Professor Spooner's Blog

Charlie Sheen made “winning” infamous. But he was really just a reflection of our society’s obsession with winning. I spend a lot of time reading about why people lie, cheat and steal. My work this summer on a new Ethics course led me to the realization this obsession was borne in my childhood, where I saw kids around me cheating, dealing drugs, and stealing. This activity was not limited to the poor or needy, but people just like me. I wondered why I chose a different path.
Then I became a defense attorney. This only heightened my curiosity about why people cheat, lie and steal. This includes my clients in civil litigation, by the way.
And here I am, making my life’s work out of trying to answer the question with the students I teach. Andrea Chalupa, courtesy of the Harvard Business Review blog, has one idea. Our obsession with winning leads us to cheat. Although I could do without the doomsday meteor in her blog post, it is an interesting perspective. What do you think?