Why Cheating is Wrong: Reflections from an Air Force Officer

[Dr. Courtney]

Lt. Col. Scott Williams and I authored this paper in response to a published article in a philosophy journal questioning whether cheating is wrong. My career has since moved on from the Air Force, but I still deeply appreciate their core values, shown in the photo below.

Link to Article

Excerpt:
People expect their doctors, their pilots, their engineers, and their military officers to have genuinely earned their professional credentials and to meet rigorous standards in areas of knowledge and conduct necessary for public trust in the performance of their duties. Cheating is wrong because academic dishonesty in the training of these professions undermines both the expected level of expertise and the expected level of trust. Educators have a duty to society to ensure the quality of graduates, and this duty includes good faith efforts to prevent academic dishonesty.

 

[jedishrfu]

Cheating in sports has a similar outcome. Those who did not take drugs were cheated out of the chance to win and/or the celebration that follows. We will never hear their names and they won't be listed as sports greats.These folks are the true champions of our times.

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

But if most or all of the athletes use some sort of enhancing drugs, then is it still called cheating?
Obviously if it's not allowed then yes.

There are some tests with open books tests, where you are allowed to use books and notes; someone who has the right book with the answer in it will know how to solve it while the rest who don't have that book won't.

In exams, the teachers or TAs are allowed to enter the class where the students are examined; now I am not sure what other students ask them but I see some students that know how and what to ask their teachers excatly for them to answer the exam correctly, which seems to be cheating and encouraged by the system.

Fame and glory passes through the urge to cheat or not.
There's a lot of corruption in academics and sports, just like any other activity in our society.

 

[Orodruin]

In exams, the teachers or TAs are allowed to enter the class where the students are examined; now I am not sure what other students ask them but I see some students that know how and what to ask their teachers excatly for them to answer the exam correctly, which seems to be cheating and encouraged by the system.

As an examiner, I only answer direct questions about the formulation of the problems. If there is anything which I realize more than the asking student may have problems interpreting, I announce it to the entire class. (This some times means repeating the same thing in 5 different rooms, at times backtracking to rooms already visited, in order to make sure all students get the required information.)

I have been on the other side of students cheating several times, i.e., the teacher who discovers it and it is not a spot which is fun to be in. I have seen everything from people writing double copies of their homework assignments, just with different names on them (literally copies - "my friend had to go visit his girlfriend in Switzerland so I wrote the homework for him"), to direct copyright infringement (large parts of text directly copied from Microsoft Encarta). Personally I think it is one of the worst things of being a teacher, confronting a cheating student is not fun at all.

 

[mathwonk]

of course cheating in any form is completely wrong, but it takes some of us a while to learn this. When I was a high school student i was proud of the fact that other students copied my paper, and i never prevented it, but i thought it dishonest if I copied theirs. This is arrogance rather than honesty I think now. Needless to say I evolved greatly over the subsequent decades, as you know who have read my very conservative posts here. Keep trying to evolve and have faith.

 

[Asteropaeus]

You can cry that cheating is wrong all you want, but when you have society that strongly rewards cheating, you are giving mixed signals to children and teenagers.

If you want to get ahead in society, be ready to cheat. If out of a matter of principle you won't, be prepared for a mundane life and zero respect.

 

[WWGD]

There is also the fact that often those in power cheat and do not get punished , e.g., the 2008 crisis. I guess many ask themselves: if those who supposedly set the example are cheating , and do not have to pay a price, why should I play fair? Do as I say not as I do does not inspire honest behavior.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

You can cry that cheating is wrong all you want, but when you have society that strongly rewards cheating, you are giving mixed signals to children and teenagers.

There may be many members of society doing the rewarding and sending the mixed signals, but each individual can make choices whether or not to participate in sending mixed signals by rewarding, allowing, or closing our eyes to cheating.

If a teacher is not cheating, is not rewarding cheating, and is doing due diligence to prevent cheating, they are not sending mixed signals.

 

[WWGD]

There may be many members of society doing the rewarding and sending the mixed signals, but each individual can make choices whether or not to participate in sending mixed signals by rewarding, allowing, or closing our eyes to cheating.

If a teacher is not cheating, is not rewarding cheating, and is doing due diligence to prevent cheating, they are not sending mixed signals.

I did not intend to justify it nor accept it, it is just that failures to set good examples also have a corrosive effect on society.

 

[Asteropaeus]

The main thing many children and teenagers think when they think about a teacher is: "Hopefully I will not end up having to be a teacher."
The effect of the example teachers set, good or bad, must be marginal.

