Example Of Essay On Ethical Dilemma

Life is filled with moments when one has to take a decision. Nevertheless, this is not always easy, as sometimes one finds one’s self in a compromising position. Often, this implies that either two or more options are good, or two or more of them are bad. In college, I have been faced with many such choices. One of the most important ones happened last semester, when one of my best friends decided that he would cheat on a paper we had to do, by ordering to have it made for him. I was thus faced with the predicament of telling the professor, or allowing my friend to do this. At the end, I did not do anything, and allowed him to cheat, even though I knew that it was not a correct way to act.
I did this mainly because he was my friend, and I believe that one should keep a friend’s secrets no matter what. Trust is one of the main components of a friendship, and I think that I would not have been doing the right thing if I told someone else this secret. Relationships are one of the most important and pleasant aspects of the human experience, and I believe that one should behave as well as possible in order to achieve having good friends.
On the other hand, this was not a grave offense. Even though it is intellectually dishonest, having someone else do your work for you does not constitute a big problem in my way of seeing things. It does not harm others, and the main person that is affected is the person that does it. Because of this, I tried talking to him in order to have him do his own work, so that he would learn, but this was to no avail. When you have someone else do your work for you, you only miss out on the opportunity to gain that knowledge and experience. Although this is important, there are many other actions that one can do that cause damage towards other people.
When thinking about what to do, I also considered how it would impact others in a positive way. Even though I believe that knowledge and experience are more important, this also gave my friend time to spend with his family, who had come to visit. Furthermore, it gave the writer money that he could have needed. Therefore, one could argue that having him cheat was actually beneficial, as it caused no harm and had some positive effects.
Nevertheless, I find this to be unsound, because I believe that honesty and abiding to the law are very important. Even though they may not be the best guides in the world, and laws are often unjust, one should try to go along with them as much as possible. In this sense, even though it could be beneficial in terms of money, it was detrimental in terms of personal gain and of virtues. In my opinion, I did the right thing by not telling the teacher because of the friendship. However, I do not believe that his actions were correct, and I talked to him before he did it and after as well. I hope this caused a change in him, because it is not something that will bring him positive things the rest of his life.