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“The possession of knowledge carries an ethical responsibility.”
I read an example from a previous debate on TED. There is a student (A) in an exam that knows and understands the questions and answers them correctly. Student (B) asks the student for, "help" or the “answers” because he doesn’t know or understand it himself. Does Student (A) have any sort of ethical responsibilities to carry on this information to student (B)?
How is "cheating" on a test any less moral than revising up for a test? How is the act of studying and spending time to discover by using the internet, books, debates, teachers before a test any more "right" than gaining the information from a friend during a test?
In my opinion, a test shows the skill in how well you can obtain reliable and accurate facts and knowledge in a strict time frame, and that it shouldn't matter where it came from. In the end, ethics does not matter and there is no 'right' or 'wrong' answer to this. But in this scenario, student (A) risks punishment for supplying information, naturally it is not in his interests to do so, but if he wished to do so, and felt like he had to or wanted to, then wouldn’t it ultimately be his responsibility.
Maybe we can elaborate on this?
Alexander Schmidt
edward long 100+
Farokh Shahabi Nezhad 10+
As someone once said: any question that can be answered by an internet search, is not a good question.
Instead of examine students on what they know, we should test their skills and works on that field. This act will stop cheating on a great level, because if anyone just learn what they want, they will try hard for it, because they like that or need that. and also in group projects and group tests, even cheating is kind of learning.
Gail . 50+
You look at the individual, but I suggest that you cannot look at the individual without also taking his community/society into consideration - in order to address the question you ask.
We live in a complex society. We depend on others to do things for us that we cannot or prefer not to do. That's part of the social compact. Employers hire people based on their trust that a degree or diploma carries certain assurances of competence and understanding. One who is good at extracting information from others without understanding how parts come together would be a good used car sales person but a dangerous legislator or political leader or even business executive. That person, through seeing dots rather than patterns of dots, will lead those who depend on him down some very dangerous roads. The cheater who gets a job because of cheating, cheats everyone he comes in contact with. Every vote he casts is a threat to us all. Every decision made carries too much risk.
Education is not about getting a good grade or getting into a good university. It SHOULD be about education. If it isn't, it is an opportunity wasted, and you have ultimately cheated yourself out of that opportunity while you bring everyone else down with you.
Feyisayo Anjorin 50+
There is time to seek knowledge and there is time to be tested. Now, during a test individual ability is being tested (except if it is a group work). What is being tested is an individual student's understanding or grasp of the things that has been taught. The answers should come from the learner, not from a 'helper'.
We should strive to ensure that we do not become a society that wriggles itself out of all effort towards law and order by a tendency towards sophism.