I stopped in the hotel gift shop near the lobby and scanned the shelves. I passed on the miniature replicas of the U.S. Capitol, the White House coffee mugs, and the various other overpriced, tacky knickknacks hotel gift shops think visitors would or should purchase. A glossy paperback pictorial caught my eye. It had high quality photos of the major D.C. attractions with rich text descriptions. My little ones would enjoy the photos and my older ones – at least the bookworm daughter of mine – would devour the factoids and information bits.
Foolish me, I hadn’t even glanced at the price: $34.95 for all of thirty two pages. Forget it. I continued to browse the shop, pausing momentarily on one of those round, water-filled, snow-shower thingys with a Washington monument inside, but decided that even children know a useless, tired old tchochke when they see one. I left without purchasing anything.
My car was in the underground garage, and, with both hands occupied shlepping some bag or other, I fumbled for my car keys to open the back door. It was then that I realized I was still holding the glossy pictorial. I felt a momentary zap of horror. I’d never before, to the best of my recollection, shoplifted. I looked around. There was no store clerk running after me. And judging by the lone security guard’s bored demeanor, there were no flashing neon lights above my head screaming, “Shoplifter!” I checked my watch again. It was nearing noon, and I had an event to attend in New York that afternoon. I flung the book into the back of my car with my suitcase, and headed to the Capital Beltway toward the I-95 North.
~ ~ ~
“That’s just wrong, mayte,” a newly-met Australian friend said to me in the courtyard of a hostel in Athens. I gulped down the rest of my Amstel, and took a drag on one of his unfiltered, roll-your-own Marlboros (very popular in Europe, incidentally).
He’d been out the previous night on a tip from a fellow hosteller to score some quality weed. But he ended up having a knife pulled on him after he strongly protested the taking of his money without the desired goods being offered up. My Aussie friend had pulled a knife too, but wisely took off before either weapon was put to use. That’s what got us into a conversation about theft, drug-dealing, and “doing the right thing.” At which point I told him of my shoplifting episode.
“Suppose it is wrong,” I said, “what of it?”
His eyes took on a blank look. Then, as if he awoke, “It’s just wrong, mayte. You can’t just steal shit.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Why not?!” he looked at me incredulously. “That’s just fucked up, mayte.”
“That may be so,” I said, “but suppose I have no problem engaging in ‘fucked-up’ behavior, can you give me a reason not to?”
He turned thoughtful. “Let me put it to you this way,” he said. “Didn’t your parents teach you it’s wrong to steal shit?”
“They certainly did,” I said.
“So?” he asked.
“So?” I asked.
“So where do you get the notion that there’s nothin’ wrong with it?”
“I didn’t say there’s nothing wrong with it,” I tried to explain. “I’m just asking why I should care whether it’s wrong or not.”
He took a swig from his beer, paused to look me in the eye, and said, “Mayte, are you smokin’ somethin’ I don’t know about?”
~ ~ ~
“Ok, ok,” my friend Shloime said in his fast-clipped cadences, with his heavy Yerushalmi accent. “You know, but if everyvone tought dat vay, you know, den de whole vorld vould be, you know… nobody vould do good tings… everybody vould steal from oder people and kill oder people. You know? So you need etics and morals to have a good vorld.” He turned his palms up to emphasize the sagacity of his words.
“That’s true,” I said. “Ethics and morals certainly benefit society as a whole. Obviously, we all benefit when all humans are decent and honest.”
“Dat’s exactly right,” Shloime said with eyebrows raised in satisfaction. He was resting his case.
“But suppose,” I said, “that everyone is honest and decent, with one exception.”
He nodded expectantly. “Who?”
“Me. I’ll be the bad guy.”
“Dat’s not possible,” he said quickly.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because if you can say it, den everybody can say it.”
“Not so,” I responded. “What if my name is Saddam Hussein?”
“Vhat if?! Vhat if!! But you’re not. Er, hetech petech.”
“Ok,” I said, “that’s true. But you have to admit that a Saddam Hussein can exist – and one has in fact existed for quite some time.”
“Nu? So?”
“So what argument would you make to Saddam that he should be an all-around good guy? Not to kill his Kurdish citizens, not enrich himself from the oil-for-food program, and just do all those things that nice and decent law-abiding tyrants do.”
