[twoWhlsGud]

As someone who went there (albeit many decades ago) I can tell you FWIW when I was there folks took it seriously. I literally knew of no one who ever cheated on an exam. And I'm pretty sure that anyone I knew who observed cheating would have taken it seriously enough to bring it to the process. It was pretty much a fixture of how students thought about things. So it worked (near as I could tell) back then.

But institutions take awhile to adjust to new realities, and it while looks like Princeton may have been a bit behind the curve on this one, I can understand why they were reluctant to abandon this practice. Living in an honest community cuts a lot of extra effort out - crap that you don't even have to think about. Princeton will be a less productive place to learn going forward.

[remixff2400]

I'd wager the main difference between "many decades ago" and mid 2000s onwards is the perceived stakes of college. My time in college (around that time) was perceived by most as "make or break": either you did well in college, or you were doomed to a sub-standard lifestyle (not to mention the debt of college tuition).

Obviously, whether this was true or not is a whole discussion, but the attitude did lead to a lot more cheating (due to desperation) than I'd imagine past generations had.

A midterm being worth 25-33% of a grade, plus some classes only being offered in fall or spring semesters meant a bad test could roughly cost you tens of thousands of dollars, since the next time you could retake the class would be in a year, and it often was a prerequisite for another class. It just leads to an environment that encourages desperate "survival" behavior.

[gavinsyancey]

Which is bad, someone who cheats on a test or someone who rats out their friend for cheating on a test?

It really is a cultural thing, and that sort of culture is primarily passed down from upperclassmen to underclassmen. I went to a different college with an honor code (Harvey Mudd) and when I graduated in 2019 it was still doing relatively well, but from what I've heard COVID really killed students caring about / adhering to the honor code.

[AnnikaL]

I'm in Mudd's class of '27 (and I was on the honor board for 2 years), and I do think the honor code system has gotten somewhat less functional over the time I've been here. But I think a majority of students and faculty still want to make it work.

[ericmay]

> Which is bad, someone who cheats on a test or someone who rats out their friend for cheating on a test?

Obviously the first. How is this even a question?

[crazygringo]

This is not obvious at all.

Loyalty is a fundamental moral principle. Loyalty to a friend carries a lot of moral weight. Humans are a social animal, and loyalty to a friend can easily outweigh loyalty to some abstract institution. Like, my friend will still have my back five years from now. The university I went to won't do shit for me.

Like, if you're talking about loyalty to a friend who wants you to cover up an unjustified murder they committed, then I think most people will say the value of telling the cops about the murder outweighs the loyalty to your friend.

But for cheating on some test where probably 30% of the other students are cheating anyways? I think the vast majority of people will say that loyalty to your friend is the more important moral principle here. We all make mistakes in life, and the whole idea of loyalty and love to a friend is that we support them even though they make mistakes. As long as the mistakes are common mistakes like cheating on a test or cheating on a boyfriend, as opposed to things like felony crimes.

[ericmay]

You’re introducing additional details and scenarios that are part of a different conversation, one in which is certainly nuanced and well-worth discussing.

But what you are doing here is justifying behavior. That’s separate from a discussion about what’s right or wrong. You have to not only consider one’s friendship, but the negative effects across society that their actions cause. In other words, reporting the friend negatively affects (in general) only two individuals, while cheating affects many more people and cultural values and norms. I’m not a Utilitarian, but intent and effect matter.

[wat10000]

It's not a mistake if they do it routinely.

I could buy the argument if the friend had a moment of weakness, regretted it, won't do it again, and please don't report it. They've learned their lesson, that's enough.

But if they do it and they're fine with it and they're going to do it again and what's the big deal? Refusing to report that isn't loyalty anymore, it's not sticking with someone who made a mistake, it's protecting deliberate bad behavior.

[crazygringo]

We can make mistakes in our ongoing behaviors. Nobody's perfect.

The question is simply how you balance loyalty to the institution vs loyalty to a friend.

A lot of people will think that cheating in a context where a lot of other people cheat too, is just not a big deal. That it's certainly not worth losing a friendship over. Like, are you going to end a friendship because someone jaywalks? Because they habitually speed 5 mph over the legal limit? Because they sometimes take illegal drugs? Because they deducted things on their tax return that you know weren't actually business expenses?

The size or importance of a moral violation matters, when weighing up conflicting moral obligations.

[wat10000]

I guess this really comes down to differences in morality.

I think cheating is pretty serious. It qualifies as self-harm, and it harms your classmates by devaluing their eventual degree.

Jaywalking and minor speeding are not even immoral at all, in my view. I don't mean they're insignificant, I mean they're outright not morally wrong to me, so that comparison suggests that we have a pretty strong difference in what we consider to be morally good here.

