Introduction

In this episode of New Ideal Live, Ben Bayer and Daniel Schwartz discuss the problem of plagiarism in our culture. They argue that although academic institutions assume that cheating is wrong, many academics have no intellectual argument as to why plagiarism is morally wrong or why it is necessary to uphold standards of honesty. Among the topics covered: Background on the universities’ sacrifice of academic integrity to DEI; How plagiarism is a widespread problem in the culture; How some academics view plagiarism as neither significant nor necessarily wrong; The intellectuals’ failure to explain why plagiarism is morally wrong; The fact that today's ethics offers no guidance for questions about the self; Why the value of one's own education is compromised by cheating; How Ayn Rand’s view of honesty can illuminate what’s wrong with plagiarism. Recommended in this podcast are the Ayn Rand Lexicon entry on honesty, Tara Smith’s Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist, Bayer’s “Why Today’s Ethics Offers No Real Guidance,” and the previous New Ideal episode “The Real Scandal Underlying Campus Antisemitism.” The podcast was recorded on January 10, 2024. Listen to the discussion below. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here. https://youtu.be/lLOXyQpebRM Image credit: TSViPhoto/Shutterstock.com.