This slideshow covers the entirety of Dan Ariely's book, "The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves." The companion slide includes an example, interactive, real-time poll.

1. How We Lie to Everyone—Especially
Ourselves.

2.  Israeli-American James B. Duke Professor of
Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke
University.
 Founder of The Center for Advanced Hindsight
 Co-founder of Kayma, BEworks, Timeful, Genie and
Shapa.,
 Chief Behavioral Economist of Qapital; Chief
Behavioral Officer of Lemonade
 Author of Predictably Irrational, The Upside of
Irrationality, Dollars and Sense, Irrationally Yours, etc.

3.  "Direct my steps by Your word, and let no iniquity have
dominion over me.
Redeem me from the oppression of man, that I may
keep Your precepts.
Make Your face shine upon Your servant, and teach me
Your statutes.
Rivers of water run down from my eyes, because men
do not keep Your law.
-Psalm 119: 133-136
God bless."

4.  Colossians 3:9-10 Do not lie to one another, seeing
that you have put off the old self with its practices and
have put on the new self, which is being renewed in
knowledge after the image of its creator.
 Luke 16:10-12 “One who is faithful in a very little is
also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a
very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have
not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will
entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been
faithful in that which is another's, who will give you
that which is your own?

5.  Plus a billion other verses.

6.  Dan Weiss and the JFK Center for Performing Arts
◦ Why?

7.  Dan Weiss and the JFK Center for Performing Arts
◦ Why?
 Simple Model of Rational Crime (SMORC)
 3 Elements
◦ 1. The benefit you stand to gain from the crime/lie/sin
◦ 2. The probability of getting caught.
◦ 3. The expected punishment if caught.
COMPARE & DECIDE!
 How does it hold up in real life?
◦ Israeli Market (blind, not blind, tomatoes)
◦ Taxi (base rate, mileage rate)

8.  Study at MIT on cheating. $10 for 10 minutes of your
time.
◦ Room with desks, sheet of paper with 20 matrices, find in each
matrix 2 numbers that add up to 10.
◦ Same task, but 5 minutes to solve the 20, with $.50 extra per
correct answer. (Based on experiment, time varied.)
◦ Started same, ended differently at time’s up

10.  One version, called “control,” you turn in your paper to
the grader at the front and receive your score and
money.
 In another setup, called “shredder,” grader tells
everyone that when they are finished, they need to
remember how many correct answers they got, shred
the paper at the back of the room, then come up front
with the results.
 Would you cheat? How much?
 What happened?

11.  In the shredder condition, people claimed to have
solved 6 matrices on average. In the control, 4 were
solved on average.
 Result came from lots of people cheating just a tiny bit.

12.  What if we increase the money?
 Many more tests, with $0.25, $0.50, $1, $2, $5, and $10
per correct answer.
 What do you think happened based on the change in $?

13.  Up with up, then down with up.
 Why? Thoughts?
 Like taking a pen to taking a stapler and all the pens.

14.  Shred half worksheet, shred whole, shred whole and
self-pay.
 What happens based on each condition?

15.  Cheating remained the same.

16.  Does fear of standing out matter?
 Test takers told that the average person solves 8 out of
20.
◦ (Remember, average person solves only 4.)
◦ Test repeated.
 What do you think happened then? How many did most
people solve?

17.  Cheating remained the same. Folks reported solving
just 6.
 What does this show?
 That it is not our own fear of standing out that
influences our cheating, but that our sense of our own
morality is connected to the amount of cheating we feel
comfortable with.
 AKA, most people cheat not on what they can get away
with in the view of others, but rather what they can get
away with while still retaining their self-image as being
honest.

18.  Simple Model of Rational Crime (SMORC)
 How does it hold up in real life?
 Israeli Market (blind, not blind, tomatoes)
 Taxi (base rate, mileage rate)

19.  Three Men in A Boat (to Say Nothing of the Dog)
 I knew a young man once, he was a most conscientious
fellow and, when he took to fly-fishing, he determined
never to exaggerate his hauls by more than twenty-five
per cent. “When I have caught forty fish,” said he,
“then I will tell people that I have caught 50, and so on.
But I will not lie any more than that, because it is sinful
to lie.”

20.  Jimmy and the pencil.
 Test the distance factor. Fridge, 6-pack vs 6 bills.
◦ What happened?
 You might print off personal stuff at work, but you
wouldn’t take $2 from petty cash to have it printed.
 THE MATRIX AGAIN! Approach proctor, say “I
finished X matrices, please give me X dollars.” OR
“…X tokens.” Tokens then exchanged for cash later.
 Token condition had a 200% increase in cheating.

