I.
Last week I was very curious about the number of people who thought that cheating was ethical. I wondered if there were any surveys or statistics to prove it? After much research, the answers have been found!
According to a Washington Post survey, 64% of high school students said they cheated, and 93% of these said they were satisfied with their personal ethics and character. A Rutgers University found in a survey of 4,500 high school students that more than half of students admitted to plagiarizing materials from the internet, 74% admitted they had cheated on exams or tests, and 97 % admitted to cheating on homework. In surveying faculty, they found almost 90 percent reported being aware of cheating occurring in their classroom, but almost one-third said they did nothing about it.
II.
This week in Ethic's Class, we discussed a variety of topics surrounding the "greater good". We spent some time studying the ethics of compassion, and we saw two different view points on the subject. Also, we learned about the "Prisoner's Dilemma" and played a game to showcase how events would turn out. All in all, it was a very interesting week.
For the majority of the week, we talked about compassion. Compassion can be defined as a deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it. We viewed two different TED talks this week discussing this, and I thought they were both very interesting. One idea that was proposed was a "Charter for Compassion". The Charter has very good intentions; it tries to achieve peace for all people and between all religions. I do feel that it is a little unrealistic. It would be very near impossible to get all people to sign it and agree to admit wrong and promise to obey the Charter. Also we talked about the evolution of compassion by watching another TED talk. Personally, I thought that this talk was very hard to absorb and understand. I do think that the views presented were different and interesting, but I agree more with the Charter than the science.
At the end of this week we also dicussed the "Prisoner's Dilemma", but we didn't really get a chance to discuss it thoroughly. I thought it was very interesting how everyone answered their questions. In real life, if I was being questioned by police, I would definitely cooperate with them, probably because I would be scared out of my mind. In the game though, I decided to stay true to my partner in crime. In the end, we actually had the highest scores out of the class! By sacrificing some points to allow both to prosper, we both ended up winning in the end. I think that this situation would not work out in real life, because when criminal's lives are in danger, they do not think of others before themselves.
III.
After talking about the "Prisoner's Dilemma" , I am very curious about the results. When it was studied, what were the results? Did people choose the same way that my group did?
Please stay tuned for the answer next week!
Sources
Boenisch, D. (2008, December 1). Is cheating ethical?. Retrieved from http://schoolhousetalk.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/is-cheating-ethical/
Clowes, G. (2004, February 1). Survey results: student attitudes towards cheating. Retrieved from http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/14378/Survey_Results_Student_Attitudes_Towards_Cheating.html
Compassion. (2011, January 31). Retrieved from http://www.answers.com/topic/compassion
King, M. (2010, October 5). Teachers, tests and cheating: where do we draw the line?. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200907/r399704_3044132.jpg
The charter for compassion. (2011, January 31). Retrieved from http://signsofthelastdays.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/The-Charter-For-Compassion-One-World-Religion1.jpg
The structure of social networks. (2011, January 31). Retrieved from http://epress.anu.edu.au/cs/chap5Newth-final-10.jpg
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