“Cheating is always wrong” and “There is an absolute reality”

These all are acceptable ways of “cheating” by giving yourself or another person an edge in a sporting event. This is cheating because by definition it is doing something for profit or betterment of you. By doing these things, it gives you an advantage over others in the world of sports. Then again everyone is expected to lift weights and do things to enhance your performance, thus giving an unfair advantage to the person or team that is training. The expense comes at the fact that the other team might not have these kinds of medicinal enhancers to level the playing field, or they may not be able to take them due to certain side effects and allergies that might persist. This is deception for the purpose of gaining an advantage to win, but this is not considered cheating in the sporting world.

Is cheating death wrong? Is it better to die or to try to save your own self from dying? This example of cheating death is usually not only encouraged, but it is praised if one does in fact “cheat death.” Does this mean that dying is preferred instead of trying to live because one is in fact eluding death? By eluding, one tries to get out of dying by struggling to survive. In this case, the outwitting comes from the medicines that are generated from the minds of scientists to fight the disease or bacteria causing one to die. Using technology or intelligence, the virus is defeated. Should one stop taking medicine in order to survive?

I have a poll taken from teachnet.com. This poll is a series of questions given to teachers and professors around the US. In this poll, a question is brought up. This question is, “Do you think there are circumstances when cheating is acceptable?” In the reply, not all of the teachers think that cheating is never acceptable. There are some that believe that it is acceptable, perhaps when the “stakes are high.” So if some teachers think it’s acceptable, and they are the ones who grade the papers, don’t you think they might have a point?

Cheating while the stakes are high can also be connected with morally cheating, or cheating for the good of people. You may say that this is a contradiction, but I disagree. In the 1800s, women enjoyed no rights in the US. Elizabeth Cady Stanton is just one of the women who tried to present this wrong. In trying to accomplish so, she wrote a famous conclusion from the Seneca Falls convention (“Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions”) and the female interpretation of the Bible (The Woman’s Bible). In this case, there is a moral level on which she is writing these documents, but however, they still take ideas from the authors and use them for her own profit or benefit. I’m sure that Thomas Jefferson never wanted his “Declaration of Independence” to be on the side of women’s rights. But this form of cheating is acceptable because it enhances the common good, rather than detract.

Here’s a quote from the writer Wilson Mizner. “When you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s research.” Even though it’s considered cheating when we use someone’s quotes and don’t credit them, isn’t it also cheating if we do credit them? The fact is that the quote or idea is still taken from someone else and used for your betterment.

Research is not only acceptable, but it’s also expectant in most cases. As the great Marist professor Joshua Mark once stated about a final paper, “It must be researchable and arguable.” Here the teacher is encouraging cheating by the definition of cheating or using other’s ideas for your own good. I am also taking a quote from Prof. Mark, but he might not necessarily believe our side of the debate, but I gave him credit. This isn’t plagiarism, but it is still cheating by definition. Without quotes from other people, usually and argument does not have anything behind it to back it up. Even in this case where I’m proving that research and plagiarism is both cheating, but one is considered good and the other wrong, I’m using a quote, or Mizner’s idea.

The only difference between research and plagiarism is the fact that one is quoted and the other is not. The two have the same exact definition (to take and use ideas of others to make a new conclusion), but yet plagiarism is wrong, but research is acceptable. By definition, research is considered a form of cheating because it takes ideas from other people to use as your own, or for the betterment of your argument. In both the case of research and plagiarism are taking ideas, and it is at the expense of the author(s) because they might not want their ideas to be used in a certain way to clarify certain issues. If one person rights about biology and the process through which a baby is made, that person might not want their ideas or sayings to be used on a certain side of an abortion argument, but it will inevitably happen. Research, in this case, is seen as acceptable, and therefore, it is an exception to the saying, “Cheating is always wrong.”

Since there is unconformity in the acceptance of cheating, there cannot be any uniform reality. If the realities are discontinuous, then there must be more than one reality. If there is no absolute right or wrong dealing with cheating, then there cannot be reality.