21.  Jimmy and the pencil.
 Test the distance factor. Fridge, 6-pack vs 6 bills.
◦ What happened?
 You might print off personal stuff at work, but you
wouldn’t take $2 from petty cash to have it printed.
 THE MATRIX AGAIN! Approach proctor, say “I
finished X matrices, please give me X dollars.” OR
“…X tokens.” Tokens then exchanged for cash later.
 Token condition had a 200% increase in cheating.

22.  When we understand how our dishonesty increases, we
can better avoid it.

23.  450 participants.
 ½ were told to recall the 10 Commandments, then tempted
to cheat with the matrices.
 Other ½ were told to recall 10 books they’d read, and then
tempted to cheat with the matrices.
 What was the difference?
 0 vs widespread.
 Joshua 1:8 “This book of the law shall not depart out of
your mouth; but you shall meditate therein day and night,
that you may observe to do according to all that is written
therein: for then you shall make your way prosperous, and
then you shall have good success.”

24.  Moral reminders help.
 (BTW about companies.)

25.  Moral reminders help. Can you name some? HUGE in
Jewish society. (Jim’s lesson about being…) Jewish
tzitzit…4 piece, knotted fringe.
 (BTW about companies.)
 The golfer, Bobby Jones, noticed that his ball moved
ever so slightly as he prepared for his shot in the rough.
No one saw, no one would ever have known, but he
called the stroke on himself and went on to lose the
match. When people discovered what he’d done and
reporters began to flock to him, Jones famously asked
them not to write about the event, saying “You might as
well praise me for not robbing banks.”
 Man versus himself.
 (Fudge factor still: moving ball, club 23%, kick 14%,

26.  DENTISTS

27.  Pharma reps
 They pay doctors to give lectures to other doctors about
the drugs.
 Why?

28.  Because of the doctor who is speaking.
 Psychological studies show that we quickly and easily
start believing whatever comes out of our own mouths,
even when the original reason for expressing the
opinion is no longer relevant (in the doctors’ case, that
they were paid to say it). This is cognitive dissonance
at play; doctors reason that if they are telling others
about a drug, it must be good—and so their own beliefs
change to correspond to their speech, and they start
prescribing accordingly.
 Isaiah 44:20 He feeds on washes; a deluded heart has
led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is

29.  Matrix Test. Write essay without x or z. Write essay
without a or n.
◦ Standard vs tons.
 If you wear down willpower, you have a harder time
regulating your desires.
 "But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness and
prayed." (Luke 5:16)
 Speaking of which…

30.  It has been suggested that decreased nature experience may help
to explain the link between urbanization and mental illness.
 "One mechanism [toward increased mental illness] might be the
impact of nature exposure on rumination, a maladaptive pattern
of self-referential thought that is associated with heightened risk
for depression and other mental illnesses. Findings of the effects
of a relatively brief nature experience suggest that feasible
investments in access to natural environments could yield
important benefits for the “mental capital” of cities and nations."
 ^That's from just one scientific study (thanks Stanford
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/28/8567 ) on how being
outdoors helps improve your mental health. Their findings show
that it changes the way the brain functions at a basic level,
changing bloodflow, hormone levels, and altering our
perceptions of life and ourselves. Parts of the brain that normally
light up when we're having negative thoughts stay quiet when
we're in the outdoors. In other words, being outside "benefits
human cognitive function and mood."

32.  Sunglasses. Real Chole, vs knockoff.
 Then matrices.
 30% vs 71% (slick lie)
 Or as Luke 16 notes, it's often true that "One who is
faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one
who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in
much."

33.  2 Timothy 3: 12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in
Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evil people and
impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being
deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have
learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom[a] you
learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been
acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make
you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All
Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching,
for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
17 that the man of God[b] may be complete, equipped for
every good work.

34.  Adding/matrix task:
 People can usually solve 4. If able to cheat,
will claim solved 6.
 Cheating comes from everyone cheating a
little, not one person cheating a lot.
 If money involved, people will cheat a little
more if it's a little. Will cheat 0 if it's a lot.
 Told average person solves 8. (Fear of
standing out.) How many solved? Still just 6.
Not fear of standing out, but our own sense of

35.  SMORC-Israeli tests
 The Fudge Factor-6 pack vs 6 dollars
 Further Way from our Sins
 -Give me X tokens vs X
dollars...token had 200% more
cheating
 Understand how dishonesty
increases, can avoid it.

