Superconductor

"Everyone Cheats"?

I recently had a discussion about my last post, Student Ethics. During this conversation, Sashi Chandrasekaran had the best response to the claim that "Everyone Cheats." He asked, "What would the world look like if everyone cheated?"

We were in a restaurant at the time, seven of us, and Sashi pointed out that there was nothing to stop us from just running away without paying. If everyone cheated, then the restaurant would have two guards posted at the door to make sure people paid. If there was only one guard, people would bribe that individual (remember, everyone cheats, so we can assume the guard would willingly accept a bribe), so a second guard is needed to keep an eye on the first one. It would be cheaper to just pay the bill than bribe both guards.

Look at just about any simple transaction in society and imagine what it would look like if everyone cheated. For example, suppose you wanted to buy some apples. You go to a grocery store. Because the grocer knows that everyone cheats, he can't let people browse the aisles without supervision. And he can't trust anyone else to do the job (remember, everyone cheats, including anyone he hires), he'll have to do it himself. Which means only one person is allowed into the store at any one time. You pick out some apples, but you know that everyone cheats, which means the grocer cheats, so you can't trust him to weigh the apples correctly. You have your own scales, but the grocer can't trust you, so you can't make the transaction based on weight. So the price is per apple. You hand over money, but the grocer can't be sure it's real, so has become an expert in spotting counterfeit cash.

But that's not how grocers do business. This is pretty good evidence that "Everyone Cheats" is not true.

"What would the world look like if everyone cheated?" Imagine such a world and you will realize that the world today is very far from what you envision. That tells you that not everyone cheats. In fact, only a small fraction of people cheat.

Furthermore, I suspect that the vast majority of people who perform this exercise (imagine such a world) would come to the conclusion that a society could not form in the first place if everyone cheated. We'd still be living in caves with maybe fire as the most advanced technology available.

Game Theory has actually shown this mathematically. There's a concept of cooperate or cheat. If everyone cooperates, everyone wins. If only one person cheats, then that cheater wins bigger than everyone else, and everyone loses just a little. Seeing the cheater prosper, someone else cheats. The original cheater does not win as big (the two cheaters "share" the spoils) but still wins bigger than the cooperators. And the cooperators lose just a little more. And so on. Eventually, if too many people cheat, there are not enough cooperators to create the wealth in the first place, or the cooperators lose enough that they employ security against the cheaters. Also, too many cheaters makes cheating less profitable (the spoils are shared among too many). An individual gains more from cooperating than from cheating. So from a strictly profit/loss point of view, a society will be able to "tolerate" only a small number of cheaters.

And that's saying nothing about ethics and morals. It's just a fact that there are many people who don't cheat simply because it's wrong.

I'm reminded of an argument against time travel. How do we know that travelling back in time is impossible? Because today we don't see people from the future.

How do we know that "Everyone Cheats" is false? Because we live in a world that operates on the premise that it is false, and the world operates very well.

Student Ethics

In the news recently was a story about a class at the University of Central Florida wherein about 200 of the 600 students got access to a test beforehand. The professor gave students the opportunity to confess to cheating and take a new test, or risk expulsion.

The story ended up being more nuanced. Many or most of the students who received the test beforehand did not know it was the test, they thought it was study material.

But I saw something interesting in one report of the incident. One student said, "This is college. Everyone cheats, everyone cheats in life in general. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in this testing lab who hasn't cheated on an exam."

It's not just this cheating scandal. Look at any story about cheating at school (at any level) and you'll find students saying something similar, "Everyone cheats".

This is the third stage of ethics (see my previous posts here and here for more about the stages of ethics). Something is OK because that's what the group says.

However, for the student who said, "Everyone cheats," and for all students, the message needs to be, "It doesn't matter what 'everyone' is doing, if something is wrong it's wrong." That's the fourth stage.

Besides, when people say, "everyone is doing it," what they really mean is "everyone I know is doing it." It was a professor of math at The Claremont Graduate School who taught me this distinction. He pointed out that when he was at Berkeley in the 60's, he knew several students who would say, "The Revolution is coming. There's going to be a revolution and we're going to overthrow this corrupt government." The professor (then a student) would reply, "I don't think there's going to be a revolution, there's just not enough support for it." The answer would be, "Look, everyone is for the revolution. Everyone I know is talking about it and gearing up for the revolution." As you can see, "everyone" was everyone the particular campus radical hung out with. And who did the campus radicals hang out with? Other campus radicals.