[hgoel]

I don't consider it loyalty to know a friend has cheated, and let them get away with it.

Teachers/Professors are already used to accommodating dumb planning/mistakes from students. An honest "I spent too much time partying and fell behind, can I get an extension" email will often get you very far.

Also baffled to hear cheating on a boyfriend included there, cheating of that sort would be friendship ending.

[dingaling]

> Like, my friend will still have my back five years from now

Im not convinced that's the case, if it's a person who can normalise cheating.

They've already made the decision that benefit to themselves outweighs everything else.

[thaumasiotes]

> Obviously the first.

The more usual perspective would be that they're both bad.

[JCTheDenthog]

Only in certain fucked up moral systems. Though I guess Confucianism would be one of those:

>The Duke of She said to Confucius, “Among my people there is one we call ‘Upright Gong.’ When his father stole a sheep, he reported him to the authorities.”

>Confucius replied, “Among my people, those who we consider ‘upright’ are different from this: fathers cover up for their sons, and sons cover up for their fathers. ‘Uprightness’ is to be found in this.”

-from the Confucian Analects

[ericmay]

That would be a very unusual perspective, at least in the western world and specifically the United States which has a legal and moral system broadly constructed on a mixture social trust and rule of law and we take into consideration both intent and effect in our moral judgements. There are certainly cases, for example someone cheated on a test but that test allowed them to achieve some greater good, that we can modify our moral beliefs on but there's no clear perspective that would suggest both would be bad. That really doesn't make sense.

[bix6]

The stats beg to differ. ⅓ admitted to cheating. Cheating was rampant at my uni and we also had an “honor code”

[ccortes]

Bad argument. All countries have laws yet criminality rates varies a lot from country to country. It’s all about the culture.

[yongjik]

"Culture" works by having a system that collectively punishes cheaters, so that people learn from their own (or others') experiences and internalize that cheating is bad and won't pay off in the long term.

That's how you get a culture against cheating. You ensure that cheating doesn't pay, and eventually people learn that cheating doesn't pay. The enforcement is part of the culture.

[breezybottom]

The accuracy of measuring criminality also varies, yet you seem to take it at face value that those stats are accurate.

[bix6]

O and one person’s anecdote is better? I’ll take the stat if we’re wagering (500 Princeton seniors).

[catlikesshrimp]

El Salvadorians (from The country) would starkly disagree with you. It took a dictator and a martial state (no human rights) to end maras in less than five years. The culture is the same.

[autoexec]

They just replaced the street gangs with a single state operated gang. El Salvadorians still have to live in fear for their lives, but it will be the government coming for them.

[thaumasiotes]

> El Salvadorians

Salvadorans.

[jgalt212]

recent stats.

[bix6]

Ok what do the old ones say?

[jgalt212]

much lower

[bix6]

Yeah show me

[jgalt212]

www.google.com www.bing.com

[jiqiren]

I wasn't at Princeton, but I remember blatant cheating going on and 'study groups' in CS classes that were mere passing around of completed code. (1997-2001)

I'd asked them what they expected would happen when they tried to get jobs or landed one. Like how do you fake work? They just said all jobs are group-based like their study group. (Keep in mind they were soliciting my code as their group was struggling to find solutions to assignments.)

The answer is a one of them works at a grocery store as a cashier, another one I saw now manages a bagel store (didn't know all of them). A waste of time, money, and effort to get a CS degree then just not be able to use it.

[Lucasoato]

Maybe he's happier managing a bagel store rather than dealing with Kubernetes.

[pests]

Honestly. I do more with my hands and spend more time outside post-degree, post-reality, than I ever did when in school.

[GuinansEyebrows]

the longer i stay, the more i think "amen to that".

...yeah, yeah, greener grass, i know.

[CobrastanJorji]

When I was at Georgia Tech back around 2002, the freshman Java CS course introduced a brand new and improved cheat detector, and they immediately caught over half of the class for cheating. It was disastrous. The penalty for being caught cheating was so onerous that they simply couldn't do it to the whole class.

To the school's credit, they responded as best they could. They considered each case, interviewed the students, and punished them on a sliding scale based on how much cheating, ranging from a zero on that one assignment up to suspension.

Then, for the next semester, they simply changed the rules. You were now officially allowed to cheat all you wanted on homework, but it now only counted for 5% of your grade. That was REALLY bad for people who weren't doing the homework, but it also sucked for people who were just lousy test takers.

[contubernio]

I'd guess this is selection bias and naivete more than anything else.

I went to a school with an honor code and cheating was rampant among the premeds and future Obamas.

[esafak]

And you will think less of the people who go there. 30% cheated!!