Why is cheating wrong?

TL;DR

This paper critically examines common arguments against cheating in education, questioning their validity and exploring the ethical and practical complexities involved in academic dishonesty.

Contribution

It offers a nuanced analysis of the moral and practical reasons for and against punishing cheating, challenging simplistic justifications.

Findings

Unfair advantage arguments are based on a competitive view of education.

Punishing cheating does not necessarily promote learning.

Widely accepted unfair advantages complicate ethical judgments.

Abstract

Since cheating is obviously wrong, arguments against it (it provides an unfair advantage, it hinders learning) need only be mentioned in passing. But the argument of unfair advantage absurdly takes education to be essentially a race of all against all; moreover, it ignores that many cases of unfair (dis)advantages are widely accepted. That cheating can hamper learning does not mean that punishing cheating will necessarily favor learning, so that this argument does not obviously justify sanctioning cheaters. -- Keywords: academic dishonesty, academic integrity, academic misconduct, education, ethics, homework, plagiarism