The contest between honesty and dishonesty: who prevails? -By Edikan Ekanem.

Edikan Ekanem

The recent developments in the country and the alarming rate of dishonesty may move some persons to conclude that honesty is outdated and eradicated in our contemporary society. Some on the other hand have posited that honesty exist while we do not have honest people again in our contemporary society and the world at large. Well these above presumptions are rebuttable for the contrary may prove otherwise.

In resolving this conundrum, we have to examine the factors that may have moved the above schools of thought to make those assertions and possibly their conclusions. Looking around the country, in ascertaining the veracity of their presumptions, we will also see instances of dishonesty and the extent it has gotten to, and the negative effect it is having presently on the affairs of the country, one may be poised to conclude that honesty is a myth.

On the other hand, people in the society are looking for honest hearted people to cling to which will help them achieve their set goals in connection with the purpose of the goal. When these individuals found out people that help in their daily lives, they have no other option than accepting that honesty is still in existence.

The cacophony between these two schools of thought is so amorphous in shape for the nexus of the subject matter depends on the extent they are able to present and convince their audience. But without mincing words, this work will seek to expound on the definition of honesty, contrasting it with dishonesty, the effects of dishonesty will also be outlined, also trying to discuss the possible recommendations that may help us curb this menace.

By definition, according to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s dictionary, 8th edition, it defines honesty as the act, quality or condition of being honest or being truthful.
From the foregoing, it is obvious that truthfulness is the main point, meaning that in all our dealings, truth must be an integral part.

Putting it differently, it means the quality or fact of being honest; uprightness and fairness or truthfulness, sincerity, or frankness. The key ingredients of this subject matter have been outlined.

According to Wikipedia, Honesty refers to a facet of moral character and connotes positive and virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, straightforwardness, including straightforwardness of conduct, along with the absence of lying, cheating, theft, etc. Furthermore, honesty means being trustworthy, loyal, fair, and sincere. In justifying the above presumptions or otherwise, does it mean that we do not have any iota of the above outlined ingredients of honesty?

In contrast to honesty, what does dishonesty mean? It should be noted that, in this context, dishonesty can be also rendered as cheating, deceit or corruption. Dishonesty according to Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary means lack of honesty: the quality of being untruthful or deceitful.

Furthermore, Dishonesty is to act without honesty. It is used to describe a lack of probity, cheating, lying or being deliberately deceptive or a lack in integrity, knavishness, perfidiosity, corruption or treacherousness. Dishonesty is the fundamental component of a majority of offences relating to the acquisition, conversion and disposal of property (tangible or intangible) defined in criminal law such as fraud.

Under the English law, Dishonesty has had a number of definitions. For many years, there were two views in English law. The first contention was that the definitions of dishonesty (such as those within the Theft Act 1968) described a course of action, whereas the second contention was that the definition described a state of mind.

A clear test within the criminal law emerged from R v Ghosh (1982) 75 CR App. R. 154. The Court of Appeal held that dishonesty is an element of mens rea, clearly referring to a state of mind, and that overall, the test that must be applied is hybrid, but with a subjective bias which “looks into the mind” of the person concerned and establishes what he was thinking.

Where dishonesty is an issue in civil cases, the trend in English Law is for only the actions to be tested objectively and not to apply any test as to the subjective state of mind of the actor.

Interviews from and around the world abound in respect to dishonesty which make some people ask for the reason of this miasma.

Dishonesty Everywhere!

Danny works for a large trading company in Hong Kong. While visiting the factory of a potential supplier, he expressed concern about whether the factory could meet the standards needed to produce his company’s products. Later, at dinner, the factory manager gave Danny an envelope. Inside, Danny found a bribe amounting to tens of thousands of dollars in cash—the equivalent of his annual salary.

Danny’s experience is far from unique. Around the world, the scope and pervasiveness of dishonesty is staggering. For example, court documents show that between 2001 and 2007, a large German industrial firm paid 1.4 billion dollars in bribes to obtain contracts.

Although recent high-profile corporate scandals have led to some reforms, the overall situation appears to be worsening. A 2010 study by Transparency International found that worldwide, “levels of corruption have increased in the past three years.”

Why is there so much dishonesty? Is it practical to be honest? If so, how is it possible? Is that out-of-date in the modern world, abandoned as no longer practical or of any real value? It would seem so. Just consider a few examples of how widespread dishonesty is, the forms it takes, the levels to which it has penetrated, and how costly a burden it has become.

