Friday column: Cheating comes with a cost

So, what’s it all about, Alfie?

And Danica.

And Derrick.

Is it just for the moment we live?

And the fame, and the championship banners and, let’s see, there’s something else … something … oh, yeah, money — gobs and gobs of money. Is that what it’s all about?

Well, maybe.

In the last few days, we’ve seen race driver Danica Patrick opine that cheating isn’t really cheating — not if you don’t get caught. And we’ve seen NBA rookie of the year Derrick Rose accused of getting into the University of Memphis with a bogus SAT score — and perhaps an altered high-school transcript.

What’s surprising in all this? Not a darn thing.

What did Patrick say she’d cheat for? Winning the Indianapolis 500, which would bring her astounding fame and fortune. That’s something Rose ($4.8 million salary, not counting shoe money) already is acquiring, thanks in part to his alleged fraud.

So what? Good question.

I don’t mean to be judgmental. I can’t say with certainty that I wouldn’t have done what Patrick said she’d do or what Rose is accused of doing, especially at their age, if it meant such worldly riches.

Which doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve scrutiny.

A few weeks ago, I referenced Thomas Aquinas. I’m going to do it again (forgive me; I’m taking an ethics course). Aquinas was a virtue ethicist. According to one definition, virtue ethics “is a branch of moral philosophy that emphasizes character, rather than rules or consequences, as the key element of ethical thinking.”

Aquinas’ ethic was also eudaemonistic, which means it was concerned with happiness. Now, this isn’t happiness in the sense of pleasure — the kind of pleasure one might buy with lots of money, say — but happiness in the sense of contentment, contentment that results from being the kind of person you’re meant to be.

Another way to put it, I think, is that the key to life is not what you obtain; it’s what you become.

Yet we all strive to obtain, for when we obtain, we’re able to materially provide for those we care about. And who’s to say that’s not good? But how we obtain still matters, whether you’re a race car driver, a basketball player or a Wall Street investment banker.

Patrick premised her idea of cheating with the caveat of not getting caught. If Rose cheated, he wasn’t caught, at least not when it could have affected him monetarily. Yet it seems to me that cheating — and the lying that goes along with it — does affect one, even if it’s never detected. It affects what we become.

So, what’s it all about?

Well, it’s at least about something more than obtaining. Because if all we are is what we obtain, we are, in truth, not very much.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.