Check out this site that makes customs papers for students for a fee.
Then, most critically, read the "Terms of Service" aggreement at the bottom of the page. Here's a small sample:
"You agree that the paper produced by samedayresearch represents
an original work that is intended for further research and can only be used as
a model for your own writing efforts. You are encouraged to use our custom papers
with proper citation. We do not endorse nor tolerate any form of whole or partial
plagiarism and will not engage in any activity that will facilitate cheating. "
So, the questions here are multiple. First, and I suppose what I'm most interested in is this curious philosophical question:
When someone does something clearly immoral, yet covers their own culpability (at least legally, as this website does in the agreement), does that in any way affect their culpability (or better, their blameworthiness or guilt in our eyes)? I'm tempted, of course, to say yes -- that it, in fact, adds to their moral guilt (by adding lying to their already unethical behavoir). Yet, curiously, in cases such as this the claim made in the agreement could theoretically be POSSIBLE and so, assuming that the guilty party would never admit to what we all think (know) they are actually doing, does this mere entrance of a possiblity of innocence in any way lessen the total blameworthiness (recognizing certain epistemic limitations that we will have in nearly ALL moral blameworthiness cases -- i.e. we never know with complete certainty people's intentions, etc., in any case whatsoever). We seem to do this in some other moral cases, do we not? If someone seems to pretty clearly be guilty of some immoral act to us, but then we find out that there is some (however unlikely) possible chance of them being innocent -- it seems to (or can, in some cases anyway) lessen our overall assesment of their blameworthiness. Yet, if the person IS lying in their cover (and we think most likely they are) then it seems that it should increase our assesment of their guilt. But, again, granting that we ultimately cannot know, we often seem to be slightly (if however slightly) more lenient on the guilty party simply in lieu of the possibility that they may be innocent (or at least less guilty). If all this is correct then it gives us this curious paradox: By doing something that in fact actually adds to your moral guilt (in reality) you can occasionally lessen your moral guilt (in appearance). ... but then again, maybe there's no paradox here at all. One could say, I suppose, that's just what lying is.
From a legal perspective there are many other interesting questions here. In something as obvious as this (this site is CLEARLY intended for students to buy papers to use as their own), how can the site merely claiming that that is not what they are doing somehow free them of culpability?
Curious stuff to think about.
Any thoughts?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
It is important to remember that what is morally wrong is not always illegal. In this case, I claim that what the company is doing is morally wrong, however, their disclaimer prevents them from being held legally responsible. In addition, I do not feel that this statement makes them "more morally wrong." Their intentions are already wrong, so therefore "the second bullet never kills anyone."
First I would like to say that what the site does is wrong, as long as, submitting work you did not create is wrong. This of course, is wrong because plagiarism is defined as taking another's work and submitting it as your own.
While the site puts out the disclaimer that buying a custom paper does not mean you can turn it in directly, I agree with BJR that just because something isn't illegal, does not mean it is moral.
The company might be better off just selling collected bunches of research to people instead of writing the whole paper. That way the customer can use the research, cite it, and have the paper done, while the company makes profit. But not every college student is honest so the paper sites will have plenty of business until someone can expose the immoral relationship with evidence.
Post a Comment