I was mainly thinking about athletes(every pro athlete dopes and lies about it), politicians(all lie and cheat their way to the top), movie/music stars(completely cutthroat industry where stars are created and destroyed on a whim) and bankers/CEO/CFOs/investors(businesses are legal persons that have psychopath personality were we to evaluate these legal persons as real people and the people who can make this happen are selected to go to the top in the corporate world Businesses that aren't run this way are going to go broke/can't be competitive).

If I were a teacher and I suspect a student is cheating but no matter how hard I try, I can't get them, then props to them. They have the skills and attitude to make it far in society.
Those that see the cheating going on and cheat and fail, those are the worst and they have to be severaly punished.
Those that don't cheat, well good for them. But are they naïeve, stubburn to a fault or they just don't want it enough?

Cheating and getting caught cheating are two very different things. The only thing that is punished is getting caught cheating. College or university should prepare students for the real world. When the real world has no cheating, only then it is good practice to deliver students incapable of cheating.
Cheating and not getting caught is a precious skill you need to succeed if you want to excel in society.Is cheating 'wrong'? Very. I am proud to say I have never cheated or stolen anything. Will you believe me. No. Will you respect me for it. No.

 

[WWGD]

Cheating and getting caught cheating are two very different things. The only thing that is punished is getting caught cheating. College or university should prepare students for the real world. When the real world has no cheating, only then it is good practice to deliver students incapable of cheating.
Cheating and not getting caught is a precious skill you need to succeed if you want to excel in society.

.

I think universities should train students to make the world a better place, while preparing them professionally.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Is cheating 'wrong'? Very. I am proud to say I have never cheated or stolen anything. Will you believe me. No. Will you respect me for it. No.

A person's assertion of whether or not they have cheated in the distant past is not really testable.

However, a person's competence in collaborative endeavors is easily testable and provable. I have a lot of trust and respect for colleagues and collaborators whose work quality in the present gives evidence of a lot of hard work in the past gaining the skills currently in use. Even more, I appreciate colleagues who give present evidence of ongoing hard work and a refusal to cut corners.

I am more interested in the current abilities and character of colleagues and collaborators. But it is game over for any collaborator (including students) found to be exercising academic or scholarly dishonesty when working on a project with me.

 

[Asteropaeus]

Why do you equate quality with not cheating or cheating with being lazy?

If you want to win gold at the 100m sprint, you better be ready to take anabolic steroids. If you want to win a Nobel prize, you better be sure you steal from them before they steal from you.

In both cases you still work hard.

A person's assertion of whether or not they have cheated in the distant past is not really testable.

Which is almost always true.

And same for you when you can't believe me, I can't believe you. Would you really end a very lucrative collaboration with a top person in the field when you realize they cut corners or have info they shouldn't have?

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

Why do you equate quality with not cheating or cheating with being lazy?

If you want to win gold at the 100m sprint, you better be ready to take anabolic steroids. If you want to win a Nobel prize, you better be sure you steal from them before they steal from you.

In both cases you still work hard.

Right, Paul Erdos used drugs to write something like 1000 papers. (but even him could not compute R(5,5) or R(6,6), Ramsey numbers).

 

[Asteropaeus]

Some academics do use performance enhancing drugs.
http://www.nature.com/uidfinder/10.1038/4501157a

But I was more thinking along the lines of fitting the data to the model, and stealing from other groups, lying to competitors, publishing in such a way so your generate better statistics on your academic performance, acting in a deceptive way when you meet them on a congress, etc.

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

Why do you equate quality with not cheating or cheating with being lazy?

If you want to win gold at the 100m sprint, you better be ready to take anabolic steroids. If you want to win a Nobel prize, you better be sure you steal from them before they steal from you.

In both cases you still work hard.
Which is almost always true.

And same for you when you can't believe me, I can't believe you. Would you really end a very lucrative collaboration with a top person in the field when you realize they cut corners or have info they shouldn't have?

I'm not sure the Nobel prize winner will win from stealing work from someone else; I mean someone must have come first with the genuine original work; But to trust someone else to be true to their word is not something that can be said for humans.
But this is how it's done in a competitive enviornement.

 

[Asteropaeus]

You are right, many don't see it as cheating but see it as how the academic world works. Same is true in sports, politics, etc.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Lt. Col. Scott Williams and I authored this paper in response to a published article in a philosophy journal questioning whether cheating is wrong.