In recent years, West Germany’s tax-fraud cost has been estimated at $10 billion (U.S.) a year, and in Sweden the annual cost amounts to $720 (U.S.) per person. So if you live in either land, dishonesty affects what you pay in taxes. Cheating on income-tax payments is so prevalent in the United States that the government loses an estimated $100 billion in revenue annually.

Think what a help all that money could be in paying off the staggering federal budget deficit! Moreover, illegal businesses cheat the U.S. government out of another $10 billion. Shoplifting and pilfering in the United States cost stores $4 billion a year, raising the prices on goods. Dishonestly charging long-distance phone calls to someone else are number is costing Americans $1 million annually.

In Canada “time bandits,” those who waste time on the job, cost their employers $15 billion (Canadian) a year, “more than three times the total lost through sticky-fingered employees, embezzlement, insurance fraud, vandalism, kickbacks, arson and other actual crimes against business.” According to a 1986 study, the burden for time theft in the United States is $170 billion annually.

Successful multimillion-dollar firms greedily steal from their own governments. How? By selling those tools and parts at exorbitant prices: 12-cent Allen wrenches for $9,606 (U.S.); 67-cent transistors for $814; 17-cent plastic caps for stool legs for $1,118. “You’re talking about billions of dollars” of loss to the government, a U.S. senator said.
Added to the above, bad examples on every hand by prominent persons discourage honesty. As you may have noted, leaders in some lands lie, misrepresent, cover up, and evade their responsibility—yes, even murder political rivals and make it appear that someone else is to blame. -Resource materials for the above analysis are Awake and Business Day newspaper.

In Nigeria of today, day in day out, we have heard how governmental bodies set up to address issues of dishonesty are arresting and prosecuting defaulters of the set laws. Issues like this make some people wonder whether an honest man is still in existence on the planet earth. Now that government official is guilty of felonies and misdemeanors, who will then prosecute the default subject of the government?

Some acts dishonesty under Nigerian laws has been declared as offence that calls for punishment. Some of those acts includes, stealing, embezzlement, extortion, misappropriation, abuse of office, libel and slander, fraudulent misrepresentation, etc.

Below are some Nigerian enactments that frown at dishonesty, they are as follows:

1. Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) Act 2004
2. Independent Corrupt Practices & Other Related Offences Act 2000
3. Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act 2006
4. Money Laundering (Prohibition) (Amendment) Act 2012
5. Miscellaneous Offences Act
6. Code of Conduct Act
7. Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Act
8. Freedom of Information Act 2011
9. Fiscal Responsibilities Act 2010
10. Penal Code Laws of Federation of Nigeria 2004
11. Criminal Code Law of Federation of Nigeria 2004
12. Banks and Other Financial Institutions (Amendment) Act 1991
13. Failed Banks (Recovery of Debts) and Financial Malpractices in Banks (Amendment) Act
1994.

Dishearteningly, the money that is lost as a result of dishonesty is uncalculated and in fact tingle our ears. When will this tragedy end? How can our various states and our State (country) move forward when we are nurturing these selfish tendencies?  The amount of money that is going unknown to government would have been enough to invest reasonable projects and complete them in the State, but here we are today with our pathetic state of locomotion when it comes to economic development.
We should always have this sentiment in mind: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. – Martin Luther King Jr.

Presently in the country and the world at large, if followed closely, we will see that the story of persecutions, arrest and sentencing of defaulter in respect to dishonesty are top government officials, lawmakers and stake holders who are also occupying famous positions in their different religious organizations. The laws are formulated by them; they are also the one bridging the laws, what an irony of administration!

Morally and scripturally, is it good? Does equity, fairness and good conscience support dishonesty? Legally, is it just? What examples are we keeping for our wards? What spiritual and legal yardstick of honesty are we keeping for our youths? Where are our consciences? Must we be policed all the time before we can dispense our obligations as Nigerian citizens and public office holders? Why do we always press our consciences and do what we know that is bad? This is the greatest act of hypocrisy. On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question, is it right? There comes a time when one must take the position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.

This act of dishonesty and hypocrisy brings into mind the words of a well-known political leader, an ecclesiastical man, a man of integrity and dignity when he said: One of the great tragedies of life is that men seldom bridge the gulf between practice and profession, between doing and saying. A persistent schizophrenia leaves so many of us tragically divided against ourselves. On the one hand, we proudly profess certain sublime and noble principles, but on the other hand, we sadly practice the very antithesis of these principles. How often are our lives characterized by a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds! We talk eloquently about our commitment to the principles of Christianity, and yet our lives are saturated with the practices of paganism. We proclaim our devotion to democracy, but we sadly practice the very opposite of the democratic creed. We talk passionately about peace, and at the same time we assiduously prepare for war. We make our fervent pleas for the high road of justice, and then we tread unflinchingly the low road of injustice. This strange dichotomy, this agonizing gulf between ought and is, represents the tragic theme of man’s earthly pilgrimage. – Martin Luther King Jr.

