Stephen L Carter's The Insufficiency Of Honesty

Traditionally, it is agreed that any and every form of telling the truth is always the best thing to do. In the essays of Stephen L Carter and Stephanie Ericsson, this ideal is not exactly true. It is expressed in "The Insufficiency of Honesty" as well as "The Ways We Lie" that honesty is hard to come by and that there is more to it than believed. The authors convey their views by first defining what the concept is, picking it apart, and then use common occurrences for examples of the points they had made.

In Stephen L Carter's "The Insufficiency of Honesty", he attempts to dissect exactly what it means to be honest and to have integrity in the worlds view. We soon realize as a reader that it takes a greater deal of effort to participate in

being a truthful human being. Carter decides to start with the basics. This is done by focusing on the foundation of what honesty is and what it is connected with. He mentions that " the first point to understand about the difference between integrity and honesty is that a person may be entirely honest without ever engaging in the hard work of discernment that integrity requires; (Carter 105). This statement sparks the thought process of the audience as it considers the possibility of this situation. Carter goes into the different ways to be honest without it having a sense of integrity. He acknowledges the problems that are associated with being plainly honest. We run into issues with the delicacy of others, moral contradictions, and other issues that cause honesty to be more harm than good in his examples. At the end of his claims, the belief that there is more to being a decent human being than just being honest. It is apparent that it is an insufficient replacement in many circumstances that arise.

Stephanie Ericsson starts off with an anecdote depicting personal experiences in where she lied for what she determined what would be for the greater good. She confesses "[s]ure I lie, but it doesn't hurt anything. Or does it?" (Ericsson 175). This question provokes the audience to recall all the times that they have dismissed the insignificance of a lie. She goes into defining what a lie is and different variations that we are all guilty of participating get in. While providing examples for the different categories of the lies she is defining, Ericsson pulls in a moral effect. This may cause her audience to justify the lie being used as it manipulates the person being lied to. At the end of her essay, it becomes more evident why we lie and how it may be inconvenient to be honest in certain situations.

Both Carter and Ericsson have similar ways of representing their arguments of how people associate themselves. They agree that honesty is hard and that it requires a sententious amount of consideration that is not given by others. They are very successful in regards to appealing to the the logical and emotional side of the audience. By using example that include some sort of moral questioning, they go deeper into the subject they are discussing than what has been previously meditated by the reader. These essays capture the attention of an audience as it first narrates a personal situation to introduce the subject. As they continue, they defines imply form of their material. This causes the reader to become comfortable before both authors go in to discuss the elaborate concepts entwined in their findings. When concluding their discussions, they both Carter and Ericsson leave the matters open for viewers to ponder these subjects more.

The works of Stephen L Carter and Stephanie Ericsson are successful in using relatable incidents for their individual topics to appeal to the audience. By invoking the necessity of contemplating the importance and almost inaccessible ability to be honest and yet have integrity as well as avoiding as much trouble as possible