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Thursday, March 02, 2006

Question of the Day: Day 61

If telling the truth would get you into trouble but get your friend out of trouble would you do it?
Why or why not?

10 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

depends how much trouble I would get into and how much trouble I can get my friend out of. Plus if I can benifit from it.

3/02/2006 9:19 AM  
Blogger Michelle said...

I would tell the truth regardless of who would or would not get into trouble.

The bottom line is that we all need to be responsible for the things that we do, learn from our mistakes, make any restitutions that are necessary, and move on in life.

3/02/2006 9:28 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Telling the truth means being honest about oneself. Honesty is fundamental to any human relationship, whether it is a friendship, a love relationship, or a business relationship. It means we are holding ourselves accountable for our behavior by taking responsibility for ourselves, so other people can trust us. It is wrong to be deceptive. I say that one must be honest, take responsibility for what we do, and if that means that I get into trouble, then I must bear that responsibility for what I said or did. It would be unjust for me to lie, and allow my friend to pay a price for my dishonesty.

Quite simply, a lack of honesty is a way of hurting others, and ultimately, hurting yourself. For example, I once lied to a girlfriend about myself, because I thought I would impress her. Later, when she learned the truth about me, she was hurt, and she ended our relationship. I was responsible for my mistake, and my lie ended what could have been a good friendship. I learned from that experience that if I am not truthful with another person, it not only hurts them, but ultimately hurts me. It's not worth it. Much better to be honest and not hurt another person.

Here's another example; this one is from science, the field of stem cell research. Recently a famous stem cell researcher admitted that he falsified his research data. This was after he and his team had made public announcements claiming success cloning stem cells. Their research data was reviewed, and published in a distinguished science journal (a science journal looks like a magazine, but it contains results of important research, the latest state-of-the-art methods, and research findings that other professional scientists need to know). Later, it was discovered that his data was wrong. Further investigation revealed that the scientist in question, who claimed an important breakthrough, lied about his results. It was a terrible embarrassment for him and his science team. It resulted in him losing his job, being humiliated by his peers, and he hurt many other people who trusted him. If he had been honest, he could have continued his important research, and perhaps would have made a genuine contribution to our knowledge.

(Note: here is one important fact that needs to be understood about science. Science deals with the natural world and natural facts, not myth or superstitions. Science is not based upon the "authority" of any one person. Rather, science depends upon replication of results. This means that other researchers, acting independently, must be able to independently reproduce the results of an experiment, before the results can be considered a fact. We say that science is "self-correcting." This means, if an honest mistake occurs, or if a researcher lies about his/her results, that error will eventually be discovered by others, revealed, and corrected, as was the case with the stem-cell researcher. So even when honest mistakes happen, which they do, we let the scientific method work to correct those mistakes, and advance our knowledge of the world we live in)

In conclusion, telling the truth is fundamental to everything we do. It impacts us in many ways. "Honesty is always the best policy."

3/02/2006 11:41 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hmm, assuming equal troubles, then yes, I would take the fall for my friend. Interesting situation to try to engineer though. But the truth is important.

yesterday morning someone in school got introuble because our form tutor said he hadn't been in registration. I hate the guy...but when I thought about it afterwards I realised he was there. I'll stand up for him cos its being taken further; he argued with our form tutor. But in this case I could just turn a blind eye - Im not unhappy to see him in trouble, but it would be wrong.

So, in summary, truth is important, and making sure the truth is heard is important too.

3/02/2006 12:03 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, I think you should always tell the truth if you know for a fact that it is the truth.

3/02/2006 12:28 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

No. One of the hardest lessons in my life has been that the truth is ALWAYS the right thing. It's definitely not the easiest or least painful, but in the end I believe it does the most good for the most people. On a practical level, lying for my friend would only get him out of trouble temporarily for a number of reasons: taking away his need to face up to his deed just allows him to avoid taking responsibility and growing in the process; the truth is almost always found out eventually anyway so I am most likely just delaying his punishmnent. So taking the hit for someone else in this way is not really helping them at all.

When I was 17 or 18 and working a summer job for a roofer, the old, grizzly guy I worked with looked at me one day and said "Yeah, I may not be pretty or rich or sophisticated, but one thing I always do is tell the truth." He seemed not to worry about much, had 2 kids and a wife who adored him, lots of friends and respect... I never forgot that, and have been trying to live up to it ever since.

3/02/2006 1:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would tell the truth if I got into trouble but I would not tell the truth if it got my friend in trouble. Only if it was life altering then I would tell someone I know I can trust.

3/03/2006 9:02 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, I most indefinitely would do it. Maybe even if I didn't know the person, either. Mainly because I would be able to sleep at night knowing that a falsely accused person wouldn't go to jail or whatever.

3/03/2006 10:29 AM  
Blogger David said...

I would tell the truth. It's a compulsion with me; I can't help it.

And it's the right thing to do.

3/03/2006 2:40 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes I would. Simply put, I wouldn't be able to sleep or look my friend in the eye if I didn't make things right. The result of this might make things uncomfortable for a short while, but it's better than feeling uncomfortable around him or her for a long time.

3/12/2006 9:36 AM  

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