“So, vhat? You vant to be a Saddam Chussein? You vant to be a rushe like him?”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” I tried to explain. “I’m just asking for a solid objective line of reasoning one might use with Saddam to explain why his actions, while beneficial to himself, are best avoided. In other words, why should we as human beings not behave like him if given the chance to do so without consequences?”
“I dunno,” he shrugged, apparently growing bored. “It’s a klutz kasha. Everybody knows that Saddam is a bad man and what he does is wrong.”
“Do you think Saddam himself knows that?”
He gave me that dismissive palms forward gesture, as if to say, stop this nonsense. “Saddam doesn’t have to know it. As long as everybody else knows it.”
I wasn’t getting very far. Apparently, my Socratic methods weren’t too well developed. But still I tried.
“Look,” I said, “it’s true, most people know Saddam is a bad man. But suppose you have just one person, say, me – just for argument’s sake, of course – who wants to be a bad guy. Can you make a logical, convincing argument for the objective value of good human behavior other than the avoidance of negative consequences or some other form of social punishment?”
“I dunno,” he said. “But I also dunno vhy you alvays ask dese stupid qvestions. It’s a pushiteh zach, dere’s no chochmas here. You’re just fardraying a kop.”
“As usual,” he added quickly.
So that was that.
~ ~ ~
We were gathered for a lazy Sunday brunch in a friend’s apartment. The topic of the morning was how our values have changed since leaving the world of Orthodoxy. One person mentioned the value of artistic expression. Another brought up physical fitness and competitive sports. A third mentioned commitment to education and higher learning. Until Eli, a shy nineteen-year-old from Kiryas Joel, wearing a backward baseball cap and an AC/DC t-shirt, asked in a barely audible tone, “Values? What values?”
Our host, Nechama, a former Tomer Devorah student, sat with her usual quiet demeanor, legs crossed beneath her on the cushiony armchair, flip-flops overturned on the floor beside her.
“Why do you say that?” she asked Eli.
“What are values, and who decides them?” His voice was not firm, and his eyes drifted downward most of the time, but he seemed resolute with his question. “Can anyone here tell me of a single value that they find possible to convince someone else of?”
“So what are you saying?” Nechama asked. “There are no values?”
“I’m just asking the question,” he said. “I’m not saying there are or there aren’t.”
“So,” I asked him, seizing the opportunity. “Would you shoplift an item off the shelf if you knew you could get away with it?”
“Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t. But can you give me a reason not to?”
Sol, raised in Lakewood, was having none of it. In his black hoodie and white sneakers he gave off a ghetto-wannabe vibe. But he considered himself something of a philosopher, too.
“You may not realize it,” Sol said, “but even if you think your actions have no consequence, they have a negative effect on your unconscious.”
Bruce, somewhat older than most of us, thoughtful in a professorial kind of way, attempted a nuanced approach. “You’re asking two different questions,” he said. “One: what would you do? Two: what should you do? The answer to the first is, you’d do whichever makes you feel better, whichever you’re inclined to do at the moment. The answer to the second is obvious, of course. You shouldn’t be taking property that isn’t yours.”
“Why not?” asked Eli, his tone and demeanor softer yet, as if he wasn’t sure he belonged to the conversation at all.
“Because it affects your unconscious,” said Sol, raising his voice for extra emphasis, seeming frustrated at just how obtuse some people can be.
Bruce waved his palms gently toward Sol, as if urging patience. “You see,” he said to Eli, “you come from a Chasidish background, and therefore you tend to see things in black and white.”
Eli looked up at him, seeming present now, and adjusted his cap from behind.
Bruce continued, “You lost your structure of values when you left the Chasidish world, and since all your values came from God, and now you don’t have God in your life, you think there are no values. But you’re mistaken. There are values without religion. There are universal rights and wrongs.”
“Perhaps,” said Eli, “but I’m asking where they come from, and by what authority they can be insisted upon.”
“By what authority?” asked Bruce impatiently. “By human authority. It’s within all of us to know right from wrong. It’s innate. We’re born with it.”
“Exactly,” said Sol while making animated gestures with his hands. “All your actions go deep inside of you, into your unconscious, you know, the deepest parts of your mind, and it affects the kind of person you are, you know?”
Eli gazed at Bruce intently, remained silent for a moment, then shrugged.
“It affects your unconscious,” muttered Sol. Eli looked at him and nodded.
~ ~ ~
Motty and I agreed, I needed a new TV. But we disagreed on the urgency of the matter. Motty said Abe had a really good one, and he didn’t understand why I didn’t get one like his. Because this one’s cheap, I tried explaining. But the picture quality is crap, he tried explaining in turn. And sometimes the screen goes blank, and you have to bang it to bring it to life. And further, it was too small. He was right. It was no way to watch the game. For the upcoming Super Bowl party we’d go out and buy a smashing new state-of-the-art TV. Or I’d buy the TV, and Motty would help pick it out. And he’d bring the chips and salsa.
Motty liked the 46 inch Flat Panel for $1999. I liked it too, but not enough to shell out for it. I put forth the argument that our viewing pleasure would still be significantly upgraded if we go for the 32 inch for $999. Intense negotiations followed, after which we settled for a 42 inch for $1299, and Motty would supply all the chips and salsa for next season, plus two six-packs for the upcoming party.
The elderly lady cashier at the discount electronics store greeted us with a stern look. I wondered if she knew of something up my sleeve that I didn’t know about. But this day I was as innocent as a chaider boy, on my best behavior. Besides, Motty still went as a chasid – payess, scraggly beard, yellowed talis katan, and all – and while he didn’t care much for chilul hashem, I still didn’t like giving Chasidim a bad name.
Applicable discounts and sales tax duly applied, and the stern lady informed us our total would be $1340.09. I handed her thirteen crisp hundred dollar bills, two twenties, and a dime. She took it all, contemplated it for a moment, then kachinged open the cash drawer. She put away the cash, and then hesitated a moment. Then started flipping some bills out of the drawer, hesitated again for a moment, then put a bunch of bills and a handful of change on the counter.
“Zug nisht gurnisht in leig arein in tash,” Motty said, grasping her error quick as a fox.
I looked at the money, then at the cashier, and frowned. She noticed something was wrong, and contemplated the situation.
“Oh,” she said suddenly with an embarrassed smile. She took back one penny from the change on the counter. “That’s mine,” she said.
“Nu, leig shoin in tash arein in kim shoin,” Motty said under his breath.
I looked at the woman again, waiting to see if she’d grasp her error. She smiled at me, obviously unaware that her error was as yet uncorrected. I checked my wallet again. It was obvious she thought I gave her twenty dollars more than I did. My wallet confirmed that I was correct. I was now certain of it.
“That penny was mine,” I said. “The rest is yours.” I handed her back the bills and the change.
“Oh,” she said. She looked baffled, but took the money, looked at it for a moment, and put it back in the drawer. She didn’t bother asking for an explanation.
“Why’d you give it back? That was almost twenty bucks!” Motty asked as we got out and loaded the TV into my car. “She was totally clueless; what was the point?” He looked genuinely confused.
“Don’t know,” I said as I slammed the back door shut. “Just didn’t feel right keeping it.”
14 comments:
Imagine that you buy a pizza and I come and snatch it before your eyes, eat it, and there is nothing you can do about it. Now, imagine if you could do the same and so could anyone else. No one would have any incentive of buying pizzas anymore; just wait for your chance to take someone else’s pizza. It would create a problem of ‘Public goods’ and ‘free riders’. You have a free rider problem when no one is willing to pay for stuff that’s a public good, and if no one pays for it then no one would have it. That’s how civilization derived to ‘private property’ under which theorem everyone pays for his or her own stuff. Human civilization cannot succeed without this rule. Without private property we wouldn’t be able to continue to live in an orderly fashion. And from this Natural Law we derive to our first type of moral values; values we can’t do without (not everything falls within this category, ex. Pornography).
For those who don’t care about morality, there is another reason not to steal. As comedian Ron White puts it “if you come to Texas and you kill one of us, we will kill you back; that’s our policy”. We have some laws that would protect us from these bad guys by punishing them. Of course the law isn’t flawless and every once in a while a bad guy gets away with one, but that’s just too bad.
In short, in your story, if the person doesn’t care about morality, that person would have no incentive to return the item.
CB -- your points are valid, of course, but they don't address the crux of the issue. There's no question that without laws, social conventions, and a system of ethics society can't function properly. The question, however, is whether one can find a compelling reason for an individual with an ethical dilemma to act a certain way in such a case where there is no chance of negative consequence for the actor.
You should realize the different situations between what happened in the D.C. souvenir shop and what happened in the discount electronics. You could return to the shop with the pictorial in hand and say, “hmmm… I just noticed…. I think I forgot to pay… and be totally awkward, or you could just keep on going and make-believe you still didn’t realize the error you honestly made. In the electronics store, on the other hand, you would be consciously stealing in the presence of the clerk. And maybe subconsciously you wanted to make an impression on the lady that you’re an honest guy.
To get to the crux of the issue, perhaps an individual has nothing materially to gain from doing the right thing. But even when there is no threat of consequence people still do what they think is morally right because it makes them feel good. Most civilized people want to be good and want to contribute to society, and when doing what’s right they can tap themselves on the shoulder.
To a person who prides with evil there is no argument to convince him or her about the merits of doing what’s good. Saddam Hussein might be a bad example, because he didn’t think of himself as wicked. He saw himself as the protector of Iraq, and whatever he did was in the best interests of Iraq. Satan is a perfect example, however. If you prove him something is right, he will do just the opposite. Humans in general like to be good as much as Satan likes to be evil.
Atheism naturally and inevitably leads to psychopathy.
http://jewishphilosopher.blogspot.com/2009/02/domino-theory.html
But then, who cares? Just click on the porn, light up a joint and forget about it.
HR, nice post. Thanks.
If I were the one quizzing Shloimy, and he had argued that “you need etics and morals to have a good vorld,” I would have fundamentally challenged his assumption that I cared: What if I didn’t prefer a good “vorld” over a bad one?
I realize, though, that you wanted to focus on a practical scenario, i.e., “an individual with an ethical dilemma to act a certain way in such a case where there is no chance of negative consequence for the actor“
The bottom line, HR, is the same. It’s just that in my case, the actor doesn’t regard a crumbling society as a ‘negative’ consequence.
***
‘Product’ I agree with you.
When I return the money to the bank teller (who I know will be paying for her error out of her paycheck), it's probably, more than anything else, because I put a higher price tag on appearing righteous and not because I give a rat's ass about bringing "human civilization" to its knees.
***
Chasidic Bochur: Mutually Assured Destruction - or your Texan Rule - is only as effective as the perpetrator’s willingness to stay alive. What if that's not the case?
You are assuming that free will exists. I think free will is just an illusion, and therefore the whole question of "why should I" or "should I not" is meaningless. You do whatever was predetermined by nature.
Anony, whether or not free will exists would make a good discussion, but it's dodging HR's question.
For argument's sake, let's pretend that it does exist; what's your argument then for one to behave positively, if consequences are not foreseen?
HR, I was thinking, the same could be asked of a person who does believe in God and His punishments both while alive and beyond. What if that person is willing to suffer; why should that person behave not according to his desires?
Okay, I admit that not too long ago I stole a feather from the craft store. Well, I wasn't going to pay $5.00 for a bag of feathers when I only needed one. I've also returned merchandize that I accidentally took. No really, it was an accident. I actually felt really stupid taking it back, but I did it anyways. I find it interesting that the guilt feelings don’t always kick in and if needs be, I would cheat and steal. This post made me realize that I may not be as honest and law abiding as I once thought. Thanks HR!
Hassidic Rebel,
I think the answer is as follows:
laws are artificial constructs a socity has put in place to allow us to live in peace and harmony together. As these norms are merely artificial and not actual, they are backed by an imagined morality which many individuals share. This itself arises as a result of living in society; we could call it social conditioning, or in technical terms, "social/moral cohesion."
I believe that that's the reason it doesnt "feel right" to keep stolen goods, even when nothing bad would happen to you...You've been conditioned to believe in this morality and that stealing is wrong. That is, it's "right" to give it back.
Why *should* an individual give it back? In absolute terms, within this argument, there's no reason to.
But you still should, because beyond the guilty feeling you feel, if every individual acted like that, we'd be breaking the artifical constructs which set society up in the first place. You can't justify it by saying "it's only one person" because society is a collection of single persons, neither can it be justified by saying "I won't be prosecuted."
As an example, you won't be prosecuted for stealing a single pea, but if everyone takes one, the shopkeeper has no peas.
