One theory that came to mind regarding this dilemma is the Blanchard-Peale Model, which is broken down into three sections:
1. Is it legal?
2. Is it balanced?
3. How does it make me feel?
Applying this model to my situation, I realized that it wasn’t really until the third step that the ethical issue came into play. First, I know that reusing one of my own papers is not unlawful. However, it is a bit of a grey area in terms of academic misconduct, as I wouldn’t be plagiarizing anyone but myself, and I’m pretty sure that is not going to land me in jail. Second, in terms of being balanced I understood that it would be somewhat unfair to the students that took the time to write an original paper. On the other hand, recycling one of my previous papers would not necessarily affect the other students because they still need to submit an essay as well. Then I got to the third point, how does it make me feel? Although it is not very enjoyable to spend free time doing homework, I would feel disappointed in myself for taking the cheap, ethically questionable way out.
The second ethical theory that I applied to my situation is Deontology. This method of reasoning concerns the ethical duty or action one