MrO go with number 4. If you don’t like the situation, get out to be honest with yourself. At the least, do what you know is right.
I think that you all are overestimating MrO’s level of ethical culpability here. For the purposes of illustration, let’s say that there is a person working for PlagiaristPublisher, paid for by PP, whose job is to go pick up coffee for the members of the office. For simplicity’s sake, this person shall be known as Coffee Boy. If Coffee Boy is made aware of plagiarism by the Publisher, is he now ethically obligated to quit, because by rendering services to and being paid by the Publisher he is “enabling” their plagiarism? I would say no. Neither Coffee Boy nor MrO are responsible for the plagiarism in question, or is it their decision to publish the book. It is MrO’s duty as a proofreader to note any errors or omissions in the text, which a missing attribution or plagiarised material certainly constitutes. Furthermore, MrO may feel the ethical need to tip off the publisher whose work was stolen. However, MrO is no more ethically obligated to quit than Coffee Boy, or the weekend janitors.
To use the Nazi example, it’s the difference in moral responsibility for the holocaust between a concentration camp administrator and the guy who shined Hitler’s boots.
I don’t see any ethical problem with just continuing to do your job and not saying anything to anybody.
Do you really think your company will stop plagiarizing if either (1)you tell your company about it or (2) you tell the original author of the material about it and the original author contacts your company? Hell no! But it could get you fired, and you said you need the money.
I don’t see any reason to “take a stand” when there’s only a miniscule chance that anybody’s behavior will change because of your stand and a real chance that your job status will change
And I don’t think you’re being paid “dirty money” or anything like that. They only hired you to proofread the book, not write it or put your imprimatur of “not stolen” on it or anything like that. Also, your company may not even be doing anything illegal in Korea. Finally, the UK company may even know about it and just chalk it up as a cost of doing business.
Hmm. I signed up for this crusade to wipe out unethical conduct in Korea, and now I find I’m just the coffee/shoe-shine boy and janitor. Actually, that suits me a lot better.
Simply, morality deals with good and bad and ethics deal with right and wrong.
Let me imagine a good example.
Got one. You are a health care worker; from a professional contact you KNOW a woman is infertile; no, make that sterile. One day, your brother, who has always wanted kids, introduces you to his new girl-friend, he thinks she is ‘the one’. Same woman.
Ethically, you can’t tell your brother she is sterile; morally, can you let your own brother fall more deeply in love with this woman, without his knowing the truth?
To me, this is neither an ethical nor a moral dilemma; ethics and morals are completely clear, and in complete opposition.
How does this apply to you? Morally, I would refuse any more work with the company, BUT I do not have financial responsibility for other people. I would NOT refuse the work if I had little mouths to feed. In your case, a spy in their midst is ethical, and possibly moral. But only you can decide your moral responsibilities.
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Thanks for the reply, j66. Actually, I’m familiar with the distinctions that some make between those terms, and with the quibbles that others have with those distinctions–my MA research focused on deontology, though it’s been years since I’ve been involved in the theoretical debate. Your definitions are fine with me, but they are, as you say, simple. You seem to suggest (please forgive if I’ve misinterpreted) that ethics is more about professional rules and legality. I tend to use the term in a broader sense, as in what will benefit the most and hurt the least. In that sense, it’s hard to distinguish between morality and ethics at all, but more on that later.
To comment on your example (actually it doesn’t work for me, because I would consider marrying a sterile woman a blessing; still, I get your point): I think it would be both moral and ethical to warn my brother about her situation. Illegal, possibly, and probably against the code of conduct prescribed by the health care community, but I would break the law and risk being fired to save someone from being hurt. (Again, we’re assuming that marrying an infertile woman would hurt him. Actually, I would first confront the woman about my brother’s desire to have children, and see what she decided to do about it.) In this case, I can’t find a difference between good/bad and right/wrong. It would be both good and right to warn my brother that he might get hurt, and both bad and wrong to allow someone to be hurt when I could stop it.
In my situation now (I do suspect I’m making way too much of this), I think it would be both moral and ethical (good and right) to let the original company know that they’re being ripped off. It could hurt the publisher I’m working for (and me, a little), but the greater good is served by trying to stop the theft. I would say that operating as a spy in the Korean company (now I know I’m making too much of this) would be ethical from the perspective of the original publisher, but unethical from the perspective of the Korean publisher.
About the moral/ethical distinction, I tend to avoid the term “moral” because to many people it suggests religion, and following rules handed down from some supernatural source. Ethics, to some of these people, suggests doing the right thing according to principles of fairness and “human” goodness. These are not strictly correct interpretations, but they are common. A few cites:
This person thinks that slavery can be moral or immoral according to time and place: “1400 years ago it was not immoral to have slaves. But slavery is ethically wrong and that transcends time.” I believe that slavery is always immoral and always unethical.
Here’s one who sees morality as religious in essence and ethics as secular, with some Jung and human instincts thrown in: “I will, therefore, define morality as religion-derived, and ethics as derived from first principles.”
Another writer on the subject seems to agree with the first one I mentioned:
“Morals are rules and customs of behavior that are determined to be right based on ‘norms’; behavior accepted by the majority in a society. Morals may be rational and they may be irrational.
Ethics are rules of behavior that are determined based on what is believed to be a rational understanding of reality. Ethics are always rational, relative to that understanding.”
Yet another person says that “morals refer more to the absolute concept of good and evil, while ethics can encompass relativistic views.” This may be what you’re getting at.
Of course you are welcome to correct any misconceptions I have about what you mean, or to let the thread die a quiet death. The manuscript will be returned to the publisher in about 12 hours. I’ve obviously finished it, or I wouldn’t have had the time to spend on this reply, which I imagine will be rightly ignored by all. I enjoyed writing it up, anyway. My apologies if this hijack comes across as either immoral, unethical, or just annoying.
I just skimmed this thread, but I would suggest quitting your job in rightist indignation and recommend me for your current job.
I need the work!
Mr. O, I’m late to the party, but I agree with Giraffe and what you’ve already done. Tell the publisher, then, if the book makes it into press with the passages in question still in place and no credit given, tell the original publisher anonymously. I’ve got to admit, it’s a lot easier to have ethics when you also have money, but to me doing the right thing matters.
CJ