brighid

ImGod,

I agree and thank you for expouding on a point I should have made much clearer. I feel you have made some excellent points.



I don't think we would feel the same, or we should necessarily. I feel it is very important to weigh ones motivations and in this case whether or not an individual is remoreseful. Those are important parts of the equation when we weigh whether or not we should remain silent, forgive, or seek the fullest extent of punishment allowable.

If BM had come here and provided her personal information and did as you said, showed genuine remorse and provided credible evidence that this was a "freshmen" sort of mistake, and then set about to own up to the mistake, accept any punishment, and demonstrated she understood the severity, etc. I feel thing would have been concluded much differently.

I think we all realize that everyone has made mistakes, some that we look back on and realize they were very stupid or naive and we were very lucky to either avoid the consequences all together, or those consequences were mitigated in some way.

But in this case BM deliberately decieved the members of ii in order to circumvent some of the possible consequences of her plaigirism, and she continued to be manipulative, deceptive, passive-aggressive and demonstrated that she was unwilling to admit she lied, etc. Does she then deserve the consideration one would give a young person who made a terrible mistake who is already learning a significant lesson and is not demonstrating the sorts of character issues that would lead one to believe that this won't happen again?

I personally don't feel she did present any mitigating evidence that she didn't a) deliberately plaigirize (regardless of her sickness, et. al) b) made rather poor and transparent excuses in order to deflect responsibility to others c) out right lied on more then one occassion ... etc. Her actions dictate that she NEEDS and deserves the fullest punishment available because without it she is demonstrates characteristics that allow one to reasonably conclude that this will happen again in her academic future. Will it happen again? No one can say for sure, but we can go with what we know about human behavior and suggest some likely and unlikely probabilities based on that knowledge.

I cannot speak for Sakpo, but I can say that I would be MUCH more inclined or even feel absolutely compelled to provide relevant information to the proper authorities if I felt a person didn't REALLY commit a stupid mistake, but KNEW to a greater degree what they were doing was wrong, and then pulled every manipulative trick in the book attempting to avoid the consequences of their actions. Again, there would no conversation but if not for BM's long litany of rather dubious actions.

I do not think that people who make genuine mistakes, are remorseful and go about making ammends should be absolved of their responsibilities, but I do believe any punishment given should consider those facts and impose a lighter sentence. After all, ignorance is no excuse. We must place a higher value on honest action in the face of error and we must impose a much lower value on dishonest action in the face of error. If not we send the message that dishonesty, etc. is a valued path and in many cases an easier path. We reinforce the idea that it's OK to cheat, plairgirize, etc. We should not want to send that message!

Brighid

brighid

Digital Chicken,

In this specific case, what would be the appropriate action to insure BM DID learn to accept personal responsibility? Thus far, with all the supportive, honest and critical advice she has been given in ... is it 3 threads now ... she still fails to understand that principle. Reading through her posts before and after the action in question I have no confidence that she has any intention of learning the appropriate lessons about plaigirism and it's consequences.

I am also not convinced, in this case, that the motivation (which we don't know for sure at this point) being punitive isn't a good choice. Some people refuse to learn when provided the easier path and some still refusse to learn from their actions when they are provided the fullest extent of the allowable punishment. How do we teach a person, unwilling to accept full responsibility, engaging in mental gymnastics in order to concot some plausible deniability, who continued to deceive herself and members at ii in order to possibly create an alibi in order to avoid the known consequences?

I don't think expelling BM from college should be the 1st course of punishment. Even in her situation I personally feel suspension and failure are adequate. I do agree with Gurdur that her reputation shouldn't be permanently ruined by this incident, provided she doesn't do this again. I think people should be offered the chance to redeem themselves, but 1st they must accept personal responsibility for their actions.

Did Sakpo's information actually harm BM beyond what was foreseeable without that specific information? Again, I don't think we have enough evidence and from what we do have it appears the Dean did not give it much credence, but seemed to have ample evidence of her plaigirism without it. IF it had caused her greater consequence would it be wrong, being that he was only the messenger? I would say no.

Did I by chance miss the thread or post in one of the many threads where she actually admitted her atheism? I wasn't clear on that point or how Sakpo's information specifically demonstrated that. Perhaps someone can point me in the right direction. If posting her at ii automatically makes one an atheist ... well, there might be some theists who would be disturbed But I might be getting ahead of myself.