When it comes to cheating, I think when people say "everyone's doing it", they are in stage 3 of ethics, or else they know the activity is wrong, but they are trying to justify it. I think the statement "Everyone cheats," is incomplete. I think the real full statement is this.

"I want to cheat because that's easier than working hard. But cheating is wrong, unless
        everyone cheats
in which case it's OK, I'm just leveling the playing field. In fact, if
        everyone cheats in life in general
then I'd be a sap for not cheating. So I choose to believe, with no evidence to support this contention other than my conversations with 4 or 5 people out of the entire population of almost 6 billion people in the world, 300 million in the US, and 3,000 students at this college, that everyone cheats. That way I can cheat with a clear conscience."

Stages of Ethics

In a previous post, here, I discussed the stages of ethics. To recap, they are

1. Something is wrong because I'll get punished for it.
2. Something is wrong because a higher authority says so.
3. Something is wrong because society/the people around me say so.
4. Something is wrong because it's wrong.

The 4th stage is ethics, someone thinks about why something is wrong (or right). Most people would claim they are in the 4th stage, but we know there are some who are not. It would be great if there was a test one could take which would tell us which stage we were in.

The problem with ethics tests is that people know what the answers are supposed to be. How someone answers a question on a test and how someone behaves in real life can be two different things. For example, this Wall Street Journal article reports that some employers require applicants to take personality tests, which purportedly measure work ethic and honesty, among other traits. However, cheaters simply give the answers the test wants, sometimes even getting answer keys online. As one cheater put it, this type of test "weeds out people who are honest and selects those who lie."

A true test of ethics would see how people behave when no one is looking. But then we wouldn't be able to obtain results. If we watch people behave, then they don't behave naturally. This is an example of quantum physics played out in real life: the act of observing something alters the thing being observed.

But I'm not looking for a test that allows outside observers to determine your ethics, I'm looking for a self-administered test that individuals can take to assess their own ethics. This would be like those tests that measure political philosophy (are you conservative, liberal or libertarian?)

When no one else will see the results of the test, I suspect that people will be more honest. However, I also think they still will be able to know what the correct answer is supposed to be and there will be a bias. I also think that people might think they're answering honestly, but how they think of ethics and how they act might be two things. For example, someone who says it's wrong to take office supplies home for personal use might take a computer keyboard home, justifying it by saying the office has so many unused ones hanging around, they won't miss one. This is where theory and practice clash.

Maybe the best test would be this. Present a scenario that describes someone behaving in a way that might or might not be ethical. The test-taker then lists reasons the bahavior might be considered ethical and reasons the behavior might not be. Maybe the way someone debates an issue will be the way we can gain insight into that person's ethics.

For example, here's a scenario. It's winter in the San Francisco Bay Area. At 6:00 PM it's already dark. A man is driving home from work. His daughter is in a school play tonight, beginning at 6:30. He wants to be on time, he promised his daughter he would be there. But traffic is really bad. It looks like he'll be late. Unless he drives in the carpool lane. That lane is for cars carrying two or more people. But he's alone. Describe some arguments that say ethically it is OK for him to drive in the carpool lane, but also give some arguments that say ethically that it is not OK for him to drive in the carpool lane.

My guess is that the arguments people describe would tell a lot about the stage of ethics they are in. I'm not saying I could necessarily interpret them, but I think we might be able to gain insight. For instance, does someone say, as an argument for it's OK, "It's dark, the probability that the Highway Patrol will be able to see that he is solo is so low, he won't get caught." That seems to imply stage 1. Or someone who says, as an argument for it's not OK, "Too bad, you should have planned for the possibility of traffic, the law is the law." That implies stage 2.

Stages of Ethics

This is a post about ethics. What does ethics have to do with security? Well, if everyone were ethical, there would be no need for security. So I'm going to justify this entry by saying that understanding ethics (or the lack thereof) helps us to understand how to implement security measures.

Over the years, I've read various versions of the stages of ethics. They tend to be very similar, but there's one I like so I'll present it here.

