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  3. Nearly everybody cheats, but usually only a little. That is one of the themes in Dan Ariely’s new book The (Honest) Truth About

Nearly everybody cheats, but usually only a little. That is one of the themes in Dan Ariely’s new book The (Honest) Truth About

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问题    Nearly everybody cheats, but usually only a little. That is one of the themes in Dan Ariely’s new book The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty. Most of us think we are pretty wonderful. We can cheat little and still keep that "good person" identity.
   Ariely had one blind colleague and one sighted colleague take taxi rides. The drivers cheated the sighted colleague by taking long routes much more often than they cheated the blind one, even though she would have been easier to mislead. They would have felt guilty cheating a blind woman. Ariely points out that we are driven by morality much more than standard economic models allow. But I was struck by what you might call the Good Person Construct and the moral calculus it implies. For the past several centuries, most Westerners would have identified themselves fundamentally as Depraved Sinners. In this construct, sin is something you fight like a recurring cancer—part of a daily battle against evil.
   But these days, people are more likely to believe in their essential goodness. People who live by the Good Person Construct try to balance their virtuous self-image with their selfish desires. They try to manage the moral plusses and minuses and keep their overall record in positive territory. In this construct, moral life is more like dieting: the Good Person isn’t shooting for perfection any more than most dieters are following their diet loo percent. It’s enough to be workably suboptimal and a generally good guy.
   Obviously, though, there’s a measurement problem. You can buy a weight scale to get an objective measure of your diet. But you can’t buy a scale of virtues to put on the bathroom floor. And given our awesome capacities for rationalization and self-deception, most of us are going to measure ourselves leniently: I was honest with that blind passenger because I’m a wonderful person. I cheated the sighted one because she probably has too much money anyway.
   Ariely suggests you reset your moral gauge from time to time. Your moral standards will gradually slip as you become more and more comfortable with your own rationalizations. I’d add that you really shouldn’t shoot for goodness, which is so vague and forgiving. You should shoot for rectitude. We’re mostly unqualified to judge our own moral performances, so attach yourself to some exterior or social standards. And as we go about doing our Good Person moral calculations, it might be worth asking: Is this good enough?
   
Western traditional culture held that human nature was_____.
选项 A、originally evil
B、genetically determined
C、subject to exterior influence
D、inherently good
答案A
解析 细节题。根据题干中的关键词traditional和human nature定位到文章第二段末： “在过去的几百年间，大部分的西方人应完全把自己认定为‘堕落的罪人’”，在这种理念下，与罪恶相抗争成为人们每日与自身邪恶相较量的一部分。因此A项正确。
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