But does it mean that dishonesty is solely on pecuniary and proprietary interest? Not really. Though is mostly prominent in aspect if money, we will as well examine other ways that we knowingly or unknowingly fall into this snare. Below is another way always fall into this trap of dishonesty.

Academic dishonesty

Many of us so fall into this trap time without number. But does it mean that it widely practiced, it has become generally accepted? The truth is far from that.  Let’s see forms of academic dishonesty.

Forms of Academic Dishonesty

Plagiarism is the INTENTIONAL OR UNINTENTIONAL presenting of another’s WORDS OR IDEAS without clear and proper acknowledgement.
Plagiarism may include but is not limited to: Using the exact words, even short phrases, from a source without quotation marks and/or without proper citation
Using the sentence structure of an author without proper citation
Paraphrasing ideas or words obtained from a source without proper citation Summarizing ideas obtained from a source without proper citation

Attributing material to a source other than the source from which the material was obtained (faking citations)
Submitting work prepared by someone else, including work obtained from internet essay sites or other students
Helping other students to plagiarize on an essay or during a test by allowing them to copy or transmitting answers to them in other ways
Using an assignment for more than one class without the express permission of both instructors
Citing a source in the text of a paper but not providing full documentation of the source in a bibliography or works cited page, OR documenting sources on a works cited page or bibliography but not providing source citation in the text of the paper. Writing a group paper which each student turns in as his or her own work

English Department statement concerning plagiarism in creative writing courses:

In rare cases in upper-level creative writing courses, students may incorporate the techniques of meta-fiction or postmodernism and, therefore, vary their methods of documenting sources.  Yet even in those circumstances, students must be careful not to quote either directly or indirectly extensively without providing documentation customary to the genre unless the material is so familiar that it has become part of the public domain.
Work that is free from plagiarism clearly distinguishes between the writer’s thoughts and/or words and those of outside sources.

Cheating:  using unauthorized notes, study aids, technology, or other devices during an examination or quiz; looking at another student’s work during the examination or quiz when collaboration is not allowed; trying to communicate with others in order to get help during an examination or quiz; preparing a written answer to an exam question prior to the examination period and submitting as an in-class essay; bringing an entire essay to an exam period when only an outline is allowed and pretending that the essay was written in class.

Fabrication and Falsification:  purposely altering information or inventing information, citation, or data.
Some examples may include:
1.   A student changes a graded work and then challenges the instructor’s evaluation.
2.   A student invents a reference source or provides a false claim of how the information was gathered or collected; false citation of a source of information (e.g. listing an author, title, or page number as the source for the obtained information, but the material actually came from another source).  (see also plagiarism)
3.  A student forges signatures or falsifies information on forms, such as drop/add forms, incomplete forms, petitions, letters of excuse or permission, grade reports, or any other official University document.

Multiple Submissions:  submitting the same work or substantial portions of the same work in a course for credit more than once without the permission of the instructor; submitting the same work in more than one course without the permission of both instructors.  (See also plagiarism)

Complicity:  knowingly allowing another student to copy one’s work during an examination or knowingly allowing another student to copy one’s essay, research project, or other assignments; failing to adequately protect test answers, notes, essays, or other projects or assignments.

Abuse of Academic Materials:   purposely destroying, stealing, or making materials inaccessible for others; removing materials from the library without formally checking them out; refusing to return reserved materials.

Unauthorized Possession: buying or stealing exams; selling exams; failing to return exams to the instructor; photocopying exams; any unauthorized possession of exams.

Misrepresenting:  taking an exam or quiz or completing any academic assignment for another person; having someone do the same for him/her.
Having said so, let’s examine ourselves. Do we fall into this snare? Where do we need to change? These are questions we should be mediating.

What Does It Mean to Be Honest in word and deed?

Since honesty is more if morality to law and humanity, it will be sensible to draw some allusions from the Bible and consider some scriptural principles that will help us bring out the thrust of this lesson.
To be honest means to be truthful and free of fraud. Honesty requires you to be fair in dealing with others—straightforward, honorable, not deceptive or misleading. An honest person is a man of integrity. Being always trustworthy, he will never cheat his fellowman. All of us would like to be treated that way, would we not? So can honesty ever become out-of-date? Honesty affects many aspects of our lives, That includes in speech, at work, in family matters, in business dealings, and in responding to whatever legal requirements governments impose on us.—.

