Question

Ethics Professor Forging Letter of Recommendation

Mark, an ethics professor, has completed a manuscript for a new book entitled Being Moral. Before submitting it to a publisher, he writes a phony letter of recommendation from a well-known ethicist and sends it with his manuscript, reasoning that because there are so many ethics books on the market, his manuscript won't have a chance without something special to recommend it. The publisher accepts the book for publication. Just as he begins to distribute it, he discovers that the letter is a fake. At first the publisher thinks he might publish the book anyway but then he decides not to, given the fact that the author is an ethicist and the book is about ethics. Was what Mark did wrong? Why or why not? Do you think the publisher was wrong to pull the book off the market for the reasons given? Why or why not? Does what Mark did seem worse to you because he is a teacher of ethics? Why or why not? How would you feel about using such a text knowing what the author had done? Be specific.

Answer 1

It is such an ironic thing that an ethics professor faked a recommendation letter. This is truly an unethical thing to even begin with and would not set a good example for the others around, If his work was good, he would have got the offer even without a letter as it does not play any crucial role in the quality of work . Although people do give value to it but the real thing is the quality of work one does and that truly plays a very integral role in career building.But all said and done, the publisher's decision to stop the distribution of books when all things were done does not make any sense. I know he is furious with the fact that he lied about the letter but the quality and work of book had nothing to do with it. He could have used a slightly better approach like not giving him full money or something like this, but the way he treated the situation did not make really a professional sense.