University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB)

Assignment on

“Cheating in exam and ethics behind it”

(Containing 1600 words here)

Submitted To:
Shamima Akter Suma
Lecturer
General Education Program (GED)

Submitted By:
Kazi Mubasshira Ahmed
Student ID: 212011026
Course: UCC1202-05-PD110 (Ethics)

Date of Submission:

30-June-2024
People of all ages intend to cheat (being unethical) at some point in their lives. However, there are
exceptions too, who inherit the ethics at a very young age and certainly prefer not to cheat every
time (remaining ethical at any cost, which is their comfort zone).

Ethics?
Is all about what we consider right/wrong. For example, some students may find cheating to be a
wrong practice, others may find it to be a right practice for the time being.

Why exam is taken and why is it necessary? To evaluate a student’s current state. It is important
from the academic view of the mentors to seek for real knowledge, talent, rate of intelligence,
creativity, and skills of a student. Performing exam will also help a student know of their own
strong abilities from the very childhood. If there were no exams, no/very few students would pay
attention to their studies as they would lose motivation to study, following success rate would go
down of a country. Exams aid in nurturing skills like time sense (finishing exam on time),
punctuality, learning skills, applying common sense, helping in brain exercise, how to express our
thoughts & opinions and so on. Competition is also created, leading to growing more efficiency.
However, too much competition can lead to an adverse effect too, like depression, cheating in
exam, etc.).

Cheating in an exam: An unauthorized activity.

Types: plagiarism, academic misconduct, fabrication, cheating from friend's exam paper in exam
hall / via smartphone, changing the answers, misrepresentation, collusion, impersonator,
unauthorized test aids, using prohibited resources.

Pros and cons of cheating in exam:

Pros:
1. Cheating helps students avoiding comparison and intense judgmental remarks from parents and
others which would occur if he/she would fail the exam.
2. Gaining short-term pleasure and not thinking of others (valuing own pleasure).
3. Avoiding failure by improving grades for the time being.
4. Can overcome the exam with less effort.
5. According to Hedonism, the hedonist must put everything towards pleasure, so it is right to
cheat.

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Cons:
1. Injustice to other good students.
2.. Less improvement in knowledge, skills and ethics.
3. Long-term academic consequences.
4. Long term career goal consequences, as the person pursued in life with very little knowledge.
5. Loss of self-respect, feeling guilty leading to depression, ignoring their positive qualities, not
believing in themselves and judging themselves to be inferior, etc.
6. Hurting others feelings (parents) if it is known.
7. Difficulties in making connection with wise friends.
8. Can be stressful during exam period as there is a fear of being caught. Life is over forever if a
student get caught

Ethics and cheating in exam:

Deontological ethics by Immanuel Kant and cheating in exam: Deontology is an ethical theory that
uses rules to distinguish between right from wrong. Kant believed that ethical actions follow
universal moral laws, such as don't cheat, don't lie, don't steal. Deontology is simple to apply.
It just requires people just follow the rules and perform duty for the sake of duty, omitting
consequences of happiness, pain, gain. Respecting this, as students our only aim in life should be
to practice knowledge, moving away from comfort zone and not confine ourselves to any limited
knowledge. In short, we must see this as a continuous learning curve. What happens as a result of
not practicing knowledge is that a student even avoids to sit in exam hall with the basic knowledge.
Hence ends up cheating.
However, despite its strengths, following deontology rigidly can produce results that many people
find unacceptable.

Virtue ethics by Plato, Aristotle, Socrates and cheating in exam: Cardinal virtue of Plato includes
wisdom, courage, temperance. Justice and Aristotle's Golden Is another standard of evaluation of
virtue. Virtuous behavior is about finding a balance between excess and efficiency depending on
the situation. It also focuses more on the character of a person. It is about developing into a virtuous
person living a moral life. For example, it is not about what a student should do, but rather what
sort of person should a student be, for instance, a student practices how to become a good person
and improve mindset (even after the student is privileged with cheating opportunity, he/she will
gather knowledge and not cheat).