I don't think that was the point of Bouville's article at all. On the contrary, he accepts as a given that cheating is rule-breaking.

His article claims to examine the justification(s) for rules forbidding cheating, and he states: "Of particular interest is the discrepancy between the reasons invoked for sanctioning cheating and actual practice: if teachers acted logically and consistently based on these reasons, a number of things that are widely done and widely accepted would have to be given up."

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Why do you equate quality with not cheating or cheating with being lazy?

If you want to win gold at the 100m sprint, you better be ready to take anabolic steroids. If you want to win a Nobel prize, you better be sure you steal from them before they steal from you.

In both cases you still work hard.

The existence of counter examples, means that equating them is not valid, but in my experience teaching freshman Calculus, laziness and cheating are highly correlated. Students who work very hard are much less likely to need to cheat to earn their grade goals in intro Calc, Physics, and Chemistry, at least at the level of difficulty at the schools at which I have taught.

And same for you when you can't believe me, I can't believe you. Would you really end a very lucrative collaboration with a top person in the field when you realize they cut corners or have info they shouldn't have?

I've already left several positions and walked away from several lucrative opportunities when asked to cut corners.

 

[mathwonk]

it depends whose respect you are speaking of. if those you respect, respect cheaters and cheating, I question your peer group.

One of my favorite examples of cheating chickens coming home to roost is Richard Nixon. He cheated apparently all his life, and still rose to become president of the united states, but his cheating found him out at last, and he became one of the most disgraced men in America. Admittedly the battle goes on and there are still people who forget what he did or praise him in spite of it (and I too praise his successes), but that guy was pretty sad when he had to resign the presidency or be thrown out. I recall the day his secret tapes were made public, plotting to bribe people to conceal his misdeeds, and even conservative right wing supporters like Wm. R. Hearst Jr turned on him and said he sounded like a criminal thug and should go.

Honest people don't make the most money always, or rise to the highest office, but they do have the most respect where it counts, to many of us.

Here is a more timely example. Chris Christie is a very intelligent man who many people, even democrats, would have not minded seeing as a presidential candidate, until he was exposed in the scandal over shutting down a highway or bridge to score political points and screw his constituents. He has never recovered.

jimmy carter is another possible example. he was not a very successful president but his persistent integrity made him a respected international negotiator as ex president, and he enjoys enormous respect for that.

 

[jack476]

But if most or all of the athletes use some sort of enhancing drugs, then is it still called cheating?
Obviously if it's not allowed then yes.

I think this is actually a really important point.

If we disregard that many of the performance enhancers out there come with some pretty serious health risks (steroids can cause permanent hormone damage and psychotic episodes, adderall can fry your brain and give you heart attacks if you don't have ADHD, blood doping can cause embolism or sepsis if done improperly, to name just few), which I think is justified for sake of argument because in many sports athletes already put their health on the line just to play anyways. I also think it's justified to disregard the fact that it would give whoever was making those drugs a guaranteed market among sports athletes, since athletes and their managers already have to pay fantastically high costs for necessary things like training. The only objection that remains is that it's unfair.

I would argue that that lack of fairness comes from performance enhancers being an unknown quantity. If everything could be kept above board and the safety of the drugs could be guaranteed, then a certain amount of "biohacking" could become an interesting addition to team strategies. We already know that teams place a lot of value on how their players are trained, and some aspects of training can involve significant changes to the player's physiology. Maybe that could also lead to greater fairness by eliminating some constraints imposed by genetics.

If athletes could be expected to be fully up front about what enhancers they were using, if it could be guaranteed that those enhancers would be safe and not have any permanent effects, and all teams had equal access to the same product, then it could be fair.

 

[Orodruin]

If athletes could be expected to be fully up front about what enhancers they were using, if it could be guaranteed that those enhancers would be safe and not have any permanent effects, and all teams had equal access to the same product, then it could be fair.

This will never work as long as you could possibly gain an advantage by using enhancers which were unsafe. Whether or not everyone would have access to the same product could also be a matter of debate. As a comparison, not all formula 1 drivers have access to the same quality cars.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Are cheaters better off for having cheated? Why or why not?

It depends on what you mean by "better off." Many students who struggle mightily in their math and science courses in college are in that position because they passed without actually learning the math and science they should have in high school and earlier college courses.

In most cases, accountability and counter measures against cheating are significantly increased in college, so the odds are greater if one habitually cheats, one will get caught. It is very difficult to cheat ones way through an entire engineering or science major. Many students realize the likelihood of getting caught cheating, yet they are too far behind in their studies to catch up honestly.

