Feedback: 3/6
- Nice opening statements
- Decent example of white-lies, but it lacks complexity. Yes, it spares her feelings. However, in the long-run, is she better off not knowing she is a bad cook? Try and select an example that is more rigorous.
- Nice 2nd example! Well developed, open-and-shut.
- Your conclusion is trying to do too much. Select ONE set of criteria. Your future-implications-of-the-lie criteria would have sufficed. By bringing in 'others emotions' into it, you make your argument weaker (since really, telling the friend his girlfriend is cheating on him would do him an emotional number).

The concept of telling lies has been an underlying controversy throughout the history of mankind. The issue arises from the extent to which a lie should be told instead of the honest truth. At times, lies are known to be less harmful than the truth meaning that an individual’s personal state, whether it be emotional, physical, or social is less negatively affected. The term “telling a white lie” is an example of how a little lie can make someone feel better about themselves. When the benefits of a certain situation outweigh the possible negative results, a lie may be deemed acceptable to use. When someone close to you puts a lot of effort into finding a gift to give you, but it does not appeal to you, one may simply tell a lie to spare the friend’s feelings. In this case, a little “white lie” will be a lot less harmful and result in a more positive outcome.

On the other hand, there are certain situations where a lie is much more harmful than telling the truth. Although the truth may be hard to confess at times, it is the most rational choice when the consequences of lying deeply affect one’s self or others around. One big lie may lead to a chain of negative and harmful events that could be avoided by simply telling the truth. The harm caused by lies can extend to more than just emotional feelings. When a company who has stockholders lies about their current economic situation, people invested in their company will not have any warning if bankruptcy of the company occurs. Many people have lost millions of dollars investing in companies who have suddenly declared bankruptcy. This goes to show that withholding the truth may indeed cause more harm and affect one’s personal situation.

When then is a lie more favourable to tell instead of the truth? The distribution of a lie to others depends upon the current situation and the possible outcomes. A lie is often told when the benefits greatly outweigh any detrimental results that could occur. Lies are usually less harmful than the truth when they involve small situations such as using a little white lie to make someone feel better or lighten the overall mood. However, in more complex situations where more important assets or values are at stake, honesty is key in order to avoid the disastrous effects of telling a harmful lie that could greatly affect someone’s life.

Many people define a lie differently. For most people, a lie would be defined as not telling someone the true story, or completely falsifying something. However, for a minority of people a lie could also be considered deliberately withholding specific information. With the latter definition, being lied to can often be less harmful then having the entire truth disclosed to us. For example, when people are diagnosed with cancer, and are fighting the disease they will often ask their family members what they think the prognosis will be. Even if the family members and friends believe that the prognosis is not good, they will not say this. Most people would deliberately withhold this information, and will try and encourage the person with cancer to fight for their life. By withholding this little bit of information, or lying to someone, you are encouraging them to fight, and therefore this is less detrimental then saying what you really believe.

However in some cases when we are lied to, the act of being lied to can be much more detrimental than actually having the truth told to us. Sometimes when we are lied to, the information that is being told to us is completely false. For example, approximately 5 years ago in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, an investment company got caught for fraud. This investment company was deliberately lying to all of their clients by stating that their clients’ money was being invested, but it really was not. Most clients’ planned their retirement around the earnings that they would make from their investments with this company. However, since the company was actually not investing for them, and was in fact spending their clients money, all these clients lost numerous amounts of money. If these clients were told the truth about this investment company before they chose to invest, most would not have invested their retirement savings. In this case, the act of being lied to, or having false information told to people was more harmful than the actual truth.

The criteria that determines when a lie is less harmful than the actual truth and when it is not, would be determined by the type of lie and the motive for lying. If the lie was to deliberately withhold information because the motive was to encourage someone, than this would be less harmful than telling the entire truth. With the person who has a cancer diagnosis, if everyone around them told this person that they believed they would die, this person would not be encouraged to fight. However if people withheld this information in the hopes of encouraging this person to fight, than it is more probable that the cancer patient would survive. However, if the type of lie is falsifying information with the motive of taking advantage of someone, than being lied to is more detrimental than having the truth told to us. In the example with the investment company, if all of these people were told the truth, they would not have been taken advantage of. In this case, the act of being lied to was much more detrimental than having the truth disclosed.

From the start of childhood, people are taught to always tell the truth; however, the world is constantly filled with lies every day. These lies often are less damaging to a company then the truth. Lies are able to keep dreams alive, whereas the truth destroys them. Lying can create magnificant fantasies where the truth cannot reach. In the world of tabloids, lies are not only less harmful than the truth, but offer entertainment too. Magazine tabloids are known to stretch the truth everyday to entertain their readers. The National Enquirer, a popular tabloid, makes a business out of publishing false stories of sightings of mythical monsters like Big Foot and the Lochness Monster. These made up publications entertain its readers and give hope to the people who believe these beasts exist. The tabloid is able to create these lies with no harm to its consumers. If the National Equirer published the truth, the company would no longer be considered a tabloid and be a regular magazine. By moving the tabloid out of its niche business, it would lose its followers and go out of business. In the case of the National Enquirer, the lies it creates are less harmful than the truth because it offers profit which is clearly better than going out of business by telling the truth.

Although lies are usually less harmful than the truth, this is not always the case. Hiding the truth can be very deterimental and harmful towards the health of a business's consumers. When a company puts the consumers safety in danger without telling them, a company is setting themselves up for lawsuits and bankruptcy. In the pharmaceutical industry, the truth about side effects are always listed to the consumer. The drug Prozac, often has commericals on television. At the end of the commerical it always lists of variety of side effects such as head aches and nausea. Telling these side effects to customers may decrease consumer interest in the product, but it is less harmful to the comapny than lying. By lying to a consumer about the side effects, the company would have many law suits from sick consumers because the dangers of the product were hidden from them. These lawsuits could cost millions of dollars, enough for the company to go bankrupt. In the case of Prozac, it is clear that telling the truth about the side effects is less harmful to the company then lying because losing a few potential customers is better than going bankrupt.

