Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- Part I Academic Cheating
- Part II Academic Excuses and Fairness
- 5 The Compassionate Instructor Doesn’t Always Award Extra Credit
- 6 An Ethical Dilemma in Teaching
- 7 Attempted Retribution by a Disgruntled Individual
- 8 Grading and the “Fairness Doctrine”
- 9 Managing and Responding to Requests by Students Seeking to Improve Their Achievement-Related Outcomes
- 10 Are There Times When Something Is of Greater Importance Than the Truth?
- 11 Commentary to Part II
- Part III Authorship and Credit
- Part IV Confidentiality’s Limits
- Part V Data Analysis, Reporting, and Sharing
- Part VI Designing Research
- Part VII Fabricating Data
- Part VIII Human Subjects
- Part IX Personnel Decisions
- Part X Reviewing and Editing
- Part XI Science for Hire and Conflict of Interest
- Epilogue Why Is Ethical Behavior Challenging?
- Index
11 - Commentary to Part II
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- Part I Academic Cheating
- Part II Academic Excuses and Fairness
- 5 The Compassionate Instructor Doesn’t Always Award Extra Credit
- 6 An Ethical Dilemma in Teaching
- 7 Attempted Retribution by a Disgruntled Individual
- 8 Grading and the “Fairness Doctrine”
- 9 Managing and Responding to Requests by Students Seeking to Improve Their Achievement-Related Outcomes
- 10 Are There Times When Something Is of Greater Importance Than the Truth?
- 11 Commentary to Part II
- Part III Authorship and Credit
- Part IV Confidentiality’s Limits
- Part V Data Analysis, Reporting, and Sharing
- Part VI Designing Research
- Part VII Fabricating Data
- Part VIII Human Subjects
- Part IX Personnel Decisions
- Part X Reviewing and Editing
- Part XI Science for Hire and Conflict of Interest
- Epilogue Why Is Ethical Behavior Challenging?
- Index
Summary
“Fairness to all” is an agreed-on concept in the abstract but much more fraught with ambiguity to apply in concrete instances. This section reaches some consensus on using the fairness doctrine to resist students who plead for special treatment, even in the uncomfortable decision to require that they document their medical misfortune, and certainly in the seemingly callous refusal to allow making up for past underperformance due to lack of effort. Ad hoc bargains with individual students simply are unfair to the rest of the class.
In the same way, secondhand information as evidence in ethical decision making requires documentation and confirmation, again in fairness to all. Just as some people are manipulators, others are saboteurs. The collective needs to be protected from those who try to game the system, and verification is key here.
What seems right in the abstract, however, is complicated in practice. In regard to grading, this section raises dilemmas of how to credit extraordinary improvement or effort. What about humane adjustments to a borderline grade, considering exceptional life circumstances? If an instructor does bend the rules, what does that teach the students, not only about academic ethical standards but also about ethics in their own later careers?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Ethical Challenges in the Behavioral and Brain SciencesCase Studies and Commentaries, pp. 31 - 32Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2015