Honor Codes

I think that, in theory, an honor code is a good idea. It would supposedly bring people to realize that they are now up for punishment if they cheat or know anyone who cheats, however, kind of knowing human traits, I don’t think that it would really work in reality. People would just sign the code without reading the fine print, and they wouldn’t bother to even care about it. Amidst all of the papers that you must sign and go through just to get into college, it would be lost in the piles. Students wouldn’t pay attention to the seriousness of it and wouldn’t consider the consequences of it if they broke their contract. This could be a good thing, essentially, since if they are caught there is more opportunity for punishment, which would later discourage others from cheating, so I think that an honor code would work, but only indirectly. While most people would consider cheating morally wrong, they would still do it because so many people get away with it and it is so easy to cheat. It’s ideal. An honor code may not pressure students with more moral obligation, but would at least hold them legally to punishment. This bind would, in return, encourage honesty and therefore emphasize the ethical side of it.
A trust system, on the other hand, doesn’t seem like it would work. As a general rule, I’d say that people cannot be trusted. If they could, then you wouldn’t need an honor code to begin with.