You have a huge assignment for a 10-page research paper on the Europea

QUESTION

You have a huge assignment for a 10-page research paper on the European Union in history class, and you are late in starting the project.

In the middle of the night, as you are desperately searching the Internet for some facts on the European Union, you come across a paper that covers your topic. Your answer to your problem stares at you from the screen. What questions do you ask yourself as you try to make an ethical decision about this situation? Explain the process of decision making in the face of this ethical dilemma.

ANSWER

Ask yourself these questions: 1) What are all the facts? What do you know? What hidden elements are not obvious or are difficult to discuss? Is this a case of plagiarizing or is the material in this paper available for your use? Can you rewrite the material so that it is you own composition and it is not plagiarism? 2) Who will your decision affect? Will others follow you example and plagiarize as well if that is what you am doing by using this paper? 3) Gather more information and research similar instances. Have you plagiarized before? Have others in any of you classes plagiarized? If you rewrite the material is that something that’s been done before? 4) Using a formal decision-making approach, what solution do you come up with taking into consideration all the information at your disposal. (Formal decision-making approaches include the virtue principle and utilitarianism. 5) After examining all of your potential solutions, choose the best decision and look at it from different perspectives (for example, the teacher’s perspective, the perspective of the other students, the perspective of the person who wrote the essay that you found on the Internet). 6) Take another look at your decision and if you still feel comfortable, implement it.