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A simple ethical conundrum
A few days ago I was in a London taxicab when I noticed a possibly expensive purse in the seat next to me. I climbed out of the cab and without much thought (shame on me) gave it to the driver. I explained someone had left it there. Of course I was intent on treating the driver like a decent human being. But wait, I know I am honest and maybe he isn't. But wait, maybe I couldn't have gotten the purse to the woman very easily. But wait, I could have posted notice on this blog and had you help me track her down. But wait, isn't it my obligation to simply leave the woman no worse off than she was in the first place? But wait, what is the default point for defining "in the first place"? But wait, what would the driver have thought if he saw me taking the purse out of his cab? But wait, isn't a purse really really important? But wait, what if the purse belonged to the driver?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on February 19, 2008 at 08:28 AM in Philosophy | Permalink
Comments
Assuming that both you and the driver are decent people, giving the purse to the driver means that the owner is more likely to get it back because (a) the cost of trying to hunt the owner down is probably the same whether it's you or the taxi company doing it; (b) in an attempt to maximise their future business by increasing good will, the taxi company has more incentive to actively look for the owner than you [*]; and (c) the owner is more likely to contact the taxi company than random strangers on the off chance that they hopped into the taxi after her.
If you don't trust the driver, then you should have kept the purse and attempted to find the owner yourself. But you have no particular reason not to trust them, so you took the cultural norm of trusting them.
[*] Well, they would if black cabs in London were visibly and verifiably from different taxi companies and there was competition between them.
Posted by: JohnB at Feb 19, 2008 8:38:47 AM
Having read Harford's book, any of the possible courses of action with respect to the lost purse could ultimately be justified as rational, so why sweat it?
Because, in fact, not all behavior is rational. Some behavior is impulsive, self-destructive, and irrational. Otherwise, we would have no way of being able to falsify the hypothesis of rational actors, and our models would just be another (albeit more sophiticated) form of dogma
Posted by: enrique at Feb 19, 2008 8:47:38 AM
If it was a black cab, the bag most likely made it back.
Posted by: mickslam at Feb 19, 2008 8:50:58 AM
Having been in a similar situation in the past, I would recommend following a path where you yourself are in control and can deal with the situation in a way that you honestly feel is correct.
A friend of mine accidentally left his mobile phone in the local pub on the table. Knowing that he was likely to attend the pub the next day to try and find said phone (or at least give them a call on their landline), I left it with a member of staff who put it behind the bar.
During the course of the evening, the phone was promptly stolen either by a customer, a member of bar staff, or the cleaner the next morning, and it left me with terrible pangs of conscience. In hindsight I should have taken the phone with me knowing 100% that it would be safely returned to the rightful owner, with the only possible downside being that there would be a slight inconvenience during the period when they think the phone certainly has gone walkies.
I don't have any call to question my own integrity in these kinds of circumstances, and if the situation arose again, I would take the item, make efforts to return it, and then if not possible, hand it in to the police. If anyone had call to question my integrity in the interim, i.e. theft, they would certainly get short shrift and be looked at very lowly from my position of taking the moral high ground.
In your own situation, the purse may or may not have contained ID, credit cards, etc., which would certainly assist in getting the goods back to the person unfortunate enough to have misplaced it. If the purse did contain credit cards, then you'd think the first port of call for any sensible minded person would be to ring up the appropriate firms, inform them of the loss, and make sure that they are duly cancelled, rather than chasing around cab firms and the like. Again, it may have been possible that the owner of the purse was a regular with that particular cabbie, but I would again outweigh any short term inconvenience, for my own satisfaction that I was doing everything possible to return it, and to safeguard that person's property from falling into the wrong hands.
At the end of the day it's a judgement call.
Posted by: v.impressed at Feb 19, 2008 8:57:59 AM
I think it is perfectly permissable to feel morally at ease having handed the driver the purse. There are many variables you were incapable of knowing without conducting a thorough investigation, and to carrty out such an investigation would supererogatory to say the least. After all, ethical decisions are always contextual. Handing the purse to the driver is, to me, plainly the right thing to do given that you had no other (straightforward and immediately obvious) way of tracking down the owner. I don't think this is a particularly taxing moral conundrum.
Posted by: gph at Feb 19, 2008 9:07:51 AM
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A purse, or a phone, would seem to contain a wealth of information that could be used to track down the owner. Probably more quickly by an individual than by a driver who would probably be required to shuffle it through 'channels' to get it returned. If indeed it is policy to actively pursue locating owners of 'left' objects, even something as valuable to the owner as a purse.
I would take it, for many of the same reasons as v.impressed noted above.
...tom...
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Posted by: ...tom... at Feb 19, 2008 9:23:17 AM
This is a practical problem, not an ethical one:
1) Acquire any identifying information about the purse: Color, brand, style, possibly the name and address of the owner if it is obvious on a document inside the purse. Also get the drivers identifying information (name, license number, etc.)
2) Give the purse to the driver. If the owner of the purse attempts to track it down, she (or he) may be able to locate it.
3) Tell the driver that you will try to locate the owner of the purse by calling the owner, placing an advertisement in the Times, etc.
4) Carry through on your promise in #3.
