Ethics concepts and applications

¶ … Ethics and Plagiarism

A Short Analysis

The subject of ethics is one that is becoming less and less important in society today. As the world expands to encompass corrupt politicians, sketchy businessmen and lying religious figures as part of an unmistakable whole, linked by technology, one must, inevitably ask, where ethics is discussed or even recognized anymore. Despite the misconception that it is always a distant 'other' committing ethically questionable actions, this subject should be discussed closer to home. The remainder of this paper will thus focus on ethics as it relates to education, writing, and plagiarism.

The first topic to cover is an examination of what being ethical really is. According to one definition, "Being ethical is […] not the same as following the law. The law often incorporates ethical standards to which most citizens subscribe. But laws, like feelings, can deviate from what is ethical. Our own pre-Civil War slavery laws and the old apartheid laws of present-day South Africa are grotesquely obvious examples of laws that deviate from what is ethical."

Ethics thus delineates actions that are testing moral fiber, and testing it successfully, with positive results.

By the afore-mentioned definition, then, one must consider the question of whether purchasing a paper from a website and submitting it as one's own work is ethical. In order to answer this first question, an individual must be aware of the definition. If so, the answer would surely be that this is completely unethical. Yet it would depend upon the individual to recognize such a decision. The fact that there are now millions of websites either providing this service, or helping professors check for plagiarism or for non-original works should not change this answer.

Buying a paper, and utilizing it as one's own when it was clearly throughout out and written by someone else, is, beyond a doubt unethical.

Some argue, especially given the repeated unethical definitions above, that a website that provides papers, be they term papers, short assignments or otherwise, for students to see and utilize as models truly helps students write well and may lead to professors creating more challenging assignments. Though the people who own the websites providing these models are doing something good, as they are trying to further education by showing well-written examples on sometimes complex topics, there is no way to monitor what a student does with a purchased paper. Thus, the question of ethics should not focus on the people supplying these papers, but rather on the students purchasing them and the way in which they utilize them.