Both passages are concerned with answering which one of the following questions?

jingjingxiao11111@gmail.com on September 29, 2021

Hi I am not an instructor but I will try to help.

I believe the power and morality relationship is only a huge part of passage A, as A talks about how in Laura J. Rosenthal’s work, plagiarism is a manifestation of power where people in power arrest unfairly authors they don’t like for plagiarism charges. Obviously, passage A, being written by Ricks, is dismissive of Rosenthal’s work, calling moral standard, even if not universal over time, still worthy of our respect. So extirpation (destruction) of moral consideration (because moral standard changed over time) from political histories such as in the topic of plagiarism is a loss and completely wrong.


However, both Passage A and B write mainly about how moral standard is studied/viewed historically. Passage A is about moral standard not being universal over history but still worthy of our respect so extirpation (destruction) of moral consideration from political histories such as in the topic of plagiarism is a loss. Please see supporting quote from Passage A, end of the passage: “Moral conventions, though not universal, .may be valuable, indispensable, worthy of respect. The extirpation of .moral considerations from political histories such as this one is a sad .loss to political history.” (Quote from Passage A).

Passage B acknowledges most of the points made in Passage A. See supporting quote from Passage B: “Ricks is rightly dismissive of the postmodern reduction of moral .standards to expressions of power. And it is also true that there has .been some shoddy scholarship that anachronistically projects .modern-day ideologies having to do with gender, race, or class onto .historically remote controversies. “


Nevertheless, please pay attention to the last few sentences of Passage B. “Yet bad history is no argument .against history itself. To reconstruct the attitudes of the past is not .necessarily to vindicate them. It is merely to acknowledge that .whatever we might think is the correct way of apprehending .plagiarism—and there is hardly a consensus on the matter even .today—our predecessors may not, and often did not, share our .perspectives.”

The above quote from passage B (found near the end of the passage B) indicates that B thinks A is too extreme because repainting history, even if it is bad history, does not mean it is against history itself. Recall that A thinks moral standard, changed over time with no universal moral standard, still deserves our respect. B thinks that just because we trace back the changing standard of morality does not mean we don’t respect moral standard. It is merely to acknowledge that plagiarism charge has changed over the course of history. B thinks A is wrong in calling the scholarship of retracing changing moral standard not respecting morality. B thinks by retracing moral standard that changed over time, such as in the case of plagiarism, we are merely acknowledging that the standard of apprehending (arresting) someone for plagiarism has changed over time, different from our ancestors by now.

I hope that I explained these two passages in more colloquial terms. I struggled a lot with these two passages and got two questions wrong when I first did this passage. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Thank you

Emil-Kunkin on September 25, 2022

Hi Jing Jing,

This is a great and thorough explanation! I would only add that I dont think that either passage actually answers how the relationship between moral standards and plagiarism changed over time. While both pose that question, we are never told something along the lines of "the victorians considered borrowing ok, but today that would be plagiarism."