It can be hard to determine if lying is less harmful than telling the truth. However, there is a key to this predicament found by analyzing which situtation would put the business closest to bankruptcy. If the truth can cause a company to go bankrupt, then lying is less harmful than the truth. In the case of the National Enquirer, lying just creates no consequence business while telling the truth will put the company out of business. However, if the telling a lie can cause the company to go bankrupt, then the truth is less harmful than the lie. In the case of the Prozac company, a lie can cause the company to go bankrupt, while the truth would only lose the comapny a few customers. Hence, the lies told are only less harmful than the truth when it brings the company further from bankruptcy.

The familiar figure of speech, "the truth hurts", portrays the harm associated with truth telling. On a daily basis, individuals are faced with many opportunities to lie or to tell the truth. Although many people believe that it is morally wrong to lie, there is also support for the fact that lies are often less harmful than the truth. On a small scale, people lie regularly in an attempt to protect others from the truths that are commonly thought of as hurtful or harmful. Lying to someone about their weight is done because it is clear that an overweight individual would react poorly to being called fat. In these cases, the lie is used in an attempt to protect one from their own view of themselves. On a larger scale, lies are used to protect the public from harmful situations such as mass panic, pandimonium, or national security. The case that occured in a small town in Lincoln, Nebraska recently where the existence of a serial murderer was denied by the local police force so as to avoid panic, is an example of when lying is less harmful. The police force ended up catching the suspect unhindered, avoiding panic that could have caused more serious problems.

Similar to the views of Immanuel Kant who believes that, " to lie is to take away from humanity as a whole as well as yourself", it is believed that truth telling is less harmful than lying. An individual not only has daily decisions as to whether to lie or tell the truth, individuals also have decisions to make that are based on information gathered from those around them. This shows the importance of truth telling because decisions are made on what an individual believes to be true. Telling the truth will allow for a more informed decision, one that has the potential for drastic consequences. It is less harmful to society for a politician to tell the truth when trying to get voted into office than to lie. If the politician was lying then the decisions of the voters, would be swayed leading to harmful societal problems that arise when the politicians lies are discovered.

The underlying determination for when lying is less harmful than telling the truth stems from whether or not the lie is used to protect individuals from harm. In the case of the citizens of Lincoln, Nebraska who were lied to, it was less harmful because it was for protective purposes. However, in the a politician influencing a voting public, it is less harmful to tell the truth than lie.

Feedback: 4/6
- Define acronyms used (ex. BP)
- You need to link up your example (a lie told to decrease the panic level) directly back to the prompt i.e. some kind of statement that this particular lie caused less harm then the truth. In the case of the BP oil spill, did covering up the amount of damage really do less harm? You need to make a clear case for this.
- Your example in the 2nd paragraph is one for when the TRUTH MIGHT have been less harmful. Instead, choose examples which are positive (directly supportive) i.e. where the TRUTH WAS less harmful.
- Excellent resolution.

Feedback: 3/6
- It is unclear what you mean by 'alarms set off' during your opening paragraph.
- You jump right into resolving the prompt ('Lies are a better option when the truth could prove detrimental to an innocent individual’s well being or way of life.') before you define what the prompt means (harm etc).
- "Homosexuals are often the target of hate crimes or discrimination, because of this a gay individual may choose to express their homosexuality to others." This sentence doesn't make sense. Did you mean may choose NOT to express their sexuality?
- You need to more clearly develop your first example...focus on how a homosexual may have to lie in order to avoid harm, and define this harm as persecution/discrimination etc. Also, remember to define acronyms used (ex. US).
- Your example of homosexuality is not in the same them as government lies, unless you can spin it that way. This means that they are not directly comparable...and your resolutions will suffer in general.
- Resolution is decent, given the lack of corollary between examples. You need to transition better from the 2nd paragraph into your resolution.

Feedback: 3/6
- You are missing a transition from your great opening comments and 'Lying is a very common...'
- You jump into resolving the prompt in your introduction, when you should really be supporting the prompt by examples & definitions.
- Develop your first example to a greater extent i.e. how this causes less harm.
- Minor spelling errors present.
- Your 2nd example starts out well, but gets muddled when you say that infidelity is a tragedy in and of itself (without it being a lie) when in fact you've taken the approach that infidelity IS a lie. Also, you should develop the example fully in how it causes LESS harm.
- 'In perspective'...sentence is awkward.
- Your resolution is weakly stated, and not fully developed in the context of your examples.

Feedback: 4/6
- Excellent opening quotation.
- Well-supported and highly pertinent first example.
- Minor word omissions
- You should define all acronyms that you use (ex. BP)
- Your BP example is confused with the Maple Leaf example. Remember: focus in on a SINGLE example for supporting & refuting the prompt. Also, a stronger example than the truth PERHAPS being less harmful is one where the truth WAS less harmful i.e. a clear-cut vs. hypothetical example (so I would have used the Maple Leaf example and chucked the BP example).
- Excellent resolution.

Feedback: 4/6
- Nice first example; well-developed.
- Nice transition from medical to commercial world in your 2nd paragraph. However, it is best to stick within the same theme for your examples (so I would have used another medical example such as HIV status disclosure or reporting of STDs instead).
- Your resolution is adequate;
- Various spelling & punctuation errors (ex. missing commas).