More than half of students admitted to college with the expressed intent of majoring in science or engineering drop out or change their majors.

Cheating on MCAT, LSAT, GRE, and other exams for grad school, med school, law school, professional certifications is also very hard. Cheating in that calc, physics, or chemistry class is going to bite students when they are unable to realize their future dreams.

Success in later courses requires actually learning and retaining material from earlier courses, especially in math, science, and engineering. Cheating sets oneself up for failure downstream. Students are seldom better off for having cheated.

 

[mathwonk]

the question of whether cheaters are better off or not reminds me of freshman year philosophy. this ancient question is the main issue of Plato's Republic, in which as I recall he argues that even if a man succeeds in gaining enormous worldly success dishonestly and remains undetected, that still his "soul" is damaged. Maybe I'll go back and read that again. At least it reminds that this is a basic conundrum on which people have banged their heads for centuries.

thinking more about this, i have agonized for a long time on why we are so lucky that many people try to behave in an honest responsible way, and why they do so given that it seems to be poorly rewarded in our society. More specifically I have wondered how we can incentivize people to be honest. Actually I have worried that fewer and fewer people would behave honestly in future. But honesty seems to be persisting, at least in my small town, even if not in the political arena.

 

[WWGD]

Dr Courtney, I hope I don't throw the discussion of, but I think these issues are reasonably relevant to the issue you raise:
I am taking classes at the moment. Students are asked to agree to a code of ethics, but professors somehow are not. Why is this so, are professors intrinsically (more) honest (than students)? It bothers me that , e.g., I don't have access to exams I have written ; professors ask that exams be returned to them after one gets to see them once (right after they are graded). Now, this makes it easier for them to eventually reuse these exams, but it deprives students from being able to review the material, and it raises questions on intellectual ownership of the exams. Additionally, there are professors whose spoken English is atrocious, to the point that their lectures are barely understandable, yet they are allowed to teach. Is this right? Shouldn't they be required to speak in a way that is understandable (e.g., take accent-reduction and grammar classes)?
It is not hard to become cynical when one notices that not only are the ethical codes applied in a selective way, but also to see that the codes that one is expected to abide by are often designed to help those in power remain there, and that their actions will not be subjected to the same level of scrutiny as those of the majority . And you know that your comments to this regard are not likely to be well received.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Are you arguing that speaking English with a thick accent is somehow unethical?

 

[WWGD]

Are you arguing that speaking English with a thick accent is somehow unethical?

No, that teaching in an accent that makes it harder for students to understand is. I can't blame someone for coming from somewhere else, but if you are going to teach, you should be able to speak in a way that is understandable. And schools should enforce this but they don't.

 

[Orodruin]

No, that teaching in an accent that makes it harder for students to understand is. I can't blame someone for coming from somewhere else, but if you are going to teach, you should be able to speak in a way that is understandable. And schools should enforce this but they don't.

So how is this relevant for this topic?

 

[WWGD]

So how is this relevant for this topic?

It sort of turns OPs issue upside down. The focus on ethical behavior seems to be on students and those at the bottom of the power rung. Just to argue that this is not accurate as a depiction of what actually goes on.

 

[Vanadium 50]

And schools should enforce this but they don't.

When you selected your school did you consider this factor?

I still don't understand why this is an ethical issue. Surely you are not making the argument that because your school hires teachers who have accents than it's OK to cheat?

 

[WWGD]

When you selected your school did you consider this factor?

I still don't understand why this is an ethical issue. Surely you are not making the argument that because your school hires teachers who have accents than it's OK to cheat?

No, I am not arguing that this makes it OK to cheat. Why would a school allow this, or hire teachers , charge for classes one must take for poor-quality lectures? There is often little choice of who you take classes with, as some classes are taught only occasionally and are required to graduate. And the situation is pervasive nowadays, it is difficult to avoid in most schools. You don't believe a lecturer's speaking should be understandable? If you are paying, shouldn't you be able to expect to get something of reasonable quality in return? If I had the option of taking classes it would be a different story, but I often don't , if I want to graduate in a reasonable amount of time.
Basically, I am being sold a product of questionable quality and I have little if any option to ask for something better. I don't know how to make a research for this happening in a given school.

 

[Asteropaeus]

They hire excellent researchers, then make them teach.

