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“Look over at thy neighbor,” the red-tailed tempters whisper. “There is no harm. You did your best to study last night, we understand. You tried hard, you deserve good things. How should you be expected to know the Spanish phrase for ‘with ice?’ Indeed, James, if you do not look over at your neighbor’s test, your grade, and subsequently, your GPA, shall suffer.” Yet at once, the angelic brigade of all my elementary school teachers scream out, “Academic Honesty, oh, that most compelling of the four virtues! Back off from the precipice of sin, and avert your eyes from Satan’s traps!” The matter is really not as simple or as fantastic as this. I have always taken it at face value that academic honesty is an essential component of learning, and a very important principle to adhere to in education. I consider myself an honest guy. Cheating has always been completely out of the question, even without the added discouragement of all the punishments involved. But sometimes it is a question of an A or a B in a given class. And, for argument’s sake, suppose that my grade in this particular class will affect my ability to study abroad or enter some other program. All of my previous work in the class has put me squarely on the fence, with only the final exam to resolve my final grade. On the exam itself, I’ve answered most of the questions, and I have a pretty good sense of what I did and did not know. I am now down to the last several questions, and have already calculated that if I get them all right, I get the A. If not, I get the B. If I have a pressing need to do well in this class, it is understandable that all moral considerations begin to break down. Ideology One ought not take credit for other people’s work, nor claim things one does not know for a fact. One ought not plagiarize, nor present group work as one’s own, nor reuse the same work for two assignments. Without a strong and standard Academic Honesty code, we would not be able to trust the numerous scholarly works and articles that come forth every year. Professors would not be able to judge us fairly and accurately and Brown’s reputation would decline. And finally, we would be selling our own selves short. What, after all, is an education if the student finds a way out of having to learn? Much as I respect all of this, though, it is still difficult to see what is morally repugnant about a simple glance to the left. I am not harming anyone physically, emotionally, mentally, or economically (assuming there is no curve). Surely there are thousands of meaner things that make cheating look more like eating your ice cream with a soup spoon than committing a travesty against God. The two answers to why cheating is wrong are implied by the webpage definition—cheating hurts everyone else, and it hurts you, the cheater. To get a full appreciation of how cheating, a fundamentally victimless crime, harms society as a whole, we can to turn to Garrett Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons,” first published in Science in 1968. Hardin pointed out in his groundbreaking work a basic but enthralling idea: “morality is system-sensitive.” While some things are always unambiguously right or wrong, others are right in some circumstances but wrong in others. An example of this
is how it is permissible to fish in a pond unless there is the threat
of long-term depletion. Once fishing becomes harmful to a community, it
becomes immoral to fish. Similarly, I believe there is nothing inherently
wicked about cheating; in this society, however, we must realize that
if everyone were to cheat all the time, the academic system would crumble.
No one would have any credibility and consequently all publications and
scientific discovery would be suspect. In such an environment, academic
progress would grind to a halt. Before planners can even conceive of a plan like this, of course, there has to be a tight-knit community where people care about what other people think; there needs to be a civil society. Similarly, at the university, students have to feel a deep connection with other students and the institution itself in order for the common good argument to work. What reason, in terms of the Tragedy of the Commons argument, would a student have to respect the regulations of a place that feels less like home and more like a four-year B and B? Why should a student who is only at college for a few years care about the place so much as to make sacrifices for it? Even when people are willing to be responsible in their everyday lives, stubborn facts prove that they will not sacrifice any aspect of their careers for the common good of society. A fisherman would have to be forcefully barred from over-fishing the pond because he will not be willing to make less money for the community’s sake. Similarly, a Brown student faced with a very important test is not likely to consider the full impact of his or her act of cheating on the greater Brown community, especially not when it is a single instance—“just this once”—that will have no discernible impact on the university’s standing. Post-ideological
ideology If I choose to look over at my neighbor’s test, I will be the one who loses out because I will not be allowing myself the benefit of the full experience of academic honesty and merit. I am curtailing my own freedom to learn independently, and I am preventing myself from expressing myself through my academic performance. And, since my performance in class is a large part of what I do in school, it is especially important that I am honest in the classroom. I wouldn’t want to cheat myself, would I? I can see how striving to succeed has worked its way into becoming a part of the cult mantra we see all over the country now, propounded by Nike and joined in chorus by civic leaders and educators. “Life is a promise; fulfill it.” “Within our dreams and aspirations, we find opportunities.” “Just do it.” Do not cheat because you are hurting yourself, and that is wrong. This emphasis on the individual is not new; the individual figures highly in American ideological history. But we seem to have arrived in a post-modern, post-ideological ideology, where old loyalties have worn thin. This ideology of the individual is new and unique in that now there is nothing more, nothing greater to consider. The reigning sentiment is no longer that the individual ought to himself or herself choose what causes to believe in, but rather, that the cause is the individual; what the individual does is secondary. In a society that has de-emphasized belonging, community, and institutional loyalty, it is becoming more and more difficult to convince people to do things or to not do things. A new technique has emerged to counter this decline of the Tragedy Of The Commons ideology. Today, educators teach an absolute morality. It is the same morality as during the period of institutional loyalty, but now it is based on principles of individual achievement and individual gratification. These ideals are exalted so far that people integrate them into their conceptions of how they need to live their lives. Thus, the current technique for deterring cheaters is to convince them that what the university wants them to think originates within themselves. This is an effective method, but it is also potentially harmful. What if emphasis on the achievement of the individual should slide into emphasis on the greatest good for the individual? What if the current morality degenerates into hedonism? The real solution to this problem will be to work to rebuild institutional loyalties. If people fervently believe in keeping the status and reputation of their university strong, then there will be less emphasis on how cheating undermines the individual. The argument about how cheating hurts the individual is certainly attractive but neither forceful nor good for society in the long run. So, we return; to cheat or not to cheat is still the question. Individual achievement, greatest good for the community—these are difficult ideas to comprehend. Plus I don’t think I’ve got the guts to go ahead with it. The Angels have carried the day once again, at the expense of my A. Damn Angels. James deBoer B’05
is so post-ideologically ideological, he’s pre-ideological. So there:
his family owns diamond mines. |
copyright © 2002, The College
Hill Independent
last updated 03 05 03