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Human beings have telos (purpose). The concept of Eudaimonia by Aristotle refers to the type of
bliss, the ultimate goal for being in life, full satisfaction. Everything we do or desire is because we
believe it will make us happy and bring us closer to Eudaimonia, even if we don't know it. For
example 1: A good student loves to study for achieving the best grade in class and gather new
knowledge every time because it makes him/ her happy (serving purpose), leading to prefer not to
cheat. For that student, cheating is a time-consuming and unwanted activity.
Example 2: A student whose ultimate goal is to just pass the exam anyhow, maybe cheating which
will serve his/her purpose (short-term gain) and that will make him/her happy for that time being.
However, there are some students who cheat in the first place, but regret for it later, thinking of
long-term academic consequences.
Therefore, in order to fulfill our purpose of Eudaimonia, Aristotle believed we must live a virtuous
life. This is vital to the telos of a human being. We can say, virtue makes a human a good human.

Teleological Ethics (Utilitarianism) by Jeremy Bentham and cheating in exam: States those actions
of right that produces the greatest number of happiness to the greatest number of people. This is
an ethics approach where actions are judged morally based upon their consequences. Relating this,
if I don't cheat and study, develop necessary skills, we serve a society. It may benefit many people,
following more happiness will be created. So, in excluding one's happiness (one who thinks
cheating may serve his purpose), is carrying more peoples' happiness.

Hedonism by Democritus, Aristippus of Cyrene, Epicurus and cheating in exam:

Hedonism is the belief that pleasure or the absence of pain is the most important principle in
determining the morality of a potential course of action. Hedonism is also a type of
consequentialism and It has several forms. For example:
Normative Hedonism: Is the idea that pleasure should be people's primary motivation.
Motivational Hedonism: Says only pleasure and pain cause people to do what they do. (Please see
advantage of cheating).
Egotistical Hedonism: Consider only his or her own pleasure in making choices.
Altruistic hedonism: Says that the creation of pleasure for all people is the best way to measure if
an action is ethical.
According to Hedonism, it is right to cheat for short-term gain and happiness. If this continues, the
next generation will be following the same. Even those who are good students will also be affected
by losing interest in studies. Following, cheating tendency rate will go up, where society will be
affected too. Keeping this into consideration, cheating in exam/anywhere, is actually unethical.
Epicureanism: Whichever action will give happiness that action is right and whichever action will
give pain that action is considered wrong. Epicurists take utilitarian approach (slightly different

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from hedonism) is that instead of living each moment without pleasure, we must live only pleasures
which do not cause a greater displeasure in the long run (living in moderation and pursuing the
benefit of mind).
However, regardless of the type of hedonism critics fault it as a guide for morality because
hedonism ignores all other values, such as fairness, freedom, when evaluating right and wrong.
Also there is a difference between ethical hedonism and hedonism in general.

What may prevent a student from cheating:

1. Believe in oneself that he/she can do it (achieving good grade without cheating). To change for
the better, the student can be taken to psychologist if he/she is experiencing anxiety and panic
attacks during exam (bringing fear to fail).
2. Studying in advance for exam. It will help to grow your confidence in terms of better
understanding a topic. Following will train a student's brain to process quicker and will reduce
stress level during exam too. To add, performing cheating will be felt a time-consuming task if a
student is well prepared.
3. For many people upgrading confidence and self-esteem directly come from learning. Therefore,
taking new knowledge from others into account while chatting in person for learning and getting
something new, may boost confidence & help a person think twice not to cheat.
4. Refrain from having too many expectations of parents, which will reduce the level of mental
pressure of a student. Many times, students become depressed and end up cheating and cheating
seems the right solution to them at that very moment for improving the quality of their lives.
5. Omitting the strong desire to be the owner of good grades. If we fix this in head that we are not
studying in life only for good grades but studying to pursue further knowledge to become a better
version, then so called good grade thing won't matter all the time; Cheating can be avoided and
can improve mental health of a student.

To conclude, knowledge is the foundation of everything, therefore cheating makes no sense at the
end of the day in the long run. Instead of wasting time if we just study besides other tasks (for
basic knowledge at least), and practice advanced knowledge (brain exercise), then we don't have
to adopt difficult methods like cheating. To end, let's say 'NO' to the short-term benefit, gaining
pleasure unethically and say 'YES' to the long-term academic and career goal success ethically.

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References:
1. https://www.k12academics.com/Academic%20Dishonesty/types-cheating
2. https://youtube.com/watch?v=tyCmmtD6NYw&si=cxkmnw0rqCA_LTdB
3. https://youtube.com/watch?v=wWZi-8Wji7M&si=vwN98lSWcM223YyB
4. https://youtube.com/watch?v=EY6Cgp5nd_c&si=B39SFJFPTtdbM0MK
5. https://youtube.com/watch?v=mw7kEEI4CKY&si=T4xyT99mkNLlvzG_

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