If you can review their exam, then you can review it. If they allow each year 1000 students to take the exam home, then it will surely end up online.
If you have to make up a new exam from scratch, when each course may have an unique examination 4 to 6 times a year, then that is bad for the consistency of the exam. It is not superfluous to make a good exam. It is a skill in itself, and one researchers turned teachers also do not posses.

Cycling a set of good exams while you keep them undisclosed, that is good and ethical practice. If your examination methods invite cheating, then that is not ethical either as there are always people who would have stayed honest otherwise, you seduce to cheat through methods you know are bad.
Every person will be unethical if you encourage it enough.

 

[WWGD]

They hire excellent researchers, then make them teach.

If you can review their exam, then you can review it. If they allow each year 1000 students to take the exam home, then it will surely end up online.
If you have to make up a new exam from scratch, when each course may have an unique examination 4 to 6 times a year, then that is bad for the consistency of the exam. It is not superfluous to make a good exam. It is a skill in itself, and one researchers turned teachers also do not posses.

Cycling a set of good exams while you keep them undisclosed, that is good and ethical practice. If your examination methods invite cheating, then that is not ethical either as there are always people who would have stayed honest otherwise, you seduce to cheat through methods you know are bad.
Every person will be unethical if you encourage it enough.

Well it does seem kind of problematic to hire teachers based mostly on non-teaching skills.
And I don't understand " If you can review their exam..." And then maybe if you hire people skilled in teaching instead of just researchers, both sides benefit. You can always change the wording and approach slightly. BTW I did teach for a while, at an adjunct level.

 

[Asteropaeus]

I meant 'you can review the exam' meaning 'you can review the exam, just not take it home with you (and put a copy online)'.

Hiring skilled teachers to teach and skilled researchers to research, yes that's true. But you also do not want to split them up too much.
Maybe if researchers actually had more time not to write research proposals that have an acceptance of near zero. Maybe this is a European thing. But I often hear people complain that when money is available, you have to turn in a large proposal. So like a hundred groups turn one in, but only one gets the money.

What is the cost of that and how ethical is it as a society to use researchers in such a way?

Maybe then researchers actually have time, besides the cutthroat competition to publish or perish, to honestly invest in themselves, come out of their comfort zone, to become good lecturers and tutors.
It is not that easy and students become harder to motivate/inspire/manage/keep up with, not easier.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Dr Courtney, I hope I don't throw the discussion of, but I think these issues are reasonably relevant to the issue you raise:
I am taking classes at the moment. Students are asked to agree to a code of ethics, but professors somehow are not. Why is this so, are professors intrinsically (more) honest (than students)?

I'm not sure where you got this idea, but it is absolutely wrong in my experience. In every faculty job I had, there was a clause in the contract obligating faculty to abide by the institution's faculty handbook, and the faculty handbook usually laid out the ethical requirements very clearly, among other things. At the Air Force Academy, both faculty and cadets (students) were bound by the Honor Code:

"We will not lie, steal, or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does."

There was excellent training regarding what this means and how to live up to the institution's ethical expectations.

Further, every time a faculty member submits a paper to a journal for publication, they must certify that all the ethical requirements of the journal have been met.

It bothers me that , e.g., I don't have access to exams I have written ; professors ask that exams be returned to them after one gets to see them once (right after they are graded). Now, this makes it easier for them to eventually reuse these exams, but it deprives students from being able to review the material, and it raises questions on intellectual ownership of the exams.

As a prof, I always let students keep their exams unless there was a department requirement to the contrary, in which case, students were allowed to walk over to the copy machine and make a copy to keep. The students I work with are allowed the same by their other teachers, or they can simply take pictures in class while the exams are in their possession.

Additionally, there are professors whose spoken English is atrocious, to the point that their lectures are barely understandable, yet they are allowed to teach. Is this right? Shouldn't they be required to speak in a way that is understandable (e.g., take accent-reduction and grammar classes)?

I have heard of this, but never experienced it personally, and it was not allowed to occur at the institutions where I have served on the faculty. At many institutions, there are official procedures for students to complain about this and complaints are acted on quickly.

It is not hard to become cynical when one notices that not only are the ethical codes applied in a selective way, but also to see that the codes that one is expected to abide by are often designed to help those in power remain there, and that their actions will not be subjected to the same level of scrutiny as those of the majority . And you know that your comments to this regard are not likely to be well received.

Faculty are subjected to more scrutiny than you will ever know. The level of accountability both for ethical issues and quality teaching is very high usually, except in cases where faculty avoid scrutiny by liberally gifting good grades.