I am a PhD student working on … [details removed to protect anonymity]. I want to share my confusion and experience with you.
In short, my PhD supervisor has engaged in academic misconduct, and I raised the issue with university officials. For example, he … [details removed for anonymity].
I was very respectful to him before this, although there have been some personal conflicts. For example, he … [material removed]. Despite these conflicts, I thought he was just a strict teacher until I happened to learn about the dishonest behaviors. He is also to some extent a good supervisor. For example, he would very carefully polish my manuscript and even reorganize and rewrite the paper. He also gave insightful suggestions.
I became confused after I raised the issue. On the one hand, I think these behaviors are unfair to researchers who are honest and hard-working（including myself). Moreover, I needed a justifiable reason to apply for a change of supervisor. On the other hand, he was my supervisor and really taught me something, at least in paper writing.
I am also confused about how to how to take corrective actions to dishonest behavior? I finally decided to speak up because I think it directly harms the interests of others. But there are also some cheating behaviors that do not harm others, or do so indirectly, and I can ignore it. For an extreme case, what if I enjoy the benefits of the dishonest behavior? For example, if my parents did such a thing I would not raise the issue.
The personal information is added to better explain my situation. Feel free to delete it if you want to post this dilemma.
[The above is lightly edited for clarity.]
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Hi. I’m John Hooker, an emeritus professor of business ethics at Carnegie Mellon University. I created this blog to provide a forum for analyzing ethical dilemmas in a rational way.
Ethical Decisions 