Probably the driver won't steal the contents of the purse knowing that you will be trying to locate the owner. There's a chance he'll try to steal the money and blame it on you, but then he may besmirch his reputation with his employer as an honest driver.
Posted by: MostlyAPragmatist at Feb 19, 2008 9:30:03 AM
If London cabbies are like New York City cabbies, the item will likely be returned to the owner because the cabby has a financial incentive to do so. Based on two experiences with lost cell phones, the driver will be glad to bring the phone back to you, but he alleges he's in the Bronx whereas you're in midtown, so the fare to get to you is $30 or so. And of course you'll pay it without hassle because the item is worth considerably more to you.
Posted by: David S. at Feb 19, 2008 9:34:01 AM
Here's my question: what would you have done if instead of a purse, it was a loose $20 bill? What about $100? A money clip of $10,000?
Posted by: James Feldman at Feb 19, 2008 9:35:55 AM
That was a complicated ethical situation. I hadn't really thought it through before.
Posted by: jason voorhees at Feb 19, 2008 9:39:58 AM
Wow, it's crazy how many people have such exact answers to such a complicated and debatable question.
Posted by: Steven at Feb 19, 2008 9:43:10 AM
didn't look inside the purse?
would you feel differently if it was a mans' wallet..?
what does a "possibly" expensive purse have got to do with anything..
you acted on your first instinct to absolve you of any responsibility.. simple
Posted by: julius king at Feb 19, 2008 9:51:40 AM
Give the driver your phone number, should the owner call the company, and take the purse and try to call the owner or get info from the phone number and leave the purse with the driver and try to call the owner.
Posted by: Floccina at Feb 19, 2008 9:59:25 AM
Wasn't there a brouhaha about the NYPD setting up "sting" operations like this last year, where they'd immediately arrest the samaritan under the pretense of theft?
Posted by: crime & punishment at Feb 19, 2008 10:07:46 AM
Yes there was, crime & punishment - I thought of the same sting operations when I read this post.
I probably would have looked in the purse for a driver's license and called them up to have them come pick it up from me. I'd probably take it with me back to my house or office though before I did, because I'd feel odd looking through a purse in public in case someone though I was rummaging through and stealing something. A little irrational, maybe...
That said, giving it to the driver's a fine impulse. It's his cab, after all.
Posted by: Finance Monk at Feb 19, 2008 10:20:45 AM
c&p - Yes, there was such a sting. Even if the charges get dropped, the attendant frustration and hassle are not worth the risk. The clear answer is, "...but wait, if there is any risk of getting arrested, I should just leave the purse where it is without touching it."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/nyregion/28about.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Posted by: WLM at Feb 19, 2008 10:25:34 AM
Shouldn't you have taken the purse to the nationalized Lost and Found Business? This sounds like a societal problem that the scalability of the government is necessary to reduce costs, providing value to society.
Posted by: Jay at Feb 19, 2008 10:26:51 AM
I can see the problem from your perspective... but if it's any reassurance, from my experience as an economist in London most people trust black cab cab drivers much more than they do economists! So from a third-party viewpoint you did the right thing.
Posted by: mv at Feb 19, 2008 10:40:03 AM
Open the purse, find id. Copy ID information with cab information. Leave with cabbie and tell him you are going to call the woman and tel her the cabbie has her purse.
Posted by: jim at Feb 19, 2008 10:41:02 AM
I have to disagree with MostlyAPragmatist. This is an ethical problem, and MostlyAPragmatist's solution presupposes that it is. Why bother doing any of the things suggested in MostlyAPragmatist's reply? Because it is practical to? No, because getting the purse back to the owner is the right thing to do. Granted, it is not an ethical problem on the scale of say abortion or euthanasia, but it is an ethical problem nonethless. And of course ethics predominantly, perhaps even essentially, involves acting. So in a necessary, and consequently uninteresting, way, that this problem has it's practical elements is rather obvious. What makes the cinundrum interesting and what is less obvious is what the right course of action should be. And of course this is primarily a decsion (and action) born of a moral inclination to do what is right, not soley a practical one.
Posted by: gph at Feb 19, 2008 10:45:24 AM
I agree with the course open purse, copy information, and tell driver you'll contact the owner to tell them who has the purse. You've covered your ethical obligation to secure the return of the property and increased the trustworthiness of the driver to the point that you can be assured of its relative safety.
At least, it'll be safe until the owner leaves it in the cab again. Perhaps you should just hold on to it for the owner, as they've proven themselves less trustworthy than either yourself or the cab driver.
Posted by: Josh at Feb 19, 2008 11:13:21 AM
At least you won't be arrested... I think
http://www.wnbc.com/news/14778322/detail.html
Posted by: Nate at Feb 19, 2008 11:42:21 AM
As my mum always told me, "the policeman is your friend." The purse no doubt had ID in it, if you were too busy and didn't trust the driver you could have turned it over to the police who are pretty good at tracking people down. The same goes (even more so) for a wad of cash.
Posted by: M. at Feb 19, 2008 12:13:20 PM
You have no moral obligation to the owner of the purse in that scenario. Your only obligation is to yourself - meaning follow the course that leaves you most satisfied. If you would have been happiest had you taken the purse and successfully returned it yourself, then that would have been the ideal action.
Posted by: Jolly