a person of authority even to the extent of killing another because obedience to authority is ingrained in us all from the way we are brought up. This experiment forced participant to either violate their conscience by obeying immoral demands or not. Milgram’s experiment recruited forty males to take part in the study of “learning” with a total of six hundred thirty-six participants in eighteen separate tests. The participants actually believed they were shocking a real person unaware that the learner was actually acting like being shocked.…

    • 1478 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout the movie, A Few Good Men, there is controversy about obedience to authority when two marines follow an order believed to be unethical. Privates Dawson and Downey, carry out a “code red”, or hazing, of another member of the unit, and were put on trial for the unintentional murder of Private Santiago. Stanley Milgram, Yale psychologist and author of “The Perils of Obedience” claims, “Some system of authority is a requirement of all communal living” (Milgram 78). Along with Milgram, Philip Zimbardo, and Erich Fromm also converse on the psychological issues regarding human behavior. Milgram’s test subjects were tricked into thinking they were electrically shocking someone if they answered a question wrong.…

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Remembering the Past; Preserve the Future Life revolves around the interactions between human beings. It is all about the relationships that we make with one another and how we push through the downfalls to achieve our full potential as one. We as people embrace the fact that although a perfect and equal society is in the best interest of most, unfortunately there are always going to be the narrow-minded, arrogant beings who destroy and completely shatter this image and dream. As you know, the world has an extraordinarily large variety of races, religions, and ethical backgrounds. Most people support the idea that an individual shall be based solely on their unique aspects and traits rather than be judged and discriminated automatically due…

    • 1746 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Lies And Deception Essay

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Lying and deception is one of the most common sins that we see in law enforcement according to our ethic book. This is one of the sins that can easily be made, and most would see as not a very big sin depending on what an officer is lying about. A person of the law should never lie but some examples can be when a civilian reports an officer doing something they shouldn’t of done like speeding or turning their lights on to get through a light just so they don’t have to wait. Now when this gets reported an officer could easily lie and say he or she didn’t do this because there is most likely no evidence of this being done and it’s the officers word against the civilians. Now that is just a simple example of how an officer could lie to a leader or their department.…

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Honesty is the avoidance of knowingly deceiving yourself or others. Honesty means not lying, cheating, or stealing, whether it is done with malicious intent or not. This holds true even in situations where dishonesty seems like the easy way out. Perhaps one of the least considered, and possibly most difficult, aspects of honesty is being honest with oneself. Everyone has moments where lying may seem like the easy way out.…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    A number of people believe that when it comes to a romantic relationship, it is right and absolutely fine to lie to their partner, especially to get out of a situation, but their partner could somehow find out the truth after a while. The result of that would not turn out so great. About 75% of the people who are in a relationship admitted to lying to their significant other, according to a survey conducted by Dr. Pepper Schwartz. One’s partner is someone one should be able to talk about anything to. Lying causes one’s partner to be heartbroken, and it could also become something done daily.…

    • 885 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays

Related Topics