Plagiarism is moral

INTRODUCTION In his posting for round two, my opponent has presented an argument for his resolution that plagiarism is moral. First he defines the words “plagiarism” and “moral”, and then he proceeds with his argument. He has not presented a direct argument for his resolution but an indirect one. He argues that plagiarism is moral because it is not amoral or immoral. I have broken his argument up into its separate points and have addressed them individually. ARGUMENTS 1- Accordingly, it must be noted that if all man"s [sic] ideas are equal, no moral code can be above another. Hence the idea of right or wrong is merely relative to each person. Since this is the case, plagiarism is right because of the following reasons. 1A- unsupported point Pro provides no argument for his relativism. He just assumes it. 1B- self-defeating point Rather than supporting his resolution, this point actually negates Pro’s resolution. If there is no objective moral (right) nor immoral (wrong), then plagiarism cannot be moral (right). In fact, this point negates the entire debate. Neither of us can objectively argue that plagiarism is moral or immoral. Both the resolution and the negation of the resolution would be true, as each is true relative to the one who holds it. 2- It is not illegal. No law or statute currently in existence has the word "plagiarism" in it. Hence it is not a breach of the law to do so. 2A- no objection No objection here, except it should be noted that copyright infringement, the brother of plagiarism, is illegal. 3- Intellectual property. IP is "creations of the mind for which exclusive rights are recognized in law." Now, the whole idea of IP is absurd. Suppose that I stated a well known fact without crediting the idea creator. For example, I say that the earth is revolving around the sun to a young child. It would be absurd to say immediately after this, "according to Galileo" or to provide citations to his original work. 3A- refuting the example The analogy that Pro uses to support his case that intellectual property is absurd is very poor for the following reason: The fact that the earth revolves around the sun has been (probably) universally accepted and is understood to be the discovery of Galileo. It is information that is readily available in both literature and the internet. There is no need to mention Galileo because it should already be understood that Galileo discovered this. We generally would not use the term plagiarism to refer to the act of stating Galileo’s discoveries without citing his original works. Context is very important. Pro misunderstands what he is objecting to here. He thinks he is objecting to intellectual property. But he’s actually objecting to the idea that is it always wrong to present someone’s intellectual property without giving credit. Pro has not demonstrated that intellectual property is absurd. He has only demonstrated that one particular example of the mentioning of the intellectual property of another without giving credit is not wrong. This is a well-known fallacy studied by logicians and is known as “refuting the example”. 3- Since it is not illegal and IP is impractical, it is not immoral. 3A- legality does not equal morality Just because something is not illegal does not mean that it is not immoral. Cheating on your spouse is not illegal. Does that mean it is not immoral? While legality is supposed to be based on morality, it often is not. 3B- false claim I have already demonstrated that IP is not impractical and that Pro used a bad example to show its impracticality. His resolution that plagiarism is immoral does not follow. 3C- self-defeating point This points, again, contradicts Pro’s previous point that morality is relative. If morality is relative, then he cannot objectively say that plagiarism is not immoral because it is not illegal. I can say that it is immoral just because it is to me. 4- It is not amoral, because it does not lie outside the sphere to which moral judgments apply. 4A- self-defeating point This point also contradicts Pro’s previous point that morality is relative. If there is no objective morality, then we cannot objectively say that plagiarism is not amoral. That may be true for Pro but it may not be true for me. Another way of saying this is that if there is no objective sphere of moral judgments, thenplagiarism is amoral because it does lie outside the sphere to which moral judgments apply, because everything does.- - - - - Plagiarism is immoral for the very reason that it is dishonest. It is an attempt to pass off the ideas of another as if they were one’s own ideas. That is lying. And it may beneficial for the one who is plagiarizing, but it is unfair to the one who was plagiarized. Bottom line, it is unfair, therefore it is immoral. CONDUCT I have no objection to Pro’s conduct. GRAMMAR/SPELLING Pro had one grammatical error that I could find. ORGANIZATION Pro’s organization style is basically good. I have no objection. SOURCES I have no objection to Pro’s sources. It was unnecessary for me to use sources as I did not make any factual claims. CONCLUSION Aside from his point that plagiarism is not illegal, there are problems with all of Pro’s points making up his argument, and these problems render his resolution unsupported. Meanwhile, common sense dictates that plagiarism is immoral.