alt Hacker NewsThis is not obvious at all.
Loyalty is a fundamental moral principle. Loyalty to a friend carries a lot of moral weight. Humans are a social animal, and loyalty to a friend can easily outweigh loyalty to some abstract institution. Like, my friend will still have my back five years from now. The university I went to won't do shit for me.
Like, if you're talking about loyalty to a friend who wants you to cover up an unjustified murder they committed, then I think most people will say the value of telling the cops about the murder outweighs the loyalty to your friend.
But for cheating on some test where probably 30% of the other students are cheating anyways? I think the vast majority of people will say that loyalty to your friend is the more important moral principle here. We all make mistakes in life, and the whole idea of loyalty and love to a friend is that we support them even though they make mistakes. As long as the mistakes are common mistakes like cheating on a test or cheating on a boyfriend, as opposed to things like felony crimes.
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I don't consider it loyalty to know a friend has cheated, and let them get away with it.
Teachers/Professors are already used to accommodating dumb planning/mistakes from students. An honest "I spent too much time partying and fell behind, can I get an extension" email will often get you very far.
Also baffled to hear cheating on a boyfriend included there, cheating of that sort would be friendship ending.
> Like, my friend will still have my back five years from now
Im not convinced that's the case, if it's a person who can normalise cheating.
They've already made the decision that benefit to themselves outweighs everything else.
It's not a mistake if they do it routinely.
I could buy the argument if the friend had a moment of weakness, regretted it, won't do it again, and please don't report it. They've learned their lesson, that's enough.
But if they do it and they're fine with it and they're going to do it again and what's the big deal? Refusing to report that isn't loyalty anymore, it's not sticking with someone who made a mistake, it's protecting deliberate bad behavior.
You’re introducing additional details and scenarios that are part of a different conversation, one in which is certainly nuanced and well-worth discussing.
But what you are doing here is justifying behavior. That’s separate from a discussion about what’s right or wrong. You have to not only consider one’s friendship, but the negative effects across society that their actions cause. In other words, reporting the friend negatively affects (in general) only two individuals, while cheating affects many more people and cultural values and norms. I’m not a Utilitarian, but intent and effect matter.