Comment by crazygringo
20 hours ago
Yeah, those are exactly the differences.
It's very easy to argue speeding is immoral: it's immoral to disobey any law or regulation passed by a democratically elected government if these is no other conflicting moral principle. So you can speed to rush to a hospital, for example, but everyday speeding is immoral both because it breaks the morally legitimate democratic law and increases the chance of physical harm.
For many people, cheating on a test is little different from speeding. Calling it "self-harm" is a stretch, and there's zero direct harm to your classmates if it's not graded on a curve (which I haven't seen in a long time). And you could easily argue that the marginal difference it makes to the value of everyone's degree from that institution overall is basically as negligible as the marginal difference it makes to public safety as speeding by 5 mph does.
Also, different exams are different. Fewer people will be bothered by cheating on a freshman year calculus exam, whereas cheating on a final qualification to become any type of emergency responder is far, far more serious because somebody could directly die as a result of your lack of knowledge.
> it's immoral to disobey any law or regulation passed by a democratically elected government if these is no other conflicting moral principle.
I have to say, this is not the sort of attitude I expected to find on this site. Especially from someone defending cheating on exams. Anyway, I'm sure I won't convince you to change your mind on this, and you certainly won't convince me.
You misread me. I never said cheating is fine. I responded to someone who said that cheating is "obviously" bad, implying ratting out a friend is not. The only thing I've done is to say they're both bad, and that it's not obvious at all that the former is worse than the latter.
And I find it somewhat bizarre that you seem to think there is no moral value in following the law? Especially when I added the caveat "if there is no other conflicting moral principle", which means you believe there is nothing bad about the law?
Or is it the caveat you disagree with, and you think the law must be followed no matter what?
I didn't say you said cheating is fine. But you are defending it by minimizing its consequences.
No, I don't see any moral value in following the law. Following the law can be and often is morally good by coincidence because the law encodes some piece of morality, e.g. the laws against theft or murder. But if the law says I'm only allowed to cross the street at designated locations, and I can safely cross at a different location, there is no moral issue with doing so, in my view. If speeding is immoral it is only because of the safety concerns, not because it's illegal. If I refrain from speeding on a road where I believe it's safe to go significantly faster than the limit, it's only because I want to avoid the potential consequences of breaking the law, not because I think it's somehow wrong.
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