Stephen+S+Teach+Students+Ethics

Know

When asked how much cheating there is, I can only say “a lot." Not very satisfying, I know, but we’re talking about a behavior that by nature goes hidden, under-reported, and lacks an exact definition.

Want to know

A well-taught course can defeat the presumption that normative ethics is dead and relativism reigns (especially in college towns).

Learn A philosophical grounding for goodness, honesty and integrity helps students to see the value of maintaining ethical standards or rising to them.

Cornell and many other leading universities don’t require freshmen to take an ethics course.

An ethics course can and should be life changing as it helps students discover new and fascinating intellectual incentives to do the right thing.

More broadly, professors tend to fail to be teachers in the fullest sense of the word.

A pedagogical shift that may not optimize learning, but certainly lowers the chances of plagiarism and the ensuing hours of work it takes to prosecute students.

But we’re not going to beat this cheating thing with light sentences and a failure to engage students on morals. Sadly, though, this is what at least one leading college is doing, and probably more. In this recent graduate’s opinion, the time has come to toughen up.

This weakness in the face of cheating probably has something to do with the 1960s and certainly underlies the decision to keep ethics courses optional and to merely slap at the wrists of students who break the rules.