36.  The 10 Commandments at UCLA
 450, 1/2 10 command, 1/2 books as kid. 0
cheating with 10.
 Blinded by motivations...dentists.
Doctors.
 Worn down willpower. Write essay
without x or z, without a or n.
 Real vs fake.
 Sunglasses. Then matrix text. 30 vs 71%.

37.  The dot task and cheating.

38.  The dot task and cheating.
 Same as matrix. Lots of people cheating
by just a little.
 People wearing fake sunglasses cheated
“at full throttle.”
 Cheating threshold. Opportunity many,
many times.
 Amount of cheating increases as
experiment goes on.

39.  Gal 5:16-23 Keep in Step with the Spirit
 16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the
desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are
against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against
the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you
from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led
by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works
of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity,
sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits
of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy,[d]
drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I
warned you before, that those who do[e] such things will
not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit
is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things
there is no law. 2

40.  Gal 5:7-9 Keep in Step with the Spirit
 7 You were running well. Who hindered
you from obeying the truth? 8 This
persuasion is not from him who calls you.
9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

41.  Behave the same as we do on diets.
 Once you start violating your own
standards…

42.  Sunglasses again, but this time, they got
to evaluate how often people might
be…bad. (With many questions thrown in
that were irrelevant and not face-valid.)

43.  Sunglasses again, but this time, they got
to evaluate how often people might
be…bad. (With many questions thrown in
that were irrelevant and not face-valid.)

44.  Sunglasses again, but this time, they got
to evaluate how often people might
be…bad. (With many questions thrown in
that were irrelevant and not face-valid.)

45.  Sunglasses again, but this time, they got
to evaluate how often people might
be…bad. (With many questions thrown in
that were irrelevant and not face-valid.)

46.  What were the results?
 If you wore the glasses you thought were
fake, you were more likely to believe that
A.) people will behave dishonestly, B.)
common excuses are lies to hide the
truth, and C.) people will be shady to
maximize their own gain.
 Fakes cause us not only to be more
dishonest, but to view others as being less
honest, too.

47.  Kenneth Keiser, COO of Pepsi and
Marilee Jones, author of “Less Stress,
More Success…” who advocated being
yourself in order to be successful, and
was MIT’s Dean of Admissions
 What do they have in common?
 “Fake it til you make it” can become
“just a fake” over time.

48.  Dan Ariely and his own self-deception.
Summer of ‘89.
 The line at check-in was long for the
JFK-LHR flight.
 A solution…
 …some problems…
 And a complaint to Air India!

49.  Can we believe our own lies?
 Fake IQ test.
 One where it was graded and blank.
 The other had an answer key so that test
taker could “check their work afterward.”
 People cheated a little a lot.

50.  After taking the test, asked to predict how
well they would do on the next, bigger
test, where you will be asked to hand it
in, as it takes some time to grade.
 People who cheated expected that they
would perform BETTER on the second
test.
 What if you PAID them if their prediction
was fairly accurate? Say $20 if they were

51.  Self-deception beats out money.
 We also convince ourselves that we’re
retroactively right.
 Ask question before giving the answer
because, “I knew it all along.”
 “The Center for Advanced Hindsight.”

52.  Lying publicly tends to act as a
touchstone. (Dan Rather.)
 Math test certificate test.
 Follow-up to math score prediction but
with a computer and mouse hover.
 Side note: Dunning-Kruger

53.  When a lie is not meant to increase our
own self-interest.
 Dan Ariely and the Dr.
 Your wife and how she looks.

54.  Richard Feynman
 “The first principle is that you must not
fool yourself—and you are the easiest
person to fool.”
 Conflict: desire to lie with desire to see
ourselves as good.

55.  Corpus Callosum Patient.
 Buying a new car with decision survey.
 Found out I needed a…Ford Taurus!
 We often don’t chose based on explicit
preferences. Instead, we have a gut
feeling and go through mental
gymnastics to get what we want while
feeling that we were most rational.

56.  Coin Logic.
 A lack of creativity and lying.
 Choose adjectives.
 Results?

57.  Intelligence vs creativity.
 You take an online survey first.
 Logic vs intuition.

59.  Next, a verbal test. Basically figuring out
which words are most closely matched
with different definitions.
 Then you come in to take 3 tests:
◦ The matrix test.
◦ The dot test. (If you cheated every time,
you’d get $10 total.)
◦ Multiple choice trivia, such as the capital of
Italy and how far a kangaroo can jump.
(Each correct answer is 10 cents, and you can

60.  On the last test, the bubble sheet has
erasure marks over the correct answers.
You can cheat without getting caught.
You knew that the capital of Switzerland
was Zurich, right? (Just kidding, it’s
Bern!)
 Turns out, intelligence isn’t linked to
lying, but creativity is.

