A couple of days ago, I put up a post about a weight loss competition and whether or not a certain action was considered cheating. As of the time of this post, there were 4 that said it was cheating, and 2 that said it was not.
Anyway, I couldn't really let random blog readers be the ultimate judge, so I simultaneously sent the question to AskPhilosophers.org. It's an awesome website with a ton of great answers to a wide range of questions. You all should check it out some time.
Here's what they had to say: AskPhilosophers.org Response
Snippet of the answer provided by a professional philosopher:
My answer is to think that there isn't an answer – at least not yet. One way to go would be to say that if someone could reasonably see the case as cheating (that applies here, I think), then count it as cheating. That's probably a good rule to use if you want to stay friends, but whether it's the answer is another matter. Worse, there will be cases where reasonable people can disagree about whether it's reasonable to see the case as cheating.
3 comments:
Surprise, surprise! The philosopher gave absolutely no answer at all.
How does one rationalize this as NOT cheating?
Well, I was the one that felt it wasn't cheating though it was clearly unscrupulous behavior.
The way I saw it, B had a choice in the matter. While trickery wasn't explicitly a part of the game, I felt that it is an implicit one of any competition. The Trojan Horse is alive and well.
Say you are a business, and your competitor invites you to a speaking event where industry experts would give their views about the future. Suppose the event is a set-up, and you were being fed a lot of lies, because your competitor paid the speakers a fee to do so. I see this as clearly inappropriate and shows a lack of business ethics, but it would not be grounds for any legal action (in my opinion).
Anyway, that's the gist of my defense. And, it's more or less how I rationalized it as not being cheating, and simply action that should be frowned upon, because it's not really 'right.'
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