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    I'm expecting an answer like "it is unethical because <course of events> leads to <someone being harmed>" not "it' unethical because it makes me feel peeved" or "it's unethical because it's not in my rubric." Your feelings and grading criteria are preferences, not ethical matters. Commented Nov 3, 2020 at 1:20
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    @AnonymousPhysicist the answer could easily be expanded to address your concern. If students are awarded passing grades for being funny while demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of the subject matter, that harms the students who did understand the subject matter, by devaluing their own grade. It will harm them much more directly if there is any kind of quota or scaling of grades based on average performance. They would be justifiably peeved, because it does actually hurt them.
    – N. Virgo
    Commented Nov 3, 2020 at 4:54
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    @AnonymousPhysicist: The question is of the form “Is [this pedagogical action] ethical?” So it seems pretty reasonable that answers are addressing the question “Is it good pedagogy?” and leaving implicit the step “following good pedagogy is generally ethically good”, since this last step is uncontroversial and is nothing to do with this specific question.
    – PLL
    Commented Nov 3, 2020 at 11:40
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    It's definitely about ethics. If someone is inappropriately rewarded, the efforts of the honest and industrious students are devalued. Commented Nov 3, 2020 at 11:57
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    I agree that it's unethical, but I think this answer needs to expand on why (or include the comments that do so)
    – Jason_c_o
    Commented Nov 5, 2020 at 5:50