As noted in this Pit thread, I was probably screwed out of a job because I was entirely too honest. I don’t really think I’m stupid; I actually considered lying on the attitude assessment. But a well-inculcated moral twinge threw me over the fence to the “honest” side. And my non-conforming views on the “drugs are eeeeevillll” situation may be a deciding factor in my not getting that call-back.
So the question I want to ask is, why is it that the almost universally agreed-upon (at least publicly) child-raising strategy involves indoctrinating your children with moral teachings that are almost certain to make them unfit for any type of financial or career success (unless they become clergy)?
Honesty, loyalty, and, for lack of a better word, “niceness”, are all considered positive traits to teach a child. And yet those are the traits that make it impossible to “play the game” if one truly internalizes them. I understand a desire to bring your child up to help make the world a better place precisely by internalizing these traits, but basically, until everyone does so, all parents are doing is sending poor little lambs into the hills where the big bad wolves roam.
I think are always potentially consequences to being honest. If I report unearned income that the IRS may never find out about, my honesty will cost me. But there are consequences to not being honest as well. If the IRS were to find out, I could be in trouble. I still think honesty is the best policy. It is really a shame though that you are forced into a situation where just answering a question honestly could cause a potential loss of employment, even if you haven’t done anything wrong. Perhaps refusing to answer the question would be better. Then, when confronted, you can at least explain your answer. I know of many times in my life where being honest in a situation that I didn’t have to, earned me respect.
I think that the idea that one can’t be both honest and successful is a scary thought. Sure, I can teach a kid to lie and cheat their way to the top but that advice might also land them in jail. I would rather they will able to sleep at night with the decisions they have made.
Jim and I have had long discussions about this subject; we are both “honest, loyal, and nice”, and we have both seriously considered trying to be less honest, loyal, and nice, because we seem to have no defense against people who aren’t in the world we live in. The advantage in most situations seems to go to the people who have no consideration of others, and are not affected by the consequences of their actions. We decided that we can’t denounce the way we were raised, because the people who are clueless and thoughtless are that way because they don’t know any better, and we do know better, so to stoop to their level would be a conscious decision for us.
To respond to the OP, I think people ARE teaching their children to be immoral. People pay lip-service to telling their children to be nice and moral, but the children learn more from what the parents do than what they say, and the parents display their own immorality a hundred times a day in little things, by doing whatever they can get away with. Some examples of this would be parking in a handicapped space because you’re just running in for a moment, or breaking traffic laws because the police aren’t around at the moment , or eating from the bulk food bins without paying for it. All small things, but they add up to teaching a child that it is okay to do whatever you can get away with.
Oh my goodness. Honesty might have cost someone a job? (Might have.) Um, not be too nosy, but just what sort of honesty was in question here, and which version of morals? The implications are pretty clear, but rushing into things won’t do at all.
The whole idea of morality is a pretty complex realm, I think, so care is always recommended.
jayjay I haven’t read the thread in question, but I’ll try to generalize, as an oldguy.
We teach our kids morals because it lifts them above the scum who may be more successful in life than they(assuming you measure success in dollars, etc.)
It means that, when they get a bit older and wiser, they will understand how much more one’s morals are worth than one’s pocketbook. It may not seem so now, but it will.
You only get one ride through life, IMHO. When you get to be 50-60-70 or older, you start to have flashbacks, and remember things that begin, “Jeez, why didn’t I…”
I disagree that traits such as honesty, loyalty, and courtesy makes one unfit for financial or career success. Of course those traits alone don’t automatically equal success either.
**
Being a nice person doesn’t mean being a wimp and letting everyone walk all over you. Being blindly loyal is stupid but being loyal to those who deserve it isn’t a negative trait. Being honest is generally a good trait. I don’t know of anyone who likes working with a liar and certainly your employees won’t respect you if you lie.
Marc
I understand a desire to bring your child up to help make the world a better place precisely by internalizing these traits, but basically, until everyone does so, all parents are doing is sending poor little lambs into the hills where the big bad wolves roam.
I don’t have a problem with lying on these tests for a couple of reasons
1 . Such an obvious test isn’t going to tell the company what they want to know. My opinion about whether smoking marijuana on the weekend is harmful has nothing to do with whether or not I smoke it or whether I’m a great risk for stealing.And someone who thinks it’s just fine to sexually harass another employee isn’t going to admit it on a test.
2 It’s none of my employer’s business what I think. It may in some cases be their business what I do or even say, even when I’m not at work, but never what I think.
