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Comment by tptacek

One thing I want to say here is that "entrapment" isn't a moral principle; it's a legal one, and it isn't universal. We don't get it from English Common Law, where it wasn't widely known before the founding of the US, and was rejected when it did come up. Entrapment is a checks-and-balances balance of power mechanism, not a general rule of conduct.

Furthermore, while we don't reach the question of whether this dummy test constituted entrapment (because it doesn't matter), it's also simply not entrapment under the US legal definition (arguably the most important such definition). In the US, an entrapment defense requires you to (1) admit that you did the bad thing, (2) prove that you were somehow coerced (at least psychologically) into doing that bad thing, and (3) prove that you had no predisposition to doing the bad thing. You're searching for exam questions and memorizing a bogus final exam. You know you're cheating, you know it's wrong, and you do it anyways. You're culpable.

parent tptacek 3 years ago

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