If you could cheat and get away with it, would you?

[LSN80]

We see it everywhere these days. Be it professional athletes engaging in more "victimless" crimes such as Roger Clemens being put on trial for lying to Congress over steroid usage, Lance Armstrong being faced with doping charges at the present moment, or more serious ones such as Tonya Harding putting a "hit" out on fellow figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, cheating and sports seemingly go hand in hand. Not a week goes by in Major League Baseball where a player isn't suspended for PED's. And this is just the world of sports I'm referring to!

In the field in which I work, cheating rocks marriages and is one of the biggest reasons I see people. Cheating scandals rock universities on a regular basis, and it's a major factor in the workplace in just about every field as well. In looking at how people get their jobs in the first place, resume padding is done all the time.

Im sure all of us have cheated in one way or another, in some walk of life. Whether it was on a test, keeping score playing a game, or even on that b*tchy girlfriend in college, I would be shocked if someone out there would tell me they've never cheated on anything. I know I have. But what keeps it a sporadic, one-time thing rather then a pattern of behavior? For many, is it simply the fear of getting caught?

The questions I want to pose are these:

What if that fear of being caught was taken away? What if you could cheat on a test, your girlfriend, your taxes, or at your job to get ahead, knowing that you would never face a single consequence? Would you do it?

Or is there something else inside you that would serve as deterrant? What is it?

 

[Dagger Dias]

It depends on what kind of cheating it is. Little things like cheating on a test, yes. Bigger things such as cheating to advance or cheating on a significant other, absolutely not.

If it's cheating on a test in school, then yes, I'd do it. Test grades are just letters/numbers on a piece of paper. What you learned from the material you were being tested on is what really matters there and if I had the chance to do better on the test with no consequences, then I would resort to cheating on it. It's just a test. There were many times in college that I would do things that were borderline cheating. In computer courses I would use the Help menu in order to ace each part of the tests where we had to do work in a word document or spreadsheet. Then there were several online quizes/tests that we could repeat a certain number of times, I'd take it once, print the results, and then read what the right answers were, so I'd get an A the next time around and get credit for it. That's some dishonest stuff, but like I said those were just tests in school.

If I had the chance to do something worse such as cheating on my taxes or cheating at get advancement at work, I would never do it. My guilt would get in the way, plus unlike the tests in school those are instances where ethics are extremely crucial. Cheating on taxes gets you in major financial trouble and cheating to advance in a job can easily cost you said job. Even if there were no consequences I would choose not to because I take pride in my work and want to earn promotions the true way. I won't cheat on taxes either, if there were no consequences I would still feel bad about receiving money that I shouldn't have.

Finally we have cheating on a significant other. I am vehemently against it 100% in every single circumstance, no matter what the situation is. I love my wife more than anything in the world and would NEVER cheat on her. In a month it will have been 2 years since the day we said "I do" and formally decided in front of our families to spend the rest of our lives together. So what if there is no consequence? I would not be able to live with myself if I ever did anything to hurt her in that way. Trish Stratus, Emma Stone, or some other celebrity crush could approach me with the opportunity of a lifetime, but I would still say NEVER because I love my wife too much to do that to her. It doesn't matter if she wouldn't ever find out. I would still know what I did, and as I said I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

 

[JWGunslinger]

What if that fear of being caught was taken away? What if you could cheat on a test, your girlfriend, your taxes, or at your job to get ahead, knowing that you would never face a single consequence? Would you do it?

Nope, cheating of any sort utterly disgusts me and I could never bring myself to do it. In the past I may have made exceptions for smaller less important things but cheating is cheating, unless you're doing it to be a goof while playing a board game or something it has no place in my life.

The reason I have such a strong stance is because I've seen what cheating can do to both the people doing it and the people directly effected by it. Cheating is never the way to go because if you get something without truely earning it how can you be happy with that? I'd sure as hell rather come in second for something than win without doing so cleanly, when it comes down to it I guess it's because I care alot about honesty, pride and respect and if you cheat you abandon all those things.

 

[Mustang Sally]

We see it everywhere these days. Be it professional athletes engaging in more "victimless" crimes such as Roger Clemens being put on trial for lying to Congress over steroid usage, Lance Armstrong being faced with doping charges at the present moment

Cheating isn't new, but in athletics, the means and methods have become so high-tech that the athletes now have other people providing the means for these guys to cheat. In the case of Clemens and Armstrong, there have been people who have made it their vocation to develop means of creating PEDs that current testing methods can't detect. That's what they do, and the athletes take the stuff, look into the cameras and confidently tell the public that they're innocent because they've never failed a drug test.

Yes, this doesn't mitigate the fact that cheating has actually occurred, but it's established landmarks against the provision that an athlete has to be "proven" a cheater. It's a problem that has no foreseeable end; as the testers develop methods to detect illegal substances, the "enablers" will find ways to stay one step ahead of the testers, producing still more undetectable substances.

