"Cheating's Not Cheating If There Aren't Any Consequences." Oh, Yeah?

Not, perhaps, my most thoughtful riposte.

I'm not a regular reader of Michelle Slatalla's "Wife / Mother / Worker / Spy" column in the New York Times, and I missed yesterday's column until my husband brought it to my attention. In it, Slatalla "confesses" to cheating, regularly, when playing the online game Lexulous (derived from Scrabble).

But, she insists, she is scrupulously ethical in the real world, so why would she cheat online? To find the answer, she consults Mia Consalvo, an MIT researcher in cheating and the motivation to cheat.

According to Prof. Consalvo, "Cheating is not necessarily a bad thing in situations where there are no consequences and you're not hurting anyone. You can explore the boundaries of acceptable behavior."

I disagree. Slatalla herself worries that her "virtual cheating" might someday spread, "like a mutating virus", to her offline ethics. Prof. Consalvo assures her that she needn't worry: "It's much easier to cheat when people don't really know who you are."

I disagree with that too. I believe that online cheating, unexamined, makes one comfortable with the very concept of cheating. And once you're comfortable with it online, it will inevitably spread to your offline behavior. It may be easier to cheat in an environment where "people don't really know who you are", but that just means that you have a "safe" environment in which to practice your cheating skills. Even when playing games, the "just about everyone cheats online" excuse is invalid (remember your Mom: "If 'everyone else' jumps off a bridge, does that mean you should too?"). Even when you're playing Solitaire, it's not right to cheat (not to mention, no fun).

Slatalla gives an example of her offline ethics: Playing doubles tennis with friends, an opponent's shot grazes the line "with one of its tiny tennis-ball hairs" and Slatalla called, "That was good!" Her husband is apparently "shocked at the charity of the call." So her online cheating has not affected her "real life" behavior.

Or has it: Is this anecdote a reflection of Slatalla's ethics or of her desire to appear ethical? They're not exactly the same....