A moral question - writing assignments for cash

Hello ck, while I don't personally believe anything is "immoral", I understand that your friend's actions likely would be called that according to common ethical standards and nomenclature.Obtaining academic qualification is supposed to be an exhibition of personal accomplishment and understanding. There are clear lines drawn for academic honesty with regard to work supplied for assessment. A person handing in fraudulent material would be acting "immoral" under that scheme... as you noted.A person intentionally aiding that fraud would seem open to criticism along those lines as well. It would be like a person intentionally selling a gun to a psychopath who states in advance he is going to use it to shoot up his family (and this intention is clear). Or perhaps more analogously driving the getaway car for a bank robbery.When the illicit usage of one's product or service is known in advance, and profits secured for such assistance, one becomes a participant in the act... not an innocent bystander.From my own ethical outlook, your friend is dishonest, cowardly, abetting ignorance, perhaps greedy, and in some ways unjust (to all the others who actually work for their grade and the teachers whose time is wasted). If that friend is part of academic life, or that institution, one could also add the label disloyal. Certainly the person has removed their credible standing within academia.Of course beggars can't be choosers. I'd likely do it if the money were right and my need great. The actual harm produced is very minimal and that's a large qualifier if one is looking at some great loss if the money were not taken.Then again, if the person is doing it for extra spending cash, well I'd say the person's an asshole and ought to cut it out. Yet it takes all kinds to make a world.One question your friend might ask, is if they'd be happy if while trying to get a position they got nixed from some SOB that used a fake paper to get their creds.

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

While I agree that the degree of physical harm is different, I'm not sure how you can claim there is no harm whatsoever.This kind of fraud inherently wastes the time of the instructor, and the institution. Time is something very valuable... at least to me it is... and having it wasted by someone else is not cool.Further, as mrJ points out, it wrecks the credibility of such credentials. That would be true for the students, the teacher, and the institution. The strength of educational systems are their presumed integrity. That integrity relies on people not committing fraud.And while you might claim that it makes little difference to a company hiring someone, as the inept will be weeded out, it makes a very big difference to the competent person who didn't get the job in the first place.

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

Okay, maybe that depends on the attitude of the teacher. But from my own perspective, being a teacher doesn't involve getting paid to simply slap a grade on whatever is placed before my face. That's about the only way of thinking which would mean my time wasn't wasted.The concept, to my mind, is that I'm taking time out of my life to instruct a student. That time can also be spent doing anything else including instructing other students. If a student isn't serious then that person is wasting my time, regardless of the money handed to me... unless my pay is based per student, and there is no one else to fill that person's space.If a student commits fraud by handing in a paper for an assessment by me, then they are wasting my time as (unlike them) I will actually do the work in assessing it. If a student, takes my errant positive marks and commendations to others and so thereby stands to wreck my own credentials (and all the years I put in to serious study and work) when they turn out to be inept, or discovered as a fraud (and I was a dupe), then they waste my time.If a student wants to cheat, and not waste my time, why not offer me money for a passing grade (based on the risk to my career) rather than lowballing it and spending money on a phony paper I have to get all serious about grading?Edited by Silent H, : clarity

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

While I currently do not work in academia, in my brief brush with it I acquired and agree with the sentiment you just described.Unfortunately that makes fraud even worse of a waste of time. It is bad enough wasting time teaching when one could be researching. It is worse when one shouldn't have spent time at all on a fraudulent student's paper, nor tracking and aiding their fraudulent career.Fraud is a gift that keeps on giving, sort of like syphilis, in that it is a waste that keeps on wasting.As I said, one thing I wouldn't consider a waste is the time I spent building my own credentials and good name. When the cheater enters the working world with my backing, and is found to be a hack, it puts all that work I put in to waste. What credentials would I have to that employer, if the student I passed with high marks clearly doesn't know dick?If the student gets caught out as having perpetrated a fraud some time down the road, that would still put a dent in my image even if it explains the idiot of a student having gotten high marks.For me it goes beyond just in class time issues. If a student wants to cheat, at least do it fairly and offer a bribe to the teacher.

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard