Moral Question

[Otter]

Your driving down the road behind an armored truck, the door flys open and a big bag of money falls out. You pull over to retrieve the money, no one is around to see and the armored truck keeps on driving. Do you keep it?

Personally, I keep the money, catch up to the truck and wait to see if another flys out.

Boy I wish we'd sign a QB :)

[gh4chiefs]

I would like to think I would turn it in, as that would be the right thing to do. Unfortunately, if faced with that situation, I'm afraid I'd be tempted to keep it.

This question reminds me of all the times in my life when I've faced similar moral dilemas on a smaller scale. Such as when the clerk gives me too much change back. I can remember on at least a couple of occaisons where I kept my mouth shut and kept the excess change.

I'm also reminded of the argument I had with my grandfather one time when the soda machine gave me two sodas instead of one. I used some of the same arguments I've read here about how the company ripped us off, etc.

I'm not feeling very good about myself right now.

My dad raised me to always tell the truth and be honest...The biggest lesson I learned at college was that Honesty is [b]NOT!!![/b] always the best policy. I got into some trouble over a simple joke a group of us pulled, I took the heat, and all I'd have had to do was LIE and walk away clean...Told the truth and they decided to "make an example"....never again...

I take the money, and buy the queen of the other board a CLUE ;) and its hard to feel guilt in a new bass boat.


[IMG]http://cwm.ragesofsanity.com/contrib/fk/angel.gif[/IMG] ~ST Gaz after a bubble bath

[IMG]http://www.mpz.co.uk/cwm/cwm/cwm/angryfire.gif[/IMG] ~Iowanian after admitting being part of harmless prank.

[Otter]

Gary,

Sounds like you need to come to the strip club with us.

Seriously, its easy for me to sit here and say I would keep the money buy my conscience has gotten the better of me many many times.

When I was about 7 or 8 I stole a smoke bomb from a five and dime store and could not sleep that night. At about 12:30am broke down and went crying into my parents room asking if I was going to get arrested.

I probably wouldn't be able to enjoy the money for fear of being taken away and sent to prison where I would be traded daily for a pack of Lucky's and an issue last years Playboy.

hmmmm... can I change my answer.

I'd turn it in. No matter if the insurance companies or any other "establishment" rips you off, the simple fact is that the money doesn't belong to me. I didn't earn it. In adhering to this code, I've found that one always reaps what one sows. I've lost my wallet loaded with hundreds in cash and had a 10 year old boy return it to me within minutes. His reward was 20%. I've also been very fortunate over the years. I can't recall having much stolen from me other than some fishing equipment a VERY long time ago (and that was when I was 17 and shortly after I had stolen several cases of beer). I don't know if that has anything to do with my lifestyle but I can feel good about myself, I guess.

[JOhn]

Funny thing is we were just discussing this the other day at work. It's one of those questions that's almost imposiable to answer untill you really have it happen. But assuming that this is money from a pick-up from some bussiness, and is most likely untracable, then I would have a very difficult time returning it.

Now before anyone thinks I'm greedy and dishonest, let me give my reasons. Would I be doing this just to make my life easier? No in fact I would probebly sit on the money (so to speak) for awhile. I have been at the low end of the economic ladder to many times in my life to look a gift horse in the mouth. And as a father who has struggled many times to provide the basics for my kids I would not feel real guilty using the money to help them. Especially my daughter who is disabled. I would also make sure that some of it was used to insure that she was taken care of after I leave this world.

Now am I sitting a bad example for my kids? Yes if in fact they became aware of the means that I aquired the money, then I would be a hypocrite. But would I feel guilty for breaking the rules for my family, NO.


Now having said all that would I reallly keep the money? Probebly not, but who Knows??????

[DanT]

I agree that it's hard for anyone to know for sure what they'd do until they are confronted with the situation. Speaking for myself, I've rationalized my way into a lot of wrong deeds, including ones that involved other peoples' money and/or property, when opportunities arose.

Speaking of vending machines, I'm one of those bastards who sometimes puts a bunch of spare pennies into the change returns of vending machines and pay phones. I get some kind of sick, twisted pleasure out of the idea that somebody, upon first feeling them in there, will think they're dimes. ;)

[RJ]

Knowing myself fairly well, here's what would happen.

