Earlier this year, India’s most well-known newspaper, The Times of India, was found to have recycled a three-year-old full page cover story word-for-word as a paid-for advertisement. There has been an alarming regularity with which incidents of gross misconduct have come to light: for example, over 100 Harvard students cheated on an exam last academic year. Closer to home, Margaret Wente of the Globe and Mail admitted to running excerpts written by others in a July 2009 column, passing them off as her own. Most recently, the Harvard Crimson scrutinized Paul Krugman’s citation standards in one of his NYT op-eds.

Each of these cases (barring Dr. Krugman, of course—journalistic citations demand integrity but definitely offer some latitude) presents interesting questions to ponder. Can money cloud the judgment of a newspaper enough for it to sell its masthead to advertisers? Does the promise of getting a good grade on a final motivate an entire class to cheat? Would the prospect of publishing a spectacular piece drive a columnist to sample other’s thoughts and opinions without credit? Wente is certainly not an exception in this case. These questions are eloquently summed up by American philosopher Martha Nussbaum in her The Fragility of Goodness. This philosophical treatise is Nussbaum’s authoritative view on notions of tragedy and ethics. By analyzing ethical dilemmas, Nussbaum puts forward a pointed question: Why should anyone do the right thing when there are no particularly striking incentives for good behaviour?

The motivation for such acts of plagiarism largely stem from mismanaged time. During the years we spend at McGill, there’s always room for a lapse or two—under the brutal force of a looming deadline, all standards of ethics and originality can crumble. When immediate focus is placed entirely on submitting an assignment, acing a final, or turning in a report, the final results—grades—take precedence. Acquisition of knowledge and expertise in a field feel like utopian ideals in a system of education that seemingly acts against you. The joy and goal of learning seem mundane as we don roles of assignment-completing, number-crunching machines. The incentives are not apparent; the options tempting, even corrupting. In the viral age, it is much easier to give in, and it is just as easy to get caught.

[pullquote]Why should anyone do the right thing when there are no particularly striking incentives for good behaviour?[/pullquote]

Finding the right incentives lies at the core of reform. All is not right with the way higher education functions. Most institutions deal with plagiarism by penalizing misbehaviour. The failure to acknowledge and reward good deeds can counteract the effects of these supposed bulwarks that prevent damage. For instance, many consumers at the grocery store check-out line continue to spring the few additional cents for a plastic bag without thinking, and wasteful behaviour progresses in an infinite loop. The ideal solution to this issue is to charge more and provide a cloth bag. Any sensible consumer would eventually bring his or her own cloth bag (likely purchased at a check-out line at some point). This sort of positive penalization promotes good behaviour.

The solution to academic dishonesty is a similar one. Instead of handing out an identical problem-set to a class, students should be allowed to select from a pool of challenging questions. Additionally, the weighting of assignments towards the final grade can be reduced to a bare minimum, assuming that most of the cheating happens on assignments. If such a system were replicated in educational establishments today, there’s some hope for the preservation of the ideals in a real university education.