Cheating could be found in education settings as well as in business. Cheating is typically characterized as unethical conduct committed with the intent of gaining an unfair advantage that a student or employee would not get without prohibited actions. Some students may cheat in academic pursuits due to concern over their academic achievement. Students may cheat to avoid failing a class or earning a low mark. In turn, workers can cheat because of the fear of losing a job or appearing incompetent to the employer or their colleagues.
Although the reasons for cheating of the students and employees could be understood, this unethical act still has negative consequences. As such, cheating differs from most other areas of academic misconduct in that its result is that a student would not have the knowledge that the program is supposed to teach them. In the case of workers, these actions of dishonesty could be tremendously expensive for both corporations and their colleagues. Namely, cheating might result in low-quality performance or put at risk the other employees by not adhering to the company’s standards.
A Kantian would denounce such behaviors as breaches of the Categorical Imperative since no one cannot wish that all people behave dishonestly in their relations with all other humans. Kant’s moral responsibility law supposes that individuals use reason to see if they could somehow get that all other people act in the same manner toward all other people (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2022). Hence, cheaters must contemplate living in a society where they must rely on the services of others. As a result, it seems plausible to argue that they do not want to receive worse care and services from providers who cheated.
Reference
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2022). Kant’s moral philosophy. Web.