第1502期:How honest are you?

Let's be honest – I'm sure we've all done something a little dishonest in our lives – maybe copying someone's work, borrowing some money from a friend and not paying them back or being given too much change in a shop and keeping quiet about it. Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe you're a good, upstanding citizen who believes that honesty is the best policy.

老实说——我敢肯定我们在生活中都做过一些不诚实的事情——也许是抄袭别人的作品，从朋友那里借了一些钱却不还，或者在商店里给了太多零钱，对这些事情保持沉默它。或者也许我错了，也许你是一个善良、正直的公民，他相信诚实是最好的政策。

This proverb, 'honesty is the best policy', was written back in the 1700s by American statesman, Benjamin Franklin. We may agree that owning up to our mistakes and behaving in a genuine and decent way, is the right way to lead our lives but is there something in our human nature that makes us unscrupulous? For example, in some shops and car parks you can find an honesty box – a box where you pay for something by putting money in it – but it relies on you putting the right amount of cash in. This relies on people being honest and not trying to cheat but it does provide a temptation to get away with not paying the full amount.

这句谚语“诚实是最好的政策”是美国政治家本杰明·富兰克林在 1700 年代写的。我们可能会同意，承认自己的错误并以真诚和体面的方式行事，是我们生活的正确方式，但我们的人性中是否有某些东西使我们肆无忌惮？例如，在一些商店和停车场，你可以找到一个诚实的盒子——一个你通过把钱投入其中来支付某物的盒子——但它依赖于你投入了适量的现金。这依赖于人们的诚实而不是诚实。试图作弊，但它确实提供了逃避不支付全部金额的诱惑。

Philip Graves, a psychologist, and author of the book Consumerology, suggests that this temptation is part of our evolution. He says: "We have evolved with the capacity to be dishonest. It's part of our evolutionary psychological make up – because if we can gain an advantage over the people around us, we have a greater chance of surviving."

心理学家、《消费者学》一书的作者菲利普·格雷夫斯认为，这种诱惑是我们进化的一部分。他说：“我们已经进化出不诚实的能力。这是我们进化心理构成的一部分——因为如果我们能够比周围的人获得优势，我们就有更大的生存机会。”

So why do we place such importance on being honest if we benefit from being dishonest? It's because it is selfish behaviour – which other members of our social group won't like. If everybody acted selfishly and dishonestly all the time, the world would be a very unpleasant place. As Philip Graves says: "There is a balance to strike between the extent to which we can feather our own nest, so to speak, and the risk of being ostracised by the group." So, for societies to work together we need to trust each other and therefore we need to be honest.

那么，如果我们从不诚实中受益，为什么还要如此重视诚实呢？这是因为这是自私的行为——我们社会群体的其他成员不喜欢这种行为。如果每个人都自私和不诚实地行事，世界将是一个非常不愉快的地方。正如菲利普·格雷夫斯所说：“可以说，我们可以在多大程度上为自己的巢穴添砖加瓦，与被群体排斥的风险之间要取得平衡。”所以，为了让社会一起工作，我们需要相互信任，因此我们需要诚实。

Being trustworthy with money is of course crucial for an economy to survive and there are laws to protect us from dishonest practices like corruption and fraud. But being honest with words is another matter; saying what we think to someone can get us into hot water. However a new anonymous messaging app has been designed that lets anyone with a link to your profile to send you a message without knowing who it's from. The app now has 300 million users which perhaps indicates how honest we really like to be – but in all honesty, do you want to know what people think about you? Is honesty always the best policy?!

对金钱的信任当然对于经济的生存至关重要，并且有法律可以保护我们免受腐败和欺诈等不诚实行为的侵害。但说实话是另一回事；对别人说出我们的想法会让我们陷入困境。然而，我们设计了一个新的匿名消息应用程序，让任何拥有您个人资料链接的人都可以在不知道来自谁的情况下向您发送消息。该应用程序现在拥有 3 亿用户，这或许表明我们真的很想诚实——但老实说，你想知道人们对你的看法吗？诚实永远是最好的政策吗？！

词汇表

let's be honest 咱们诚实点，实话实说
dishonest 不诚实的
upstanding 正直的
honesty is the best policy 诚实是上策
own up 承认，坦白
decent 正派的
unscrupulous 不诚实的，没有道德原则的
honesty box (没有服务人员时) 公众凭自觉与诚实去付款的容器
cheat 欺骗
temptation 有诱惑力的事情
to get away with 做（坏事）而未被发现
evolution 进化
capacity 能力
evolutionary psychological make up 演化心理学的记号、标签
benefit 从…受益
selfish 自私的
feather our own nest 从中得利，中饱私囊
ostracise 排斥
trustworthy 值得信任的
fraud 诈骗
get into hot water 陷入困境，使尴尬
in all honesty 老实说