Universities structure degree requirements carefully. By contrast, the rule against double submissions is defensible on its own terms. Some contest rules are completely arbitrary, like the number of minutes in a hockey game, or the number of weeks in a semester.
#DULY NOTED DEFINE CODE#
If the honor code says you can’t submit the same paper twice, and you do it anyway, that’s cheating. Finally, cheating gives the cheater an unfair advantage. Cheating is deception because the cheater pretends to follow the rules as he breaks them. I shouldn’t have to explain to the Ethicist why cheating is wrong, but evidently someone needs to break it down for him: Cheating is promise-breaking because everyone agreed to play by a certain set of rules when they joined the game or enrolled in the school. However, under the current rules, it’s cheating, and therefore wrong, for a major league slugger to sneak in a corked bat when everyone else is playing with a solid one. As a matter of ethics, MLB had much right to require corked bats as to ban them. Using a corked bat in a Major League Baseball game is cheating. If you’re going to keep score, you owe it to everyone involved to do so consistently. Some of the rules may be arbitrary in their particulars, but the need for consistent standards is not. However, in school, as in sports, participants must agree to a shared framework. Some of these rules are arbitrary, insofar as different rules could be equally fair in the abstract. The rules for this academic contest are like the rules of a sport. Students are competing for grades and scarce opportunities.
![duly noted define duly noted define](https://contenthub-static.grammarly.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Duly-noted-Dually-noted-.jpg)
Higher education is, amongst other things, a competition. Disregarding those rules can be unethical.
![duly noted define duly noted define](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/2f/7a/3b/2f7a3bf59a7ccfc6d8fdb8001e0153a9.jpg)
In competitive situations, seemingly arbitrary rules may be necessary in order to keep the contest meaningful and fair. This column is not titled “How to Avoid Jail” or “Is This Sanctioned?” It Is about how things ought to be - considered in a vacuum, but applied to practical living.Īn action that’s not wrong in itself can be wrong in a particular context if it constitutes cheating. It’s unlawful to drive 56 mph on a deserted state highway, but it’s clearly not an unethical practice. For example (as one commenter noted), it’s illegal for a United States citizen to visit Cuba - but it’s not remotely unethical.
![duly noted define duly noted define](https://d65im9osfb1r5.cloudfront.net/thesaurus.net/duly.png)
Legislation does not define ethical behavior. This kind of contradiction happens all the time with this column. Moreover, would the writer of that letter agree with my response if - for whatever reason - the University of Houston suddenly amended their policy? I don’t think he/she would. I don’t care what the University of Houston has decreed. There is a difference between something being unethical in a natural sense and something being unethical because an arbitrary ethics policy states that this is the case. Instead, he doubled down, insisting that it’s okay to flout honor code rules against double dipping because they’re “arbitrary:” Klosterman’s answer generated such an outcry that the paper’s ombudsman gave him a chance to walk it back. If the dishonest student’s inflated GPA gets him a spot in medical school, the honest student he beat out has been harmed. It’s not fair that the honest student gets two B’s while the underhanded student gets two A’s for doing half the work. Whereas, the dishonest student can devote all his time to writing one A paper, to be graded twice. A student who followed the rules might only be able to produce two B papers in the time allotted. By writing one paper instead of two, he cuts his workload in half, which gives him an academic edge. Of course a student who breaks the rules and hands in the same paper twice is getting an unjustified reward and harming others in the process. Yet I can’t isolate anything about this practice that harms other people, provides you with an unfair advantage or engenders an unjustified reward. I wouldn’t say it qualifies as “genius,” and it might get you expelled from some universities.
![duly noted define duly noted define](https://livexp.com/blog/content/images/size/w1384/2021/06/back-and-call-1.jpg)
The more I think this over, the more I find myself agreeing with your position. Last week, Ethicist Chuck Klosterman blithely gave a college student permission to hand in the same paper for two classes without getting the permission of either professor, even if his school’s honor code forbids it: Ah, the New York Times’ Ethicist, the advice columnist who exists to make Dear Prudence look rigorous.