I dont know how clear this is. But a very interesting question.
JS -- The first half of your comment makes sense, although I happen to think social conditioning is less a factor than evolutionary conditioning. We're probably genetically endowed with altruistic tendencies, traits that may have helped homo sapiens survive way back when. (Some evidence for this can be seen in altruism among animals, such as dogs, dolphins, primates, and others.)
Your second half misses the point though. The more precise question is about a person in such hypothetical circumstances in which he/she is the ONLY one that will be able to behave unethically without negative consequences. One example is a political dictator with absolute powers. Another is a superbly gifted con-artist. The argument that "everyone might do it" doesn't apply.
(Granted, the first and last segments of my post were about prosaic incidents in which many can find themselves. The point, however, was to highlight the fact that our ethical values are so far from being grounded in the absolute that it's hard to make a solid idealistic argument -- let alone a passionate one -- for stepping outside basic comfort levels to adhere to them.)
Your question of why it's wrong to be the exception to a norm that is commonly recognized as necessary for a functional society is addressed in the famous "prisoner's dilemma". Specifically, studies have shown that in an IPD (iterated prisoner's dilemma) it is in the best interest of a participant to be unconditionally altruistic since "nice guys do finish first". Paradoxically, by acting irrationally (in terms of one's own best interest) and cooperating, the prisoner reduces his sentence considerably. Moreover, according to scholars, this phenomenon may have been instrumental in prehistoric societies in the development of morals.
In other words: the answer to your question of why you shouldn't make an excpetion for yourself (=defect) is that the benefit derived from such an exception is illusory. In the long run such a benefit does not exist. Irrationally "cooperating" turns out to be in your very best interest. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma for more on the PD and IPD.
that is the problem with frumkeit- having gotten so accustomed to an external source of morality, your internal one just withers away.
Wow, great post!! Really got me thinking.... for some reason I totally thought of that stupid saying about no one hearing atree falling alone in the woods... if no one knows I stole something is it really wrong? I actually had this same scenario happen, I grabbed some Claritin-D from the pharamcy ad put it in the front part of the cart wher my toddler was sitting. After some more shopping I checked out and loaded the groceries, only to discover that the Claritin was under my childs leg and I had not paid for it. Now what? Do I go back in and pay? With my son's big brown eyes staring at me in awe as I debated what to do in a semi-panicky tone, I finally decided to just leave. And then, as I was driving away I felt this strange rush.... almost a high. Claritin-D costs almost $23.00 and at that time money was really tight, so I sort of felt good about what happened.
I've since thought about that episode many times and wondered where my morals had run off too, or why hadn't I heard the whisper of God on my heart tsk-tsking me? It didnt turn me into a shoplifter and aside from my little one, too young to tell on me, no one knows, but it does pose the question of right and wrong. Besides laws and fear of punishment, why should you do the right thing? Of course I am till compelled to do so, but why?
I'd like to make another point here. There's a difference between a deliberate theft and passive theft. In the case of HR, he did not steal deliberately and when he did notice that he hadn't paid for it, the cost of the item had gone up significantly: having to spend another 20-30 minutes in order to pay for the item is far too high a price that any reasonable person would pay for ir. In such a case an argument could be made that the morally correct thing to do is to move on. The retailer himself might not mind much, given that the price of the item is so puny compared to the effort required from the "customer" (whom they are seeking to satisfy) in order to pay.
I had an interesting experience which illustrates such behavior by retailers. I purchase my one-a-day coffe at the local dunkin donuts which is open until 12am. One night I arrived at 11:45 and found the doors locked but the employee was still inside shutting down for the day. He noticed me, opened the door, asked what I needed and was happy to fill my order. When it came to pay, he motioned me to keep the money, signaling that he already shut down the register.
On my way home I couldn't stop thinkingabout it. I initially was very impressed that the employee went the distance to fill my order but din't even charge for it. what's the point? how do you do business like this? is this an altruistic act? But I quickly realized that they had closed the store early and were technically violating my trust in dunkin donuts that that I can get a coffee there at all times during open hours posted on the door. For dunkin donuts management, breaking that trust is bad business. They'd rather give me the coffee for free, if the register is already closed, than not fill the order. I believe you get the analogy here.
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