A reader writes, "Unfortunately, the black-and-white comparison you are attempting to make is not quite always that clear in real life." Two columns ago I posed a quandary: Many people who would not take a pile of cash they found on the ground would take an automobile part that was given for free in error. I agree that the comparisons aren't clear in real life, which is why I raised the issue to begin with.

But, although I agree with the writer, I think his contention is only half right. Most people are quite clear on not taking the money found in the parking lot, just as they're quite clear that taking something that rightly belongs to you is morally correct. However, those are polar positions. As we move away from the poles, the situation becomes murkier.

I heard from some people with very certain ideas. Some proposed the "hell in a hand basket" axiom, which usually comes with what I call "the lone-gunman" theory, proposing one cause for all of society's ills. Together these take the form, "Civilization is going to hell in a hand basket and it's all because of [blank]." You can then fill in the name of your favorite bogeyman. Some candidates: rock music; television; Bill Clinton; Hollywood; Reaganomics; the Tri-Partite Commission; liberals in general; the radical right; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; Katherine Harris; and ethical relativism.

Personally I'm not attracted to these theories for several reasons. First, I don't think we're sinking into a moral morass. That's a drum beaten by absolutist demagogues to attract an audience for their own peculiar views of morality. Second, I think that whatever problems we do find are much more complex than these theories suggest. And finally, such thinking leads to "magic bullet" solutions, which are overly simplistic.

Some people thought the difference in intuitions between the two cases comes from the arbitrariness of automobile warranties, while others tried to distinguish between "active" and "passive" stealing. Both of those ideas hold some attraction, but I don't think they account for the whole story. There's much more going on here.

We live with arbitrariness in other facets of life -- drinking age, voting age, when you can take money out of your 401k, etc. In my scenario, however, you do have an agreement with the company and, if it is willing to live up to the bargain, why shouldn't you? I could also reconstruct the example to make the taking of the cash much more passive, but I think that the intuition about not keeping the money would still hold.

Let me pose some more examples to think about, before we actually move on to Napster, which is what started this discussion.

Imagine that you go to a popular restaurant and are told there is a two-hour wait for a table. You and your party hunker down in the lounge, but a few minutes later the assistant maitre d' comes over to tell you your table is ready. As he seats you, the assistant says, "enjoy your meal Ms. Smith." One problem: you're not Smith. Do you confess or do you let the real Smith cool her heels?

What have you taken of value? Well, there's Smith's time. Now that her name is crossed off, she'll have to wait and wait until she complains and finally gets her table. Time is money -- or so I heard from people writing in about spam. One of the reasons spam is evil, they said, is because it takes thhem time to wade through and delete it. If this is so, then what you did in taking Smith's table -- and time -- is evil too. But many people might take the table just the same.

In another scenario, suppose you order the very basic cable service. You discover to your delight that you also get all the premium channels. Do you call the cable company and ask it to turn them off? I suspect many people wouldn't, but it is something of value. You have no right to it. How could you justify keeping it?

On the other hand, you're not depriving anyone of anything. All the other people who ordered the premium channels are getting them. Someone could argue that you're depriving the cable company of revenue, but if you weren't getting the channels by accident, you wouldn't be getting them at all. So, the company is none the poorer.

Are you stealing? Are you stealing if you don't actually watch the channels? Are you stealing only when you are watching?

Now, suppose you go online to buy an airline ticket to Paris. When the price comes up, it's $29.50. You suspect that's an error, but buy the ticket and smile all the way to Paris. This happened recently, and some people have claimed that the lucky few who got the cheap tickets were "stealing" the flight. Were they?

» posted by ITworld staff

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