To Cheat or not to Cheat…where are the answers?!

Ethical. You hear people talk about it, you hear people use it in everyday language, you hear people lecture you about it, but what does it really mean? To get a somewhat of a  formal and informal answer, I decided to look up the definition from two sources, dictionary.com and urbandictionary. com. According to dictionary.com, ethics are “a system of moral principles; moral principles as that of an individual”. Then, I looked up individual from the same website which defined an individual as “a single human being, as distinguished from a group”. So what this definition tells us about ethics is what a person, in their views, thinks is right or wrong. The definition from urbandictionary.com says that ethics is “morality with loopholes”. Not everyone share the same morals, if any at all. So what you think is right versus wrong may not be what I think is right or wrong. But when we talk to people about doing the ethical deed, we do not necessarily guide a person to the wrong path, rather when we speak of morals and ethics, we talk about what we should do, even if that means sacrificing something that will help you accomplish a goal for yourself.

So when the topic of whether someone should cheat on an exam versus fail and exam is a very challenging question towards morality. You might think it would be best to not cheat on an exam and fail without question, or you might have that slight chance of barely passing, if not acing it with flying colors knowing you cheated. It all depends on the person and what you feel the right thing to do would be. It does not necessarily make someone unethical if you  decide to cheat, since the word is clearly defined by what you feel would be the right thing to do, not defined by the general “good” of something. I feel when someone often sees you with morals that clash with their own, they take it upon themselves as a way to correct that and influence you to share their views. My simple statement would be to be straight to the point and tell someone to not do something because it is just plain and simple wrong.

I, however, remain polarized on the subject of whether to cheat on a subject or not because everyone has a reason as to why they do the things they do and ultimately, everyone tries to reach for the top.