Dr. Helen starts off by critiquing an advice columnist’s response to a find-a-lost-wallet-full-of-money problem, and winds up inspiring an intriguing comment thread.
Fascinating because several commenters defend the idea of keeping found money, even if the owner’s identifiable. Direct quote:
it’s hilarious what people will pretend, even behind the anonimity of comment boxes.
I am way more honest for admitting what I would do with a found wallet – not a stolen wallet but a lost wallet – than all these people here pretending to be pure.
I suppose this comes from having a moral calculus that goes like this:
1. I am a decent, ordinary person, certainly no worse than anyone else
2. If I found somebody’s money and could get away with it, I’d keep it
3. It must be true that anybody else would do the same.
Interesting. Commenter Rich Rostrom points out:
Personnel managers have discovered the easiest way to find potential thief/employees: ask them if they have stolen from a previous employer. Most thieves believe "everybody does it", and that claiming otherwise is obvious hypocrisy. So they confess to minor thefts, expecting a favorable response to this "honesty".
If a potential spouse says, of theft, or other serious offense, "everybody does it" – red flag time!
Job interviews are full of unhelpful-sounding questions like "Describe the worst mistake you ever made and how you recovered from it." Basically decent people have trouble coming up with appropriate answers. I think that these questions are designed to weed out people with severe problems. There’s a pretty wide gulf between "Ummmm… I guess it would be the time I made a clerical error that cost our company a few thousand dollars in fines" and "That’s an interesting question. I would say it was when I violated that protection order that my last boss filed against me."
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