Sophists in Business

Lawyers and advertisers are sophists that are very prevalent today, have been for centuries, and will continue to be until the end of time. When a lawyer’s job is to defend a person he or she is assigned to, whether they are innocent or not, ethics are pretty much thrown out the window. Lawyers play to win to further their career. In other words their professional responsibilities and goals override what is right. They know that stepping into this field leads to bending the truth or wording a phrase/question in a certain way can manipulate a person’s mind into thinking the way you want them to.

Same goes for advertisers. When a company says that their product is the best, then try to convince the viewer that it is so by showing a graphic of a survey that may or may have not taken place, that may or may have not been worded in a way to sway the surveyed, it makes you wonder if the truth is being bent. Another example of truth bending are the advertisements with Pepsi and Coke taste challenges. If Pepsi held a taste challenge to a large group of people, recorded it, and had the results come out negatively then do you think that they would showcase the challenge on their commercial? No. They will only do so if the results came out in their favor. So if a taste challenge comes out in Coca-Cola’s favor 5 out of 7 challenges then only showing the 2 winning challenges would be bending the truth, just a little. Is it wrong? It depends. Dealing with business, you sometimes have to be a certain way even if it is wrong. It would be nice not to be lied to or misled in anything, but there aren’t many ways to know for sure who is lying and who isn’t so it’s best to always look at your options in a fair and logical way.

Want to see this in action? Just watch the TV Shows "Mad Men" & "Law & Order." Those illustrate my point exactly.

- By: Jason Jeremiah