Four Stages of Ethics

Stage 1, the baby/toddler years: Something is wrong because you'll get punished. Children learn, "If I hit my sibling I'll get a time out or I won't get to play with a particular toy." So they know hitting the sibling is wrong. However, if they don't get caught, children in this stage don't feel bad, or have a guilty conscience, or suffer remorse. If there's no punishment, it's OK.

Stage 2, early childhood: Something is wrong because a higher authority says so. When the parents declare, "Don't ride your bike beyond 6th street," the child won't. Even if no one is looking, even if they know they wouldn't get caught, children in this stage won't do something because the parents said so. But they also start thinking in loopholes, "My parents never said I COULDN'T climb onto the roof, so it's OK."

Stage 3, late childhood, teens: Something is wrong because the group says so. Older kids and teenagers behave the way they see the group behaving. Most teenagers are a bit rebellious, but most of them also follow a dress code at school, so most teenagers follow the dress code (a bit of circular logic, but trust me, it makes sense). Of course, the teenager who hangs out with kids who shoplift will find it easier to accept the group ethic of shoplifting.

Stage 4, adulthood: Something is wrong because it's wrong. In this stage, people have ethics. They think about what is right and wrong and why. People with ethics do what they feel is right, regardless of punishment (or lack of punishment), regardless of what higher authorities say, regardless of what the people around them say. People who fought against racial segregation in the US (despite the higher authority and the threat of punishment), and people who don't call in sick when they're healthy (despite an almost zero chance of being caught) are ethical people.

The problem is that some people never advance beyond one of the three early stages. There are adults, still in stage 1, who will not hesitate to do something illegal/immoral/wrong if it benefits them and they won't get caught. Most criminals are this way. The offenders who express remorse at sentencing are often remorseful because of the bad things happening to them, not for the harm they did to other people.

Those stuck in stage 2 are more likely to unquestioningly follow the declarations of a church/priest or the boss and politician ("My country, right or wrong", "My religion says birth control is wrong, so I don't use it"). They are also the people who look for loopholes and look for alternate interpretations of commands that suit their purpose. When the company policy is "No side businesses at work," someone will justify a side business saying, "I only do it during my lunch hour, so technically I'm not at work."

Someone still in stage 3 will steal office supplies or cheat on their taxes or improperly download movies or music or software, saying, "Everyone does it."

If you presented the stages of ethics (in this form or something similar) to most people, I imagine most would agree with the general idea (maybe quibble on the details). I also think that most people would believe they are in stage 4. You can probably think of some people who are clearly stage 1 or 2 people (probably not stage 3 and at least definitely not stage 4), and I'll bet you they would say they are in stage 4. No one is going to say, "Yeah, I'm someone who will do anything and not feel guilty so long as there is no punishment."

The reason most people would say this is because they do contemplate ethics. That's one of the ways to recognize stage 4, thinking about ethics. The problem is that most of us to some degree try to figure out how a situation that would benefit us personally could be considered ethical. That is, the train of thought is not "This is beneficial to me, but is it ethical?" Rather, it is, "This would be to my advantage, how can I construe this to be ethical?" Not explicitly, but that is what is happening.

For example, suppose you have two tickets to a show with unassigned seating. Suppose also that the show has in-and-out privileges, just show your ticket on the way out and the way in. You and a friend could use the two tickets to get in, then you could take both tickets, go outside (showing one ticket on the way out), hand the second ticket to a third party and now you and the third party get in. Three people on two tickets. Is this ethical?

"The show is nowhere near a sellout, so we're not causing overcrowding."

"They make most of their money on concessions, so they want more people to show up, even if they don't buy tickets."

"We'd never buy three tickets -- if we couldn't do this 3-for-2 trick our third party simply would not join us -- so we're not depriving them of any income, in fact, we might be adding to it because we might buy concessions."

"If we like the show, we'll buy more tickets in the future, so they might make more money in the long run."

Is this rationalizing? Or is it a valid ethical conclusion? Sometimes rationalizations are valid ("Even though a right turn on red is illegal at this light, I needed to get out of the way of that ambulance.") In the example above, it is entirely possible the people running the show would be glad to have extra people come in, even though they did not pay, for exactly the reasons given (concession sales and possible future ticket sales). However, in my opinion, the above thinking would be true ethics only if the ticket holder contacted the show people and asked if they would be OK with a 3-for-2 trick. If not, then this is an example of "This would be to my advantage, how can I construe this to be ethical?"

More on this topic in upcoming posts.