Lying is prima facie morally wrong. But most people are willing to acknowledge that it is sometimes OK to lie.
Cognitive Daily has an interesting post concerning a study designed to assess when teenagers think it's OK to lie. You might be amazed at what teenagers regard as permissible defeating circumstances. Here is the link to the article.
Why should philosopher professors be interested in this? First, the data is interesting. Second, it may come in handy if you ever talk about lying as a case of wrongness in intro or ethics. Third, it may tell us some interesting things about student/teacher relationships. Fourth, it should motivate us to be careful about how we argue with students when we argue that plagiarism is wrong.
Plagiarism
When most students are told about the evils of plagiarism, it's usually cashed out in terms of lying. We often do give students other reasons, but I bet that these other reasons don't always sink in. If the student has an overly permissive attitude as to when it's OK to lie - they will not be terribly moved by plagiarism-is-lying-arguments for the wrongness of plagiarism.
I've always suspected that this was true, which is why I like to stress other reasons for thinking that plagiarism is wrong. These reasons have little to do with lying, and I think these are more compelling reasons for why plagiarism is wrong.
One of the primary reasons I give for thinking that plagiarism is wrong is that it harms (or risks harm) to the other students. Word gets travels fast - particularly in the local area about how easy it is to get through the local college with a degree. The more plagiarism that happens, the more it devalues other student's degrees.
I like to give my students the following analogy. Imagine all of your classmates bought a $20,000 plot of land and you poured salt all over it. Plagiarism is like doing that. It pours salt over a degree and makes it worthless in the eyes of some potential employers.
So, an interesting result of the study is that perhaps it should move us to emphasize the wrongness of plagiarism that does not merely reduce the wrongness of plagiarism to the wrongness of lying.
(Aside: The other reason I like to emphasize the Harm-To-Other-Students argument over other reasons is it gives non-plagiarizing students a very reason to be angry about plagiarism at their school.)
Cognitive Daily has an interesting post concerning a study designed to assess when teenagers think it's OK to lie. You might be amazed at what teenagers regard as permissible defeating circumstances. Here is the link to the article.
Why should philosopher professors be interested in this? First, the data is interesting. Second, it may come in handy if you ever talk about lying as a case of wrongness in intro or ethics. Third, it may tell us some interesting things about student/teacher relationships. Fourth, it should motivate us to be careful about how we argue with students when we argue that plagiarism is wrong.
Plagiarism
When most students are told about the evils of plagiarism, it's usually cashed out in terms of lying. We often do give students other reasons, but I bet that these other reasons don't always sink in. If the student has an overly permissive attitude as to when it's OK to lie - they will not be terribly moved by plagiarism-is-lying-arguments for the wrongness of plagiarism.
I've always suspected that this was true, which is why I like to stress other reasons for thinking that plagiarism is wrong. These reasons have little to do with lying, and I think these are more compelling reasons for why plagiarism is wrong.
One of the primary reasons I give for thinking that plagiarism is wrong is that it harms (or risks harm) to the other students. Word gets travels fast - particularly in the local area about how easy it is to get through the local college with a degree. The more plagiarism that happens, the more it devalues other student's degrees.
I like to give my students the following analogy. Imagine all of your classmates bought a $20,000 plot of land and you poured salt all over it. Plagiarism is like doing that. It pours salt over a degree and makes it worthless in the eyes of some potential employers.
So, an interesting result of the study is that perhaps it should move us to emphasize the wrongness of plagiarism that does not merely reduce the wrongness of plagiarism to the wrongness of lying.
(Aside: The other reason I like to emphasize the Harm-To-Other-Students argument over other reasons is it gives non-plagiarizing students a very reason to be angry about plagiarism at their school.)
Labels: ethics, philosophy
posted by Andrew Cullison at
8:01 AM
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