Brighid

livius drusus

The responsibility of determining punishment and the extent to which Blue should be a cautionary tale is solely in the hands of the administration of Agnes Scott College. Sakpo's decision to forward links was not publically stated until BM made an issue of it, so it can hardly be said that he did it to send a message on honesty and personal responsibility.

Sakpo's ethical obligations are not tethered to the scale of Blue's dishonesty. Whether she copped to her misdeads in a stalwart fashion or whined her way out of them like an infant, her behavior cannot not be the sole determinant of Sakpo's actions. There are ethical considerations which are entirely independent of the specifics of her cravenness. Particularly, as I mentioned above, his responsibility to protect the anonymity of potentially closeted atheist SL&S posters.

Rusting Car Bumper

I am speaking to general principles and less toward the specifics.

We have the hindsight of all sorts of stuff now. Why I started the thread was to a pose questions about specific ethical questions of getting involved when one has limited information.

Specifically see the OP of the thread.

DC

Rusting Car Bumper

I have no idea what this means. What does "half-baked Libertarian crap" (which is a political philosophy that I don't ascribe to) have to do with ethical reasoning that has nothing to do with politics?

DC

livius drusus

Her first thread here was a question about Agnes Scott's attitude towards religion and how to handle her own lack of it. She also mentioned in that thread that her mother "firmly believes" she is a xian.

In other threads (see here for example), she displays a negative attitude towards xianity common on these boards, but I imagine not so endearing to her mother or the deans of Agnes Scott. And on another note entirely, her request for advice on vibrator purchases is surely not something she wanted exposed to school administrators or her mother, of all people.

Sending links gave the dean the opportunity to easily view all Blue_Metal's posts with a few mouse clicks. Since there are fewer than 150 of them, leafing through them is no hardship whatsoever.

Rusting Car Bumper

Uh no. In fact any fair reading of my take on the facts plainly shows that's not the case.

Pardon me, but since you seem a bit disrespectful and it seems that you can't be bothered to read my posts I'll bow out at this time.

DC

Writer@Large

Wow, this thread is growing like a weed ...

Point taken.

Actually, I think it's of great relevance. I'm sort of an activist when it comes to plagiarism (actually, the preferred term is 'academic dishonesty").

I don't think we're in disagreement here.

Of course an action one percieves is bad can, by its very act, justify a response. If you see an old woman getting the shit kicked out of her in the street, you're likely to respond.

Not de facto justified, no. But it's just as wrong to say "X is never justified in response to Y" as it is to say 'X is always justified in response to Y." If one can justify the consequences, or can dismiss them as less than the benefits of the action (a situation of positives outweighing the negatives, in other words), and one is willing to live with the moral judgements of it, X certainly can be justified in response to Y.

I'm not going to throw out the old "thats your morality" argument, because I thnk that morality in a society is at least partially dictated by the group, not the individual, as in "the group identifies plagiarism as a dishonest and immoral act, and subject to punishment." That is how society functions, with a certain standard and commonality of what is acceptable and unacceptable.

"Best outcome" is a subjective term, however. If action X, in the mind of the actor, leads to their percieved "best outcome" in response to Y ...

Not without regard; simply percieving those ethical consequences as less important, or as an acceptable consequence to the greater good achieved through the act.

And you're right--you did choose a loaded example, and one not worth examining on such simplistic and hypothetical levels.

--W@L

brighid

DC,

I apologize. I do realize this is what you were looking for in the original OP.

I think there is a lot of value to be had in hashing through all the very interesting ethical aspects that have come up regarding the specific situation between Sakpo, BM and this community. I think that this sort of situation is difficult to generalize about because the spectrum of circumstances is so diverse and not all things are interchangable. I have found it personally difficult to keep my thoughts broad in context, and I am probably muddled because of the discussion mainly revolving on a specific issue.

You are the originator of this thread and I realize your intent. Do you feel it is appropriate to continue to discuss this specific situation within THIS thread? If not, would you like me, as a moderator or another moderator, to take some action in order to rectify some of the muddled discussion - either open another thread, close this one, or something else? I think the discussion has remained appropriate and there haven't been any rule violations I can think of ... but I would really like to investigate this specific question a bit further.

Thank you,
Brighid

Writer@Large

I have to agree. My personal take on morality is so situational that I honestly have troble talking about it in the abstract. Maybe it's too many years spent reading too much bad (and good) fiction, but no situation has a concrete "this is how you should or shouldn't act" response to it.

--W@L