Writer@Large

Absolutely. My wife had a student plagiarize last semester; the student failed her class, and was put on permanent academic probation by the university. The student appealed the decision with the Academic Senate, and the first thing they told her was: "You got off light!" One of the Senate members later wondered why my wife didn't appeal the lightness of the punishment, implying that, if she asked it, they would support a more severe punishment.

--W@L

Rusting Car Bumper

moot... nevermind.

livius drusus

I still haven't seen a reply to the issue of how Sakpo's forwarded links outed Blue_metal's infidel status and gave the deans of Agnes Scott, which, after all, is a xian school albeit a liberal one, the opportunity to leaf through any and all other posts with full knowledge of her identity.

Whether the exposure of her plagiarism denials was ethically sound, the exposure of her handle and religious status was not, imo. Sakpo could have chosen to copy and paste the threads removing references to IIDB and exing out her username. The information would have remained intact and the ancillary exposure problem nullified.

beyelzu

Arguments about trust are interesting. Personally, I feel that if someone violates my trust by lying to me, then i am nt bound to honor whatever trust they may have felt.


I had not considered however the implications of this being a nontheist discussiong board. I also did not think about how bm's religious persuasion, or lack there of might have been brought to the attention of the dean.

But this does not change my mind about my initial assertion.

Rusting Car Bumper

So because "it needs to be stamped out" than any and all actions thwarting it are OK? They do not require a consideration of consequences?

There is something being lost int he noise of the discussion. That something is that when someone responds toa moral wrong that someone ALSO is obligated to examine the moral consequences of his/her actions. They simply don't get a free ticket to do anything.

I don't think people think deeply about the moral implications of their actions in regards to responding to ethical errors. Often the response is "That person did a wrong so anything I do to 'correct' or 'expose' the wrong is A-OK." I do not believe that is the case. Any action requires an examination fo obligations and consequences.

It's a very easy error to make. "Oh they did wrong and therefore I'll do X" where they either never bother to consider if X is morally appropriate or they don't think deeply enough about what is the BEST action.

The best outcome is not simply to see Blue_Metal punished. The best outcome is that Blue_Metal understands the wrong committed and then gains a deeper understand that she shouldn't engage in such actions. Thus, the preferable action would have been to confront Blue_Metal privately and discuss this as this would be more likely to result in the better outcome.

And thats not what the thread was supposed to be about.

DC

Rusting Car Bumper

Good point. :notworthy:

Yet another consequence that could have been predicted ahead of time and another reason why responses to moral wrongs are not, in and of themselves, without ethical consequences.

DC

99Percent

Well, that just goes on to show the absurdity of consensual crimes such as homosexuality. If I went ahead and reported such a "crime" the police will probably just laugh at me. However plagiarism is not a consensual crime.
Underage drinking is also a consensual victimless crime. But petty vandalism is not.

I suggest you read Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do : The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country. It might also give you a good idea of what I mean by objective morality, since I believe that crime and punishment should be based only on objective morality, not on subjective or "intersubjective" morality of which consensual crimes are based on.

99Percent

Funny how you justify your theft as "borrowing", because you were young and stupid and no cell phones blah, blah, blah. The truth and reality is that you did take the tractor without the owners permision.

The consequences of your action even though they were null, are irrelevant. It was still wrong. This is what I mean when I say that consequencialism has nothing to do with ethical decisions.

Bree

It seems that this 'discussion' has moved away from what may and may not be ethical. A good number of participants have decided that this thread is to be used for "let's shit on Sakpo for a personal decision he has made."

Clutch

livius, as always, you make excellent points.

Let me offer some countervailing considerations, though. There is, for example, the matter of all the information in question being posted here, in (more or less) public. Calling the Dean's attention to what Blue_Metal revealed has at least the potential to be damaging beyond the plagiarism case -- of that you have convinced me. But what prior guarantee did BM have, that someone from her college's Admin, or her prof, or one of her classmates, was not already a member here? That is, what serious claim could she make to an expectation of privacy, given the number of registered pseudonymous II members alone, not to mention anonymous surfers and lurkers, and given the identifying information she produced?

There's a difference between photocopying pages from someone's hidden private diary to send them to the Dean, and phoning the Dean on your cellphone to say, "Hey, you're being had -- have a listen to this!", when BM is practicing for her con job, loudly, in public. The current situation falls somewhere between these hypotheticals, to my mind. Again, my opposition to forwarding the links springs from a precautionary "when in doubt" sort of preference for privacy, and not from any very clear sense that BM had a reasonable presupposition of privacy that was violated.

But I'm open to being convinced. Some morally relevant facts that I'd first overlooked have already been pointed out; there might be more of them too.