This is part and parcel of the question being asked in this topic. If a person cheats, he's better off if he accomplishes the task alone, rather than having to rely on people to keep their mouths shut about the cheating. (For example, Barry Bonds had to rely on Victor Conte to stay quiet about Bonds' steroid cheating. If Conte didn't agree to go to jail rather than implicate Bonds, the player probably would be in prison now. For his "loyalty", I would wager Conte's bank account is much larger nowadays).

Have I ever cheated? Yes, I did once on a test; there was no one else involved to implicate me......and I did it. To rationalize my own misbehavior, I convinced myself it wasn't that big a deal at the time. And no, my rationalizing didn't make me feel better, but as rotten as I felt, I didn't go to the teacher and confess, either. I let the result stand and vowed to not repeat the misdeed.

Have I cheated in a personal relationship? Yes, more than once. I felt bad about those few times, too, but exercised my sense of denial by reasoning that these were just temporary relationships that weren't bound to wind up as permanent commitments, anyway......which was true, but not much of an excuse. I can honestly say that in my 7-year, permanent relationship that exists now, I have never.....and would never.....cheat.

I doubt an occasional misdeed is going to get a person sent to Hell (although that could be rationalization on my part, too). I suppose the key is learning from the bad instances and not repeating them.

Live and learn, yes...... but make sure you've really learned.....and apply that lesson. Don't cheat......but if you're going to cheat, don't pretend it's anything else.

 

[Poop Master Flex]

What if that fear of being caught was taken away? What if you could cheat on a test, your girlfriend, your taxes, or at your job to get ahead, knowing that you would never face a single consequence? Would you do it?

It really depends on the thing. For example I wouldn't have much guilt cheating on lets say a test but I could never in a million years cheat on my girlfriend and I've had ample opportunity to do so yet I've never done it. I just don't believe in messing with someones feeling and think its best to be honest with a person even if you have to be brutally honest. I could cheat on my taxes if I would get away with it no question.

The government screws me on a regular basis so I have no moral dilemma doing the same to them. When it comes to my job I simply don't need to cheat to get ahead so there's really no point to do so with that either, besides I have more confidence in what I do if I don't need to cheat because it shows I know what I'm doing.

So things like taxes and a test (not a test on a class I care for, just one to finish the class and move on) sure, why not? When it comes to a girlfriend I think its horrid to mess with anyone's feeling. Same with at a job, if you need to cheat to get ahead you're really not good enough to be ahead. I don't have a moral issue with it but if you cheat to get ahead eventually people will figure out you're not as good as you claim to be.


Or is there something else inside you that would serve as deterrant? What is it?

The only thing inside me that would serve as a deterrent would definitely be cheating on a spouse. Like I said before I just don't believe in messing with people's feelings and to string them along. If you feel the need to cheat at least have the decency to end it with your girlfriend first instead of playing games with her.

 

[Albert T]

Nope. My conscience won't allow it. Even if I could get away with it, I can't pull the cheat trigger. It's just not in me.

 

[Artemis Paradox]

I'm not typically one who supports situational ethics, but in this case, it really depends. If it's my wife, then hell no. If it comes to something else, such as you the OP said at a job to get ahead, then perhaps I would. I firmly believe in survival of the fittest, and if that's what it takes to get ahead, then so be it.

 

[AndThat'sTheBottomLine]

On a test? Oh yes. Especially if I have more than one chance to pass. In my first semester of college, one of my classes let you take a test three times maximum. I'd take the test and make and 80, then go back and retake it to and make a 100. That's my cheating limit though. I could never and will never, cheat on my fiance. When I'm with a girl, I don't cheat. I've been tempted and I've had plenty of opportunity but I've never pulled the trigger on it. I couldn't do that to her. I'd sooner rip my own heart out than hurt her like that. On my job/taxes, probably not. I probably wouldn't feel so bad about my taxes considering the number of times the government has screwed me. I couldn't do it on my job mainly because I want to earn my position not cheat my way into it.

 

[closet_fan]

Nope. My conscience won't allow it. Even if I could get away with it, I can't pull the cheat trigger. It's just not in me.

I wouldn't regardless if I could get away with it. The guilt would rip me up inside. Plus I know what it's like to be cheated on and that's not a feeling I would ever want to put upon someone else.

 

[Rayne]

Immanuel Kant theorized much the same thing; that people only behave (observe a list of acceptable actions) when they are being observed, and without the fear of observation, there would be no impulse against cheating. I'm a huge believer in this; it's the fear of being caught that defines it as 'cheating'.

I have a theory that you can tell just about everything about a person by playing a round of golf (or in my case, disc golf) with them. If a person moves their lie when they think no one is looking so that they can have a better shot, what else would they cheat at? On the other side of the coin, if you see a guy squeezing himself into a pricker bush to take his stance when he's playing a round by himself, the odds are that you can probably trust the guy.