5 ms·

Which is bad, someone who cheats on a test or someone who rats out their friend for cheating on a test? It really is a cultural thing, and that sort of culture

Which is bad, someone who cheats on a test or someone who rats out their friend for cheating on a test? It really is a cultural thing, and that sort of culture is primarily passed down from upperclassmen to underclassmen. I went to a different college with an honor code (Harvey Mudd) and when I graduated in 2019 it was still doing relatively well, but from what I've heard COVID really killed students caring about / adhering to the honor code.

ericmay 5mo ago
> Which is bad, someone who cheats on a test or someone who rats out their friend for cheating on a test? Obviously the first. How is this even a question?
- thaumasiotes 5mo ago
  > Obviously the first. The more usual perspective would be that they're both bad.
  - JCTheDenthog 5mo ago
    Only in certain fucked up moral systems. Though I guess Confucianism would be one of those: >The Duke of She said to Confucius, “Among my people there is one we call ‘Upright Gong.’ When his father stole a sheep, he reported him to the authorities.” >Confucius replied, “Among my people, those who we consider ‘upright’ are different from this: fathers cover up for their sons, and sons cover up for their fathers. ‘Uprightness’ is to be found in this.” -from the Confucian Analects
  - ericmay 5mo ago
    That would be a very unusual perspective, at least in the western world and specifically the United States which has a legal and moral system broadly constructed on a mixture social trust and rule of law and we take into consideration both intent and effect in our moral judgements. There are certainly cases, for example someone cheated on a test but that test allowed them to achieve some greater good, that we can modify our moral beliefs on but there's no clear perspective that would suggest both would be bad. That really doesn't make sense.
- crazygringo 5mo ago
  This is not obvious at all. Loyalty is a fundamental moral principle. Loyalty to a friend carries a lot of moral weight. Humans are a social animal, and loyalty to a friend can easily outweigh loyalty to some abstract institution. Like, my friend will still have my back five years from now. The university I went to won't do shit for me. Like, if you're talking about loyalty to a friend who wants you to cover up an unjustified murder they committed, then I think most people will say the value of telling the cops about the murder outweighs the loyalty to your friend. But for cheating on some test where probably 30% of the other students are cheating anyways? I think the vast majority of people will say that loyalty to your friend is the more important moral principle here. We all make mistakes in life, and the whole idea of loyalty and love to a friend is that we support them even though they make mistakes. As long as the mistakes are common mistakes like cheating on a test or cheating on a boyfriend, as opposed to things like felony crimes.
  - wat10000 5mo ago
    It's not a mistake if they do it routinely. I could buy the argument if the friend had a moment of weakness, regretted it, won't do it again, and please don't report it. They've learned their lesson, that's enough. But if they do it and they're fine with it and they're going to do it again and what's the big deal? Refusing to report that isn't loyalty anymore, it's not sticking with someone who made a mistake, it's protecting deliberate bad behavior.
    - crazygringo 5mo ago
      We can make mistakes in our ongoing behaviors. Nobody's perfect. The question is simply how you balance loyalty to the institution vs loyalty to a friend. A lot of people will think that cheating in a context where a lot of other people cheat too, is just not a big deal. That it's certainly not worth losing a friendship over. Like, are you going to end a friendship because someone jaywalks? Because they habitually speed 5 mph over the legal limit? Because they sometimes take illegal drugs? Because they deducted things on their tax return that you know weren't actually business expenses? The size or importance of a moral violation matters, when weighing up conflicting moral obligations.
AnnikaL 5mo ago
I'm in Mudd's class of '27 (and I was on the honor board for 2 years), and I do think the honor code system has gotten somewhat less functional over the time I've been here. But I think a majority of students and faculty still want to make it work.

ericmay 5mo ago

> Which is bad, someone who cheats on a test or someone who rats out their friend for cheating on a test? Obviously the first. How is this even a question?

thaumasiotes 5mo ago
> Obviously the first. The more usual perspective would be that they're both bad.
- JCTheDenthog 5mo ago
  Only in certain fucked up moral systems. Though I guess Confucianism would be one of those: >The Duke of She said to Confucius, “Among my people there is one we call ‘Upright Gong.’ When his father stole a sheep, he reported him to the authorities.” >Confucius replied, “Among my people, those who we consider ‘upright’ are different from this: fathers cover up for their sons, and sons cover up for their fathers. ‘Uprightness’ is to be found in this.” -from the Confucian Analects
- ericmay 5mo ago
  That would be a very unusual perspective, at least in the western world and specifically the United States which has a legal and moral system broadly constructed on a mixture social trust and rule of law and we take into consideration both intent and effect in our moral judgements. There are certainly cases, for example someone cheated on a test but that test allowed them to achieve some greater good, that we can modify our moral beliefs on but there's no clear perspective that would suggest both would be bad. That really doesn't make sense.
crazygringo 5mo ago
This is not obvious at all. Loyalty is a fundamental moral principle. Loyalty to a friend carries a lot of moral weight. Humans are a social animal, and loyalty to a friend can easily outweigh loyalty to some abstract institution. Like, my friend will still have my back five years from now. The university I went to won't do shit for me. Like, if you're talking about loyalty to a friend who wants you to cover up an unjustified murder they committed, then I think most people will say the value of telling the cops about the murder outweighs the loyalty to your friend. But for cheating on some test where probably 30% of the other students are cheating anyways? I think the vast majority of people will say that loyalty to your friend is the more important moral principle here. We all make mistakes in life, and the whole idea of loyalty and love to a friend is that we support them even though they make mistakes. As long as the mistakes are common mistakes like cheating on a test or cheating on a boyfriend, as opposed to things like felony crimes.
- wat10000 5mo ago
  It's not a mistake if they do it routinely. I could buy the argument if the friend had a moment of weakness, regretted it, won't do it again, and please don't report it. They've learned their lesson, that's enough. But if they do it and they're fine with it and they're going to do it again and what's the big deal? Refusing to report that isn't loyalty anymore, it's not sticking with someone who made a mistake, it's protecting deliberate bad behavior.
  - crazygringo 5mo ago
    We can make mistakes in our ongoing behaviors. Nobody's perfect. The question is simply how you balance loyalty to the institution vs loyalty to a friend. A lot of people will think that cheating in a context where a lot of other people cheat too, is just not a big deal. That it's certainly not worth losing a friendship over. Like, are you going to end a friendship because someone jaywalks? Because they habitually speed 5 mph over the legal limit? Because they sometimes take illegal drugs? Because they deducted things on their tax return that you know weren't actually business expenses? The size or importance of a moral violation matters, when weighing up conflicting moral obligations.

AnnikaL 5mo ago

I'm in Mudd's class of '27 (and I was on the honor board for 2 years), and I do think the honor code system has gotten somewhat less functional over the time I've been here. But I think a majority of students and faculty still want to make it work.