61.  On the last test, the bubble sheet has
erasure marks over the correct answers.
You can cheat without getting caught.
You knew that the capital of Switzerland
was Zurich, right? (Just kidding, it’s
Bern!)
 Turns out, intelligence isn’t linked to
lying, but creativity is.

62.  Romans 12:17-19
 17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give
thought to do what is honorable in the
sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it
depends on you, live peaceably with all.
19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but
leave it[i] to the wrath of God, for it is
written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,
says the Lord.”

63.  Daniel asked coffee shop patrons to
participate in a five-minute task in return for
$5. When they agreed, he handed them ten
sheets of paper covered with random letters
and asked them to find as many identical
adjacent letters as they could and circle them
with a pencil. After they finished, he returned
to their table, collected their sheets, handed
them a small stack of bills, and told them,
“Here is your $5, please count the money,
sign the receipt, and leave it on the table. I’ll
be back later to collect it.”
 But he gave them $9 rather than 5.

64.  In the “annoyance” condition, Daniel
would pretend to answer a phone call
while talking to the testers. He’d fake a
12-second conversation.

65.  In no-annoyance, 45% of people returned
the extra money.
 When annoyed, only 14% of people
returned the extra money.

66.  Adding/matrix task:
 People can usually solve 4. If able to cheat,
will claim solved 6.
 Cheating comes from everyone cheating a
little, not one person cheating a lot.
 If money involved, people will cheat a little
more if it's a little. Will cheat 0 if it's a lot.
 Told average person solves 8. (Fear of
standing out.) How many solved? Still just 6.
Not fear of standing out, but our own sense of

67.  SMORC-Israeli tests
 The Fudge Factor-6 pack vs 6 dollars
 Further Way from our Sins
 -Give me X tokens vs X
dollars...token had 200% more
cheating
 Understand how dishonesty
increases, can avoid it.

68.  Self-deception. (What you come to
believe; math test, etc...)
 Lie differences: self-interest vs not
hurting others.
 Creativity kills.
 Lying for justice! (86% of people stole
when annoyed.)

69.  The 10 Commandments at UCLA
 450, 1/2 10 command, 1/2 books as kid. 0
cheating with 10.
 Blinded by motivations...dentists.
Doctors.
 Worn down willpower. Write essay
without x or z, without a or n.
 Real vs fake.
 Sunglasses. Then matrix text. 30 vs 71%.

70. The cheating bug. (Does
it spread?)
How to avoid getting
ethically ill.
Do we cheat together?

71. Memento Mori.
Conflicts of Interest.
Prioritizing Values
The Most Important
Command

72. The Matrix test, again.
But now let’s throw in Bernie
Madoff.
He completes the test in an
impossibly short time. He then
shreds his test, takes all the
money, and leaves.

75. Instead of solving the average of
7 (for this test, out of 20), people
claimed to solve an average of
15!
1 Cor 15: 32 If the dead are not
raised, “Let us eat and drink, for
tomorrow we die.” 33 Do not be
deceived: “Bad company ruins

76.  Same test, but David only asks, “Doesn’t
this make it possible to cheat? What
happens if I cheat like crazy?” The
proctor answers lazily, “You can do
whatever you want,” and goes back to her
book.
 David then proceeds to not cheat.
 Now we can tell if the cheating was due
to David, or due to knowing that they

80.  Cheating actually went down to LOWER
than if David had cheated, and lower
even than the “shredder condition.”
 When we are made to look dishonesty in
the eye, out in the open, we tend to
become more honest. The importance of
asking hard questions, then, is important.
 Note: if the person who is the Madoff is
from a rival group, this also increases our
honesty.

82.  The Broken Windows Theory
 The Bible often talks about this.
 2 Tim 3 [16] All scripture is given by
inspiration of God, and is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for
instruction in righteousness: [17] That the
man of God may be perfect, thoroughly
furnished unto all good works.

83.  Joshua 7-9 and Achan’s theft.
 Immediately after the triumph at Jericho, the
Israelites fight against the city of Ai, but are
unable to take it. God tells Joshua that Israel
lost because of God's anger. One of the
Israelites has kept some of the "devoted
things" from Jericho for himself instead of
destroying them. Therefore, Israel herself has
become a "devoted thing," which will be
destroyed unless the sinner is punished and
the stolen objects destroyed (Joshua 7:12).

