Essay Sample on Dishonesty in Present Day Society

Introduction

Irrefutably, honesty is an important virtue that is deeply entrenched across many societies across the world. However, it is no secret that some people have turned out to be great liars. Dishonesty is the act of both knowingly and intentionally recounting a false statement. In fact, to some people, dishonesty has become an integral part of their lives, influencing key domains ranging from politics, business, finance to personal lives (Garrett, Lazzaro, Ariely, & Sharot, 2016). In their article, Boyd and Richerson (2005) write about "research findings that have consistently shown dishonest behaviors when people benefit from their deceit acts." Markedly, this pattern is observed in many communities around the globe. The impact of lies can have far-reaching consequences, both to the liar and the receiver of the message. Thus, it is paramount for society members to distinguish between deceptive people from the truthful ones. Instead of this, the present discussion explores the contentious topic of how and why people develop into liars. It also illustrates how individuals and societies can protect themselves from deceivers.

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Prelude to this discussion, it is paramount to explain the meaning of some key terms often used in the discussion of dishonesty and lying. Co-operative behavior refers to the interaction between two or more individuals directed towards achieving a specific goal such as stopping dishonest acts. Freeloading refers to the idea of taking advantage of others since they are not informed of the information you are aware of. The principle of honesty dictates that if you tell the truth, then you can be helped otherwise if you are a deceiver then you should be neglected. There are some instances that an individual may opt to lie to get out of a situation, which is contrary to ethics and morals (Boyd & Richerson, 2005). In ethical ideas, lying is immoral since it breaches trust and does not give listeners a chance for reasoning as describe in subjectivism (Vaughn, 2018).

Philosophical Issues in the Movie: The Matrix

Since the beginning of time humanity has been fascinated by their very existence. As a result philosophers through the centuries have raised questions about the who, what, when, why and how of human reality. Many of these thinkers have varied theories about human beings while others even go to the extremes of stating that humanity may be living in a stimulation (Marx, 1967). Others, raise more fundamental questions like is happiness really the purpose or goal of human life? Socrates, an Ancient Greek philosophy (and the teacher of Plato), has a classical quote is that states "the unexamined life is not worth living" (Vaughn, 2018). The movie The Matrix (1999) attempts to answer these questions or at the least raise awareness to these and other similar questions concerning human nature in contemporary times. The movie's main plot is about a computer programmer who does hacking on the side. He suspects that not all is right with his reality and sets out to find clues and answers as to how or why this is so. As the movie unfolds, it appears that he discovers the truth: that he and the rest of humanity have been living under a stimulation. Having been enlightened to this truth, he sets out to release humanity from the bondage of the matrix simulation (Bok 2017). That said, the film The Matrix is a contemporary eye-opener to the true nature of humanity concerning the choice to examine Socrates classical quote: "the unexamined life is not worth living" (Vaughn, 2018).

In the first scene Neo is told to choose between the red pill and the blue pill, if he chooses the blue pill, he will wake up the following morning in his bed without the knowledge of the encounter with Morpheus or the matrix. If he chooses the red pill, he would be kept in wonderland and shown how deep the rabbit hole goes. Here Morpheus is talking about the fact that almost all humanity is kept in pods as cultivations for the machines' source of energy. This scene raises a fundamental question to the nature of human beings. Would you rather be blissfully ignorant or hear the painful truth? Neo decides to take the red pill and be shown the truth about his reality. This is the opposite of what majority of the humans prefer as Morpheus tells Neo that people live in prison they cannot touch, they became slaves in their mind and cannot choose the right from wrong. We are told that all humans except those in Zion have been captured and placed in pods and their consciousness uploaded to the matrix. These people do not question their reality but instead, accept it the way it is. Neo is different from the masses in that he decides to question his reality and ends up finding out that he has lived a lie all his life. This scene raises a question, how do we know that we are not living in stimulation? The short answer is that we do not, and almost all of us are happy with the fat of not knowing. No one has ever tried to question our reality to the point that they find out we live in stimulation. Aristotle once said, "A man who loves the truth, who loves the truth when he is in no danger, loves the truth in danger" (Vaughn, 2018). This Satirizes our current living conditions that we are happy and contented about our ignorance, and we would rather take the blue pill than the red and return to our dream state and not bother ourselves with the truth (Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999).

References

Bok. (2017). Thoughtfulness, Deceit, and Trust.. Print.

Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (2005). The origin and evolution of cultures. Oxford University Press.

Dor, D. (2017). The Darker Side of Imagination. Print.

Garrett, N., Lazzaro, S. C., Ariely, D., & Sharot, T. (2016). The brain adapts to dishonesty - nature Neuroscience, 19(12), 1727.

Vaughn, L. (2018). Living philosophy: A historical introduction to philosophical ideas.

Second Edition. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1994). What is philosophy? Columbia University Press. Need to Cite from this!

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh (Vol. 4). New York: Basic Books.

Marx, M. H. (1967). Philosophy of natural science. Psyccritiques, 12(2), 95.

The Matrix. (1999). Dir. Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski. Warner Bros. Pictures. DVD.