The good student cheats when they know that if they get caught, they will have a solid excuse to cover their ass. After all, tough times demand tough measures, right?

For example, my speech is always tempered, but if I have to deal with someone who is trying to kick my ass - I can start swearing (a preemptive strike is sometimes effective, the problem is that you can't tell beforehand whether it will be or not :-).
If you're patiently waiting in a queue and you notice that people start cutting the line, stepping on your foot, pushing you - you become less polite and you will have to let some of your "dark side" self out, otherwise the tickets may be over before it is your turn.
Killing someone in a war is "normal", while doing the same thing in days of peace is reserved for bad guys and psychopaths.

What these cases have in common is the excuse:

• I had to try to scare them off because otherwise things could get physical and then the outcome would be much worse;
• Not only that that arsehole stepped on my shoe, he also skipped 10 positions in the line. He got here after me, but got his tickets sooner! If I waited longer I could miss the show;
• If we don't build it [the bomb], they will, and they'll use it against us. We have to do it first;

As you can see, if there is a rationale, a bad action is not perceived as such, it can even get a positive hue! The next question is "who is this rationale for?". This is where things become interesting. These arguments are to be used in court and to be examined by the judge. We can also rely on an imaginary jury of peers, they will examine the arguments of both parties and then decide who is right (or as it happens most often - who is less wrong) in the given circumstances.

Imagine the following dialogue between a teacher and a student (don't forget about the jury of peers, they're watching it):
- You have cheated during the exam, which is why I am going to fail you.
- I cheated because I had no other choice, you gave us so much information in class and you haven't explained most of it to us.

Is it cheating now? Maybe it was the teacher who cheated? After all, they did a lousy job and they even got paid for it!

The student has many other responses to choose from (if you're a teacher, think about how many of these apply to you; if you're a student, think about which of these can be applied to your teachers):

• you keep reading things off a paper and I doubt that you understand them yourself;
• you're often late to class, and even when you're there, you give us an "assignment" and then proceed handling your own affairs;
• when I ask you a question you rarely offer a satisfying answer, most of the times it is something like "find it in the book" or "you're going to research this and then make a report about it next week";
• all your exam exercises are based on nothing but the memorization of raw data and absolutely no intelligence is required;
• the exam included a lot of obsolete material that is not worth remembering;
• you gave us too much information to study, it was simply impossible to understand all of that in such a short period of time;

Of course, the teacher can have some counter arguments as well:

• you're often late to class;
• you don't do your homework;
• you don't ask questions in class;
• you never submit your reports on time;

No party is complete without "the system" - "I am often late because I need to have 2 jobs because the university doesn't cover the needs of my family", etc.

Think of each argument as if it were a bullet. The more arguments you have, the more bullets you can use against the enemy. Whoever has more bullets is the winner.

So why does cheating happen? Because you know that if you get caught - you have a lot of ammo! The teacher knows about it, and they realize that if they "attack" you, the entire world will know that they are late to classes, that they haven't updated their curriculum since '45, that they occupy themselves with other matters during classes (instead of teaching students), that they read things off a paper instead of explaining them from memory, etc.

Yes, they can say "you're often late" or "you don't submit your reports on time", but the world will still find out about the teacher's incompetence (via all the bullets the student fired).

In other words, unless a teacher is a person who not only has high moral standards, but also follows them - it is impossible to combat cheating. Of course, teachers are not flawless, they can make mistakes too, as long as each of their mistakes is supported by a solid excuse ;-)

Yes, you can punish students for cheating, but they will feel frustrated and cheated because of this inappropriate attitude - the teacher cheats, so I have the right to do some cheating too! Right?

Another way to view this relationship is MAD - Mutual Assured Destruction. The only way to survive is to fire no bullets at all. If at least one is fired, then someone's reputation will decline. In any case, it is extremely rare that only one of the sides has bullets; therefore it is safe to conclude that if at least one bullet is fired - hell breaks loose. Nobody wants that, so both parties are in a balance, a tacit non-aggression pact.

Now, let me get back to the original problem. Cheating is cheating only when you were given a perfect academic environment and all the tools you need in order to understand the material. If you use unorthodox methods to pass the exam, your only thought is "I was given everything I needed, I had the opportunity to do it right, yet I chose to cheat" (admit that it is so, there can't be any excuses).
Cheating is not cheating when the environment is sub-optimal and the academic process isn't perfect. If you cheat, your thought is "I tried my best, but because of X, Y, Z I am forced to do some cheating". You're off the hook.

Now I can distill this article into one sentence - cheating is not cheating if you are able to convince someone that you had no other choice.

How does this work with relationships? In the exact same way - if you can justify your actions, it's OK. "You were always coming late home and I felt alone, I needed human contact" sounds plausible, right?

Given that no person is flawless, you will always be able to find problems in their personality (especially if you look for them ;-), how can we improve things? The answer is simple, use a self-test question - "would this argument hold water if it were used against me?".

Place yourself in the shoes of the enemy and in the shoes of a member of the jury - throw an argument at yourself. If you think the argument is implausible, then don't throw it at others.
- You were always coming late home and I felt alone, I needed human contact.
- Why didn't you talk to me about it? (this is what you'd say if someone told this to you, wouldn't you?)

P.S. there is an interesting article on cheating in the academic environment, by Donald Norman.

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