I don’t really know that I even think it’s dishonest to give someone the answer they’re looking for to a question they have no right to ask.
Doreen
As a pragmatic Machiavellian, here’s my perspective:
A responsible parent must teach a child the difference between right and wrong. Children must be taught that having a moral code and sticking to it is more valuable than giving licence to whatever whim moves them. But, and this is the really hard part, you have to teach the child that not everyone out there behaves correctly and prepare them for that horrible reality. As William Goldman put it, “Life is not fair, it never has been, and it never will be.”
Finally, if they really truly understand all that, you can arm them with the knowledge that sometimes, in very rare circumstances, the wrong thing is the best option and let them use their best judgement in choosing their path.
I believe children must learn that the ideal choice is always the moral one, but that our world is not an ideal one. I also believe that everyone (except true sociopaths) knows the difference between right and wrong. The people I respect are the ones who choose to do what’s right.
FWIW, I think you did the right thing. I have never, ever lied to a potential employer about anything. Though, I must admit, they usually don’t ask any gritty questions, either.
I’ve only taken one of these kinds of tests once. Your “score” was analogous to a traffic signal. I scored a yellow. :rolleyes:
Also, though I’ve only officially taken one, I have seen several, and they are often very long and deliberately try to catch people in subtle lies.
At any rate, I say fuck 'em. Apart from giant squids and Nazis knocking at the door, I can’t think of a good reason to lie about anything. Life is confusing enough already.
It is indeed annoying when authorities expect to discover unsuitable people by asking over-simplified questions. (Didn’t the US Customs once ask if tourists intended to overthrow the Government?).
But don’t let it stop you being an honest person in life. I agree with the poster who said job interviews are like a game. I turn up early in a suit. I only have one suit :eek: , and I only wear it to weddings, funerals and job interviews.
Here are some random incidents to show you you’re not alone…
We once had a training day at work on the subject of drugs. The lecturer asked who thought marijuana wasn’t addictive. I put my hand up. He said I was wrong. I said (politely) he was wrong, since e.g. tobacco is addictive and marijuana isn’t. He then said marijuana is ‘mentally’ addictive. (Just like chocolate, huh? )
Later he asked us to name drugs. I came up with PCP (I read crime novels). By now I might have been labelled a ‘druggie’. Fortunately I don’t smoke, drink or even drink tea / coffee. My later suggestion that alcohol and tobacco were dangerous drugs and should be banned at work was not terribly well received.
In another job interview (for an office job), I was asked if I planned to get married. It was also suggested I should sign a contract to buy a house in the area within 6 weeks ‘to prove I was serious’.
My mother is standing here listening to me tell her about this thread, and she agrees. She was raised with a strong sense of right and wrong, as well as a strong work ethic, and she passed these values on to me.
Both of us have found that in this post baby boom era, being an honest person and a hard worker is a handicap. We’ve both had real-life experience in this area. She has primarily worked in offce jobs, I in casinos. She has found that her lazy, dishonest cow orkers will make false complaints, etc., her bosses reprimand her for having the audacity to actually want to do the job right.
I just repeatedly get fired. In a work environment where being rude to customers and uncooperative, if not downright abusive, to coworkers are considered acceptable forms of behavior, I just don’t fit in.
The last job I was fired from, I had the audacity to stand behind an unpopular (translated professional) supervisor who was the victim of a conspiracy by some of the other suits to get him fired based on false accusations. He was suspended, but since the accusations were proved false, he kept his job ( I hear he has since been fired) I, being an entry-level, probationary employee, was let go. I was out of work for two months before finding my current job, and even while walking the streets of Las Vegas in search of gainful employment, I knew in my heart that I had donle the right thing, and I would do it again, even knowing that it would cost me my job.
As far as these morality/ethics tests are concerned, I think I would go ahead and answer truthfully. I figure, if being an honest person is going to cost me a job with a given company, that’s proably not the kind of outfit I want to be working for anyway.
So morals are only good if they get you ahead? That’s not what I was taught. In fact, the entire point of a moral code is that your personal interest and material gains are not the first priority.
And to say having no morals gets you ahead is just plain false. Maybe a lack of morals will get you ahead once but over time it won’t.
I work with kids and though the parents I work for now are wealthy and all about “their success”, I can’t help but strive to teach these kids about the real world, and that not all success brings happiness. I couldn’t imagine telling these kids that life is all about “making it to the top” or making the most money you can and doing whatever you have to do to get there, though that is what they are watching their parents strive for.
