Relative Ethics

So I was sitting in social-science class (there was a fancy name, but that's what it was) and a fellow student walked in half an hour late.

"Mark me here, eh?"

"I thought Name-removed was doing that today?"

"Nope."

-teacher fiddles around with computer then gets back to lesson-

A little later in the day I asked the vice principle about it. Apparently schools get funded by attendance and our numbers were going down. This student didn't actually go to our school, not really. He'd be marked there and would therefore collect money from the government somehow. Either welfare or his mum was collecting dependent benefits, I can't remember his set-up. So we got more money for having more students and he'd get more money for being a student while he actually worked under the table.

It also recently occurred to me that was probably also why they never got on me to serve all those detentions for skipped classes.

I've thought about this for awhile and still don't know what the actual correct path forward was. I decided not to report it. Anyone who scams welfare really needs it and I could tell myself that our school was in desperate need of some upgrades.

On the other hand, there are probably schools worse off then us and every dollar that student takes without qualifying is another they can't give to someone who can.

So I suppose this story is to set-up a discussion on whether relative ethics is wrong or right. Absolute morality would declare that I expose the fraud and deal with the consequences. Relative ethics states that the harm (fraud) is outweighed by the good (a better school/this student not starving)

Uh, that kind of shit needs to be reported. Fraud like that harms all of us (taxpayer dollars being stolen).

It is fraud. Pure and simple. Stuff like that means people with real problems who try to use the correct channels have hoops to jump through that they sometimes aren't up to jumping. Because, you know, they need the help to jump.

Report it: it's the socially correct thing to do. Not to mention ironic, given the class.

edited 16th May '12 1:56:02 PM by Euodiachloris

I'm not sure if this is really a question of relative ethics. It's more like whether you measure right or wrong vs. overall benefit (utilitarian).

Isn't that the definition of relative ethics?

!

edited 16th May '12 2:11:21 PM by TheStarshipMaxima

Not necessarily. You need to clarify what "relative" means. Utilitarianism quite strongly sticks to utility.

When I see relative ethics, the first thing coming to mind is ethical subjectivism.

Meh, long as they don't give the kid a passing grade for a class he doesn't show up to, I don't see anything wrong.

If they give him a passing grade without him doing anything for it, fuck him, report it. That's a slight to all the legitimate students in the class.

I think Barkey's got it.

I don't believe in purely relative ethics, but I do believe that all ethical decisions should be sensitive to the context and situation. (I also dismiss absolute, objective ethics as they don't jive with human psychology).

Eh, it would depend on whether he's skipping lessons or tests. As long as the kid learns what he's supposed to learn, and can prove it, I have nothing against skipping classes. We want to avoid that "you're a winner because you showed up!" bullshit, ne?

Yeah, our school had something similar going on. We got additional funding for having students that were poor, students that were minorities, and students that were bilingual.

We had a pretty high population of all three, but they were sending home bogus surveys and stuff that we could use to "prove" it.