question about cheating

[wow1234]

i was at school and my friend approached me and asked if he could copy my work on something and i didn't want him to because it's cheating. I new it was wrong but i let him copy the first sentence. But then i remembered that our teacher said that we could work on it together so i let him finish the first sentence. but then i thought our teacher wouldn't want him to just copy off of mine. So then i didn't want to sound like a loser or something so i just asked him not to copy my work instead of taking away the folder in which it was contained( he was using the outside of my folder to write on). He closed the folder that contained my work and I left him by him self even though i probably should have watched him to see if he took my work out of my folder to cheat. i asked him later if he did or not cheat and he said that he didn't cheat. He turned it in only partially done so he got a low grade.
My questions are: did i do anything wrong by letting him copy that first sentence down? And did i do the right thing by leaving there and hoping that he didn't cheat after i told him not to? AND What should i do?

[byee]

Hmmm......ethical questions! Shows higher thought.

First, a lot would depend here on what the teacher said was OK, and if you acted within those bounds. If you did, then you're OK. If you didn't, then you're guilty. I'm most troubled not so much by what your friend may or may not have done, but your admission that your decision was based on not wanting to look like a 'loser'. Once you decide which options are either accpetable or unacceptable based not on the ethics of a situation, but rather how they reflect on you, your judgement is necessarily impaired b/c you're making decisions based on a very selfish criteria: You and your image/feelings.

Acting in an ethical fashion often means making the hard choice to do what's right based on the needs of the situation, or the expectations of the people in that situation who have determined what the requirements are (your teacher here). Once you mix your own needs/ego into it, it's often a slippery slope (as you see).

What to do? learn from it, and be aware of how your own needs often interfere with your judgement. For next time.