Essay about The Morality of Lies and Deception - 876 Words

The Morality of Lies and Deception We lie all the time, lying is not something new to our culture. We lie to our parents, we lie to our friends, we even lie to our significant other, but why do we do it? There is not one set reason on why we lie but they can vary from an insignificant reason to something more nefarious. A good operational definition of a lie is â€Å"A lie is a false statement to a person or group made by another person or group who knows it is not the whole truth, intentionally.† (Freitas-Magalhà £es) We have been raised to know that lying is usually a bad thing, and it’s better to tell the truth, not to mention the circumstances get exponentially worse if you are caught lying. No one wants to be labeled as a liar, or†¦show more content†¦There is also a question of personal morality. Our salesman could be a relativist. The theory of relativism is †The prescriptive view that different groups of people ought to have different ethical standards for evaluating acts as right or wrong, these different beliefs are true in their respective societies, and these different beliefs are not instances of a basic moral principle.† (Lander) If our salesman was a relativist he could claim that he has a different standard of ethics and in his mind tricking a customer is completely acceptable in order to make a sale. I don’t think that the theory of relativism is a valid reason to commit certain actions. Relativism cannot be valid because it only works by applying the theory to yourself. A relativist agrees that it would be okay to steal from someone for personal benefit, but if someone were to steal from you it would be immoral. This theory basically collapses on itself. I believe there are multiple things that the salesman did not take into an account when tricking the customer. 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