Hinman points to five virtues as foundation for an ethical academic life: Honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility. He further describes the new challenges that the web has provided for enacting this virtues as teachers and learners.
The story of Laura K Krishna describes how a college student looking for a way to plagiarize was publicly humiliated online. She basically asked a random stranger to write a paper for her, Nate (the stranger) provided her with a terrible paper and blogged about the encounter including a threat to contact her school.
I will not comment on the level of stupidity involved in the events. However, her actions were not hones to herself nor to others, she betrayed any trust that her professor may have offered her, she was unfair to the other students who did in fact write a paper, she disrespected her professor and her university by doing something dishonest, and she failed to show responsibility for her actions.
I can’t think of an ethical justification for cheating really, in higher education or any other education. We understand that education is a right, yet we sometimes frame it as an obligation. I believe that is part of the issue. As an almost 30 year old woman striving to walk across stage this December, I have a much different perspective on education than I did as a 19 year old freshman. Ethically, we mature and develop by understanding the nature of the world. More specifically in this case, we grow when we understand the nature of knowledge.
By helping students develop a significant vision of education we will enable them to be truthful learners either if they are pursuing a doctorate, or if they choose to be an excellent carpenter who did not finish fifth grade. Anyway, I am ranting.
Although a much stricter punishment would stem from a deontological perspective, correction is always the right option. This correction would probably be more forgiving and mentoring on the hands of a feminist.
I should note, as a thought that came to me after posting the original blog, that Nate’s way of handling Laura’s plagiarism seems to be somewhat effective, specially if you consider the many comments on the internet where 8th graders recognize Laura as their English teacher and comment how much she speaks up against plagiarism. Yet, if we see plagiarism from Hinman’s point of view, we acknowledge that it fails to display honesty, trust, fairness, respect,and responsibility. Nate, in this case, fails miserably if analyzed from the same light. He was dishonest with Laura and certainly broke her trust. Was he fair? That is debatable. He certainly was not respectful towards her, even when she was not doing a good job of earning respect. Finally, he took some responsibility for his actions, but claimed to have been bluffing in regards to reporting her, and put that weight on the people that contacted her dean directly. Still, he was the one that put her real name and the details of the story online. So, is it ethical to fight immoral people without sticking to ethical principles? Apparently Nate’s answer would be yes.
I’m glad you added this addendum, since many of the criticisms about this whole story was that Nate acted just as unethically as Laura. So it makes you wonder – is an unethical punishment for an ethics violation really an effective way to encourage people to be more ethical?
I am also curious, since you state in your post that there is no ethical justification for cheating in academia: Hinman notes the various reasons why students typically plagiarize in college. How do you think can we get students to take the ethics of cheating more seriously? Is ignorance of the rules (“I didn’t know it was plagiairsm”) a good excuse?
Well, I think Nate certainly cured Laura of plagiaristic tendencies, yet he was not a good ethical example. Did he make her more ethical? I wouldn’t say so. He just made her more fearful or more cautious.
I do certainly believe there is not really an excuse for cheating. I mean, there is a ton of excuses, but not any that would be truly ethically defensible. Ignorance is definitely not decent in my book. Maybe in 6th grade. Maybe.
I do think that re-framing testing int he students minds is key in avoiding cheating. Once they understand they are paying for knowledge, not for a paper, they should be willing to put the time and effort toward learning more than just passing. Although, echoing Hinman, I don’t think the Universities do a good job showing that want they want to sell is education instead of just a paper.