In What We Say
There are many ways—though often viewed as innocent and acceptable—in which people do not speak truth. They falsify reports on hours of work, get children to tell untruths to callers, give inaccurate statements to insurance agents, and lie about being sick to get off from work, to mention a few.
Sometimes what we have to say to another has to be put in writing. For some reason, individuals who would never lie orally feel that it is a different matter when reporting income for taxes or writing an itemized declaration for customs agents at an international border. This cheating costs all taxpayers. Is that real love of neighbor? Besides, do not Christians have an obligation to “pay back Caesar’s things to Caesar”? We need to think twice on these matters.
In what we speak, we certainly want to imitate “the God of truth,” not “the father of the lie.”  Unscrupulous men may resort to doubletalk to misrepresent and deceive. But lying to our neighbor does not love him. Besides, liars have no real future.

On our Job
Doing an honest day’s work for wages received is a reasonable and Scriptural requirement. (Colossians 3:22-24) Yet, there are many thousands of time thieves who waste company time on extended breaks, come to work late and leave early, spend much time grooming themselves after arriving at work, use the company phone for long unauthorized personal calls, operate their own businesses on company time, and even take naps. Their stealing escalates costs for everybody.
Other forms of theft on the job include taking supplies and equipment for personal use. Some claim that this is nothing more than making up for inadequate salaries, as if they are evening up things with a stingy employer! But if taking things is without the knowledge and permission of the owner or employer, it is really a form of stealing.
Yet, what if your employer asks you to perform a dishonest or an illegal act and threatens to dismiss you if you do not comply? Some examples: Charge a customer for replacement of auto parts that were never put on the vehicle; place less expensive, inferior merchandise in boxes so customers can be charged higher rates; write new, “marked down” prices on goods, when the original prices were the same or lower. Many employees would view this as the employer’s responsibility, not the worker’s. This is really food for thought and conscience.

“While working as a produce manager in a grocery store, I was approached by management and asked to increase the profit margin without raising any of the prices. Suggestions to accomplish this were: Exaggerate the weight of certain products, and submit ‘dummy’ credit notes to a supplier. Common practices but dishonest.”On the other hand, you might get a job because you are honest.
In family life, honesty is called for in many matters: The head of the house ought to be truthful with his wife about his income and financial matters; the wife should be honest with him about how she spends family funds; both need to be persons of integrity, including limiting their sex interests to each other; the children do well to be truthful and obedient as respects their associations and forms of entertainment, consistent with their parents’ stated wishes.—Ephesians 5:33; 6:1-3.
From all that has been said, it ought to be clear that a genuine Christian must “renounce unrighteousness”—the wicked works and bad fruitage that accompany dishonesty, lying, deceiving, cheating, and moral corruption.

Rewards and Benefits of honesty
Fairness and straightforwardness, truthful dealings with others, promote honesty. A climate of trust and confidence thus develops, leading to healthy attitudes and relationships. Honesty also provides an atmosphere for confident living, free of time- and energy-consuming defensiveness bred by suspicions, doubts, and fears about others.—
Honesty contributes to our having a clean conscience, which is essential if we are acceptably to “render sacred service to the living God.” -Hebrews 9:14;
It gives peace of mind, leading to a good night’s sleep. You can face others without embarrassment. Being honest eliminates the gnawing fear of being caught in wrongdoing. In this way we maintain human dignity and self-respect. How could that ever be out-of-date or impractical?
Thus, there are many present rewards and benefits that will flow to us and others if we are honest persons. Yet, more than anything else, we should want to be honest not just because it is the best policy or because we are commanded to be honest but because we love our Father Jehovah. We want to maintain our precious relationship with him and have his approval. We also want to be honest because we thereby express love of neighbor. So, simply put, being a true Christian means being honest.

The psalmist says: “O Jehovah, who will be a guest in your tent? Who will reside in your holy mountain? He who is walking faultlessly and practicing righteousness and speaking the truth in his heart. . . . To his companion he has done nothing bad.” (Psalm 15:1-3) If we lead honest lives as worshipers of Jehovah, then when he justly ends the present unrighteous system and when “the tent of God is with mankind,” we will be among those who enjoy eternal blessings as his “guest.” Then we will never be out-of-date!—

Conclusively, Never, never be afraid to do what’s right,( including our honesty) especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way. – Martin Luther King Jr.

Edikan Ekanem is a student of University of Uyo and a columnist. He can be reached at: 08130015006, eddy4jah@gmail.com