Section and Paper
Section 1: Paper 1
Description
While there is general agreement among educators that grade inflation is wrong, there are few discussions in the existing literature of the way in which it is wrong or what makes it wrong, and fewer attempts to approach its wrongness through moral philosophy. I argue that grade inflation—understood as an evaluation of a student’s work or performance that reports its quality as higher than it is—counts as ethically wrong on the three most widely accepted normative ethical theories, and that as such it should be considered ethically wrong simpliciter. I consider three objections to my argument and show them to be mistaken, and conclude by suggesting one way for educators to resist inflating grades in contexts that encourage such inflation.
Keywords
grade inflation; grading; academic dishonesty; applied ethics; philosophy of education; professional responsibility
First Page
1
Last Page
24
Included in
The Other Academic Dishonesty: Why Grade Inflation is Ethically Wrong
While there is general agreement among educators that grade inflation is wrong, there are few discussions in the existing literature of the way in which it is wrong or what makes it wrong, and fewer attempts to approach its wrongness through moral philosophy. I argue that grade inflation—understood as an evaluation of a student’s work or performance that reports its quality as higher than it is—counts as ethically wrong on the three most widely accepted normative ethical theories, and that as such it should be considered ethically wrong simpliciter. I consider three objections to my argument and show them to be mistaken, and conclude by suggesting one way for educators to resist inflating grades in contexts that encourage such inflation.
Comments
David Collins is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at McGill University where he is currently completing a dissertation on R.G. Collingwood’s philosophy of art. In addition to aesthetics, he has research interests in moral philosophy, American Pragmatism, philosophical psychology, and philosophy of education. He comes to philosophy from a background studying, creating, and teaching film.