1) I'd return the money. It's the right thing to do.

2) I'd begin questioning myself immediately afterwards.

3) Years later, people would be saying "Oh, no, here goes Randy again with that damn story about how he gave back all that money he found and what he could have done if he'd kept it. Yes, Randy, we have heard this story before".

Story of my life. A conflict between morals and ambition where neither ever wins. The true winner is Guilt. A feeling I can't stand so I always give in so as to avoid it.

[Zebedee DuBois]

The Five Second Rule

We have all heard of the five-second rule. It is a rule of thumb that says that if you drop a cookie on the floor and pick it up within five seconds, it is still all right to eat the cookie.
After giving this some thought, I have concluded that this is an oversimplification of the actual thought processes that occur in this situation. I have identified seven different factors that affect your resistance to eating off the floor, and arranged them in an equation to show their relationship to each other and to your ultimate decision. Several are negative influences and they go in the numerator of the equation. Others are positive and go in the denominator of the equation. Thus, if there are many negative factors and few positive, the overall value (Resistance to eating off the floor, shown as [r] in the equation) is high. If the negative factors are low, and positive factors high, your resistance to eating off the floor approaches zero. (Please note: In teenage boys, especially in the presence of other teenagers, some of the normally negative values actually become positive, and there is almost no resistance to eating anything, in any condition, if he thinks it will impress or gross out his peers)

An explanation of the individual factors with their symbols indicated by brackets follows.

Negatives:
Awaren[e]ss of others: If you are alone, you are more likely to eat from the floor than if you are being observed. Just as you might drink directly from the milk carton if you are alone, you are unlikely to do it if your wife is watching you.
Seco[n]ds it has been on the floor: We are all familiar with this aspect of the equation. If you saw it hit the floor, you know its’ condition. If you walked into the room and see food on the floor, you are less likely to want it.
Abundance or [j]umbo quantity of the food: If you have a whole tub of popcorn, and one piece hits the floor, you probably won’t go after it. If you dropped the last Girl Scout cookie that you had saved in the back of your desk drawer, you might dive for it.
C[o]ntamination or dirtiness of the floor: Imagine that dropped popcorn in your living room. Now imagine it at the movie theatre.
Gooe[y]ness of the food: You have a piece of toast with jelly and drop it on the linoleum, if it lands on the toast side – no problem; if it lands on the jelly side – yuck. Piece of hard candy – no problem; same candy after you already sucked on it – no way.

Positives:
Hungr[i]ness: Lets face it. Hunger has been one of the great motivators since the dawn of time.
Lus[t] for the food item: This is different from hunger. Let’s say that I have an abnormal hankering for Little Debbies Nutty Bars. It’s got chocolate. It’s got peanut butter. It’s got a wafer cookie. It is way yummy. I’ve been thinking about eating one all morning. I can’t wait for a break to get one from the candy machine. When I finally do get one, I start opening the package before I even make it back to my desk. I drop it. Now, am I really just hungry for that Nutty Bar? No way! I was lusting for that Nutty Bar. I wanted that Nutty Bar. I was emotionally invested in that Nutty Bar and now it just bounced under my desk. Well... really... only my feet were under there and I hardly ever step in nasty things. You get the idea.

The equation can be expressed as follows:

[e][n][j][o][y] / [i][t] = r


The amazing thing is that the human brain can swiftly assign values to each factor and compute the final value. It only takes... about five seconds.

[Nelson Muntz]

this is dealing with the reply about giving back extra change if the cashier gave you extra. the other day i was at mcdonalds and for the third day in a row they f@cked up my order. only this time i didn't notice until after i was a mile out of town. so of course i took the fries that i didn't order and hid them under my cd's and went back and got my order. so i got free fries out of the deal. and i didn't feel a d@mn bit guilty either. of course god payed me back by helping me spill my fries all over the car. but i had just vacuumed the car out the day before so they were safe to eat according to gaz's reply. well at least i think it was gaz's reply.

and no i would not give the money back.