Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Part 5: Honesty—How Should I Behave?

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Philosophy Inc.

  • 291 Accesses

Abstract

Is it possible to be evil, selfish, a hypocrite, to swindle and lie your way to being a millionaire, and at the same time project an image of virtuousness, honesty and generosity, to appear a model citizen? Plato asks a similar question in The Republic, a dialogue between Socrates and one of Plato’s brothers, Glaucon, who argues that being virtuous is arduous and often not valued, while vice can go unnoticed by others and generate immediate benefits.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 29.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 37.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 37.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Plato, The Republic (London: Penguin, 2021), 2, 359a.

  2. 2.

    B. Masters, “Bernard Madoff, criminal financier”, 1938–2021, Financial Times, August 16, 2021. https://www.ft.com/content/df7263ef-31a5-487e-af76-8df4af8afa2d.

  3. 3.

    M. Friedman, “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits”, New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970.

  4. 4.

    N. Machiavelli, The Prince (London: Penguin, 2013), cap. VII.

  5. 5.

    Sun Tzu, The Art of War (London: Penguin, 2009).

  6. 6.

    Ibidem., P. 1.

  7. 7.

    S. Iñiguez de Onzoño, Cosmopolitan Managers. Executive Development that Works (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) pp. 223–224).

  8. 8.

    Sun Tzu, op.cit. Ch. 3.

  9. 9.

    Ibid., Ch. 6.

  10. 10.

    Ibid., Ch.12.

  11. 11.

    Ibid., Ch.4.

  12. 12.

    Ibid., Ch.1.

  13. 13.

    R. Safranski, ¿Cuánta globalización podemos soportar? (Barcelona: Tusquets,), p. 20.

  14. 14.

    J. Verne, Around the World in Eighty Days (London: Penguin, 2021).

  15. 15.

    R. Safranski, op. cit., p 25.

  16. 16.

    I. Kant, To Perpetual Piece (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2003).

  17. 17.

    R. Safranski, op.cit., p.55.

  18. 18.

    K.A. Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 156.

  19. 19.

    John, 8:7.

  20. 20.

    P. Singer, “Famine, Affluence and Morality”, Philosophy & Public Affairs, Spring 1972, p. 231.

  21. 21.

    P. Unger, Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusion of innocence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 56.

  22. 22.

    A. Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (ed. K. Haakonssen) (Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 157.

  23. 23.

    S. de Beauvoir, Les Belles Images (Paris: Gallimard, 1964).

  24. 24.

    H.C. Andersen, The Emperor’s New clothes and Other Stories (London: Penguin, 1995).

  25. 25.

    W. Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), p.56.

  26. 26.

    B. Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (New York: Random House, 2005), p. 73.

  27. 27.

    W.Isaacson, op.cit., p. 57.

  28. 28.

    https://www.hofstede-insights.com/fi/product/compare-countries/.

  29. 29.

    https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-07-04-fi-3279-story.html.

  30. 30.

    N. Machiavelli, op.cit., Ch.23.

  31. 31.

    G. Vasari, The Lives of the Artists (trans. J. Conaway Bondanella and P. Bondanella) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 226 and 546.

  32. 32.

    Bible, Revelation, 12, 9–12.

  33. 33.

    A. Verdross, The permanent neutrality of Austria (Vienna: Verl. f. Geschichte u. Politik, 1978).

  34. 34.

    Pliny The Younger, The Letters of the Younger Pliny (trans. Betty Radice) (London: Penguin, 1969).

  35. 35.

    Ibid., pp. 166–7.

  36. 36.

    Ibidem.

  37. 37.

    Ibidem.

  38. 38.

    D. Dunn, The Shadow of Vesuvius. A Life of Pliny (New York: WW Norton, 2019), p. 48.

  39. 39.

    S. Freud, Totem and Tabu (London: Routledge, 2001).

  40. 40.

    D. du Maurier, Rebecca (London: Penguin, 2003).

  41. 41.

    Aesop, The Complete Fables (trans. O. Temple) (London: Penguin, 1998), p. 52.

  42. 42.

    A. Schopenhauer, El arte de hacerse respetar, expuesto en 14 máximas (Madrid: Alianza, 2011), p. 11.

  43. 43.

    B. Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom. A Pocket Oracle (Jersey City, NJ: Start Publishing, 1991), p. 53.

  44. 44.

    A. Schopenhauer, op.cit., p. 26.

  45. 45.

    Quoted in M. Lewis, Liar’s Poker (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2006), p. 73.

  46. 46.

    Downton Abbey (creat. J. Fellowes) (Carnival Films, WGBH-TV, 2010).

  47. 47.

    https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/lie2_1.

  48. 48.

    R. Feldman, Liar: The Truth about Lying (London: Virgin Books, 2010).

  49. 49.

    https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-tell-someones-lying-by-watching-their-face-2016-1.

  50. 50.

    https://www.britannica.com/topic/lying/The-morality-of-lying.

  51. 51.

    H. Varden, “Kant and Lying to the Murderer at the Door…One More Time. Kant’s Legal Philosophy and Lies To Murderers and Nazis” 41 Journal of Social Philosophy 4 (Winter 2020), pp. 403–21.

  52. 52.

    Ibidem.

  53. 53.

    Sun Tzu, op. cit.

  54. 54.

    W. Isaacson, Steve Jobs (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), p. 117.

  55. 55.

    O. Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (London: Penguin, 2011), First Act.

  56. 56.

    L. Symons, Only 11% of Top Business School Studies Have a Female Protagonist, Harvard Business Review, March 9, 2016. The author suggests that “Clearing houses should publicize and reward cases with diverse characters. If you can measure it, you can start to change it. Data in this area is crucial. Case clearing houses, such as the Case Centre or Harvard, can assist by actively bringing the topic into the open. They could start by tracking the gender—and ethnicity—of the protagonist and making this information visible on their websites.” An interesting contribution providing data on women in business and analysis: C. Criado Pérez, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (New York, NY: Abrams Press, 2019).

  57. 57.

    Ghoshal, S., “Bad Management Theories Are Destroying Good Management Practices”, 4 Academy of Management Learning & Education (2005), 75–91.

  58. 58.

    Iñiguez de Onzoño, S. The Learning Curve: How Business Schools Are Re-Inventing Education (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), p. 126.

  59. 59.

    W.B. Gallie, “Essentially Contested Concepts”, 56 Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (1955–6), pp. 167–198.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. IE University, Madrid, Spain

    Santiago Iñiguez

Authors
  1. Santiago Iñiguez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Santiago Iñiguez .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Iñiguez, S. (2023). Part 5: Honesty—How Should I Behave?. In: Philosophy Inc.. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20483-8_5

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation