Does Honesty Still Matter?

Show Summary: When you strip away the extremes, what is America’s relationship with honesty? We’re past believing that anyone is purely honest. And a quick vacation from reading the news can allay the despair that everyone is lying all the time. So what’s the reality?     Ethics and justice icon Deborah Rhode of Stanford University tackled this huge topic in her book Cheating: Ethics in Everyday Life. We’ve expanded on that to create an hour’s conversation from multiple perspectives: Deborah’s deep knowledge plus: the view from the education world, with counselor and therapist Nina Keebler; and from the business world, with noted scholar and ethics consultant Michael Santoro.     Deborah Rhode is the Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law, the director of the Center on the Legal Profession, and the director of the Program in Law and Social Entrepreneurship at Stanford University. Among her dozens of accolades for her legal work, scholarship, and books is the White House’s Champion of Change Award, for her life’s work in increasing access to justice. Her books include Cheating; Adultery; The Trouble With Lawyers, and The Beauty Bias.     Nina Keebler is a licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and the founder of Centered Wisdom, a group psychotherapy practice in Menlo Park. She specializes in working with Silicon Valley professionals, young adults and teens. In addition to her private practice she also offers expertise as a School Counselor at Menlo School and trauma specialist and the Camden Center, an Intensive Outpatient Program.     Michael Santoro is a faculty member in the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. Among his areas of expertise are business ethics and conscious consumerism. Prof. Santoro’s expert testimony in the Vioxx litigation became the basis for court-ordered corporate governance reforms adopted by Merck. He speaks frequently on pharmaceutical industry ethics, human rights, and financial industry ethics.