I feel it’s my responsibility to be a role model for them in what will teach them to become kind, loving and honest people. Whatever they choose to do in their future lives is of course their choice, but I can sleep well at night knowing I’m doing the best I can to guide them into a life of good moral character and principle.
I agree with that first statement entirely. I don’t believe that the ancillary benefits or detriments of doing the “morally right thing” (whatever you conclude that to be) factor into morality at all (though utilitarian ethicists would disagree). And that’s exactly why doing the “right thing” is so difficult: sometimes it will completely fly in the face of what you would like to happen, but it’s no less the right thing to do because of that.
While you’re absolutely right in that having no moral compunctions does not necessarily “get you ahead,” what it does do—and what makes immorality in some situations so enticing—is give you more options. People who would not hesitate to do “immoral” things are freer than those who would. Restriction is one aspect of the nature of morality. (Not that that’s bad, but it’s a necessary effect.)
So when you instill your children with morality (presuming for the sake of argument that you’ve settled the other objections against doing so), you are not necessarily guaranteeing them a trip down the road to failure, but—presuming they adhere to the morality they’re raised with—you are presenting them with less roads they could choose to take.
So, to address the OP:
First, to distinguish between two separate questions: 1) Why is it this way (presuming it is), and 2) why should it be?
Why is it the way it is? Could be lots of reasons. Some that I can think of:
–It’s the way the parents were raised, and it either A) works for them, or B) is something they’ve never seriously considered not passing on to their children.
–As you mentioned in your question, jayjay, because they seriously (or at least unquestioningly) believe that it will make the world a better place.
–Following that idea, they might respond to the objection that “unless everybody does it, it won’t work,” by saying, “true, but if anyone’s going to do it, it has to start somewhere.” They may decide to lead by example.
–They may do so because they want their children (not to mention themselves) to be people that they can be proud of. As samclem pointed out, there are other considerations besides the accumulation of wealth and power (or even happiness) that are important in life. Like he said, you only get one ride.
–They may do so for practical reasons as well. While it’s true that there are many people who get ahead through “immorality,” there are lots that don’t, too. The parents may have seen the way these people turned out and figured, “you know, I don’t want my kid to turn out like that. I’ll teach her/him to avoid the things that lead people to this.”*
Why should it be the way it is? Or, alternatively, how should it be and why? That really depends on how you judge morality; it’s going to be a lot different depending on the moral theory(ies) you hold. But someday if I have children, I would imagine my choices and reasons for raising them “morally” would be:
–Partly contingent on my wife’s sense of morality. If I’m not the only parent, but am willfully sharing in my children’s development, then I should be raising them in a way that it consistent with the beliefs that we hold.
–Based on a respect for rights. Other things notwithstanding (for example, whether or not it’s moral to have sex before marriage, do drugs, etc.), I would want my children to respect the rights of others. I might debatably not have a right to tell my children they can’t have consensual sex before they’re married, but I would have a right to forbid them from stealing (and to punish them for doing so). I would consider it one of my responsibilities as a parent to instill the respect for personal rights in my children. (In answer to the question why, I’d say because this sort of morality is fundamental—you should do the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing, with no overriding consideration.)
–In an ancillary respect, based off some of the other reasons already given (like wanting people to be proud of them and wanting them to be people they can be proud of themselves).
The bottom line, though, is more or less in agreement with sailor’s idea: you do the right thing because it’s the right thing. You might focus on the positives that result from doing the right thing in order to make it easier to or more likely that you will actually do it, but when you’re deciding whether or not something is right, what sort of fringe benefits you might get are not morally relevant.
*Just wanted to note that I’m not saying people are necessarily unsuccessful because they’re immoral. I’m not indicating a pure cause-and-effect relationship here. But immoral activity can be a factor, even if it’s not the case that it always is.
I’m not what you’d call a high roller at any of the casinos. But I’ve spent some time in Vegas and at some of the casinos on the Mississippi river. In my time at these places I never experienced or observed dealers, security, cocktail waitresses, or other casino employees being rude to the customers. Granted most of these are your major casinos like the Venetian or Ceasars. But even in the crummiest casino I went to in Mississippi the employees were helpful and friendly towards customers.
Talk about a massive jump. You get rejected for one job, possibly due to your honesty (did they tell you that the reason you didn’t get hired is because of your answer on the drugs question?), and from that you determine that honesty and morality is “almost certain” to make a person unfit “for any type of financial or career success.”?!! WTF?
I’m doing quite well, thank you, and I’ve never come across a situation in the workplace where I’ve even had to consider taking an immoral action. And I’m a lawyer.
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