Plagiarism
By Via Crooked Timber I learn of a plagiarist suing a university for not explaining to him that plagiarism is wrong.
His defense seems to be that since he wasn’t caught early in his illustrious career as a plagiarist, the university was negligent. It’s rather instructive to think through this particular line of defense in various other social contexts to properly appreciate its absurdity.
“But I’ve been cheating on my taxes for 20 years? Why didn’t the IRS warn me?”
“Honey, you didn’t complain about my last six affairs, so I figured you wouldn’t this one.”
And so on.