84.  Jennifer the CPA. (“I don’t like these
numbers. Please gather your team and get
me a revised version by next
Wednesday.”)
 GAAP
 1 rule is “the principle of sincerity,”
accountant’s report should reflect the
company’s financial status “in good
faith.”

85. What happens if more than 1
person makes the decision to
cheat?
Altruistic cheating. (Robin
Hood!)
The money basket for drinks at
the psychology department:

87. Collaborative but unknown.
(Color and number, find.)
Combine scores, don’t talk,
take to proctor.
What happens?

89. Collaborative and kinda
known.
Meet each other, you go first,
she goes second. Combine,
take to proctor together.
What happens to cheating?
Altruism supervision

91. Collaborative and well known.
Meet each other, chat, hang
out, take test together. Tto
proctor together.
What happens to cheating?
Altruism supervision

94. Long-term
relationships.
Your doctor and
dentist.
Analyzed millions of

95. Few aggressive cheaters.
Many small-time cheaters.
◦Common in business.
Cheaters cause cheating to
spread.
Aggressive cheaters cause
other people to become
aggressive cheaters.

96. Which culture cheated
most?
The Israelis, the Americans,
the Chinese, the Italians, or
the British?
Who cheats more, bankers

98.  From confessing to Yom Kippur to Sabbath.
 Eccl 4: 9 Two are better than one because
they have a good return for their labor. 10 For
if either of them falls, the one will lift up his
companion. But woe to the one who falls
when there is not another to lift him up. 11
Furthermore, if two lie down together they
keep warm, but how can one be warm alone?
12 And if one can overpower him who is
alone, two can resist him. A cord of three
strands is not quickly torn apart.

99.  Do preferences drive our behaviors, or vice
versa?
 Do we do it because we like it, or do we like
it because we are doing it?
 Like building something.
 Involvement increases investment.
 In Sanhedrin 105b, a Jewish rabbinical text,
there is deep appreciation of the self-
signaling feedback loop: “A person should
always engage in Torah and its precepts even
if not with sincerity, because insincere
behavior leads to sincere behavior.”

100.  Conducting experiments are in the Bible.
 For example, in Judges 6, Gideon tries to answer the
question, “How can I know for sure that something’s true—
that I’m not just believing what I want to believe?”*
Gideon’s experiment was to test whether it was indeed God
who spoke to him and wanted him to lead a rebellion, or
whether it was just a voice in his head. On the first night
Gideon was contemplating this question, he asked God to
make the morning dew land only on a piece of wool fleece
and not on the ground around it. The next night, he wanted
to make sure that this dew-falling pattern of data was not
due to chance or particular weather conditions. So he set a
control condition, and asked God to do the exact opposite:
keep the fleece dry, but surround it with dewy ground.
When he saw both patterns of data confirmed, he was
satisfied that God was indeed on his side, and the rebellion
started.

101.  Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar created
a conflict of interest among the Jews. He
took the best and brightest (including
Daniel) and brought them to the palace,
using incentives to shift their loyalty.
 Pharma reps do this. Lobbyists do it. Men
who like hot women do it. Gifts change
our perceptions and make us want to
reciprocate. (Recall that people preferred
art from the gallery which was indirectly

102.  Daniel and 3 of his friends were tops, but
refused the things that the king tried to
lavish on them.
 From this, we learn to try as hard as we
can not to accept things which can sway
our judgment.
 Exodus 23:8 “Take no bribes, for a bribe
makes you ignore something that you
clearly see. A bribe makes even a

103.  Is there a thing as too much honesty?
 There are many competing values—
honesty, preservation of life, peace in the
family. Sometimes they may seem
incompatible.
 In Judaism, sometimes one value was
seen as trumping another. This is in
opposition to, say, 18th century
philosopher Immanuel Kant’s view.

104.  Kant famously put forward the idea that one
should never compromise when it comes to
honesty. Kant believed that honesty was a
mark of rationality, and that rationality was
the foundation of human dignity. One
critique challenges Kant’s premise with the
following scenario: Imagine that somebody
wants to murder your friend, and you’ve
hidden your friend in your house. The would-
be murderer asks you whether your friend is
hiding in your house. Even then, Kant says,

105.  After Rahab hid the Israelite spies on her
roof among the stalks of flax (Joshua 2:6),
she told the messengers of the King of
Jericho (who were pursuing the Israelites)
that the men in question had already left, and
exactly where they went she did not know
(2:4-5). However, (1) the Israelites had not
left, and (2) she knew exactly where they
were. In fact, after speaking to the king’s
men, she went back up to the roof to speak
with them and to help them safely escape

106.  How can “lying lips” be “an abomination
to the Lord” (Proverbs 12:22), while at
the same time God spared Rahab from
the destruction of Jericho (Joshua 2:9-21;
6:22-25). How is it that “all liars shall
have their part in the lake which burns
with fire and brimstone” (Revelation
21:8), and yet Rahab be commended
twice by New Testament writers?

107.  By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish
with those who did not believe, when she
had received the spies with peace
(Hebrews 11:31).
 [W]as not Rahab the harlot also justified
by works when she received the
messengers and sent them out another
way (James 2:25)?

108.  Are all sins equal? Is there a little
sin? A big sin?
 Consider that Moses said to Aaron,
“What did this people do to you, that
you have brought such great sin
upon them?” (Exodus 32:21)
 And that the LORD said, "The outcry
against Sodom and Gomorrah is so

109.  Killing an entire race of people is
intuitively worse than stealing a candy
bar; raping your neighbor's child is far
worse than fibbing and telling a coworker
that you like her new hair.
 Sins may be equal in their ability to
separate, but some are far worse and
more far-reaching in their ability to
influence other souls negatively.

110.  Exo 20:16 says not to bear false witness.
 Not just about lying.
 Later on, in Deuteronomy 19:15–21, there is a
description of a scene in which the judges start
to doubt a witness. In such a case, the text
instructs, the judges should make a thorough
investigation of the witness’s testimony, and if
they find the witness to be lying: “then do to the
false witness as that witness intended to do to
the other party. You must purge the evil from
among you. The rest of the people will hear of
this and be afraid, and never again will such an

111.  Why such a strong stance?
 Because false testimony can have a
devastating effect on innocent people.
 But as we learned from the “bad apple”
experiment, one outright cheater/liar in
public can cause a plague of dishonesty.
 It also interferes with good governance.

113.  Restore your moral energy.
 Rules and self-control, too. The more
decisions we have to make, the less our
self control.
 In this case, the decisions are made for
you.
 Studies performed showed that smokers
had less cravings on the Sabbath.

114.  Good moral rules need to be simple. (AA, 10 C)
 They need to be precise.
 They have to link back to a larger meaning.
 If the rule is set in an arbitrary way (exercise for
thirty minutes, three times a week; eat two pieces of
fruit and up to two thousand calories a day), the rule
itself, and breaking it, is going to be relatively
meaningless. But if the rules link us to other people
(we are all doing this together), to some other larger
purpose (this is what good people do), or to a deep
belief (God’s commandments), breaking the rule is
more difficult and less likely to happen. In AA, for
example, everything is linked to a sense of surrender
to a “higher power.”

115.  There are many stories in the Bible that
relate to the questions raised in this book.
There is the story of Zacchaeus and how
forgiveness gave him the opportunity to
start fresh (related to Part 1); the question
of the fudge factor and Abraham’s not-so-
white lies (Part 2); of how Daniel and his
friends resolved their conflict of interest
(Part 3); of how the Sabbath helps us

116.  of Rahab the prostitute possibly changing
the course of her life with one act of
goodness that led to other kind acts (Part
5); of self-deception and idolatry (Part 6);
of King Solomon’s creativity and social
connections leading him to cheat more
and more (Part 7 and 8); of Jacob and
Rebekah’s collaborative cheating (Part
9); and many, many more.

117.  Honesty and timelines—the period
before, during, and after cheating.
 Which is the best time to prevent it?
 Our society relies on after-effects.
 But remember, we found out that the
SMORC isn’t what happens in real life,
so rationally considering punitive things
doesn’t happen.

118.  In contrast, the general approach of
Christianity is to deal directly with the period
before we cheat and the period in which we
have the opportunity to cheat. First,
Christianity attempts to influence our mind-
set before we are tempted, by creating moral
education and—let’s not forget—guilt. The
basic understanding is that if we want to curb
dishonesty, we need to think about education
and calibrating the moral compass, rather
than threatening punishment after the fact

119.  Second, Christianity attempts to
influence our mind-sets in the moment of
temptation by incorporating different
moral reminders into our environment.
Here, the basic idea is that once we have
a moral compass, it’s a good idea to keep
it in good working order, with
appropriate adjustments in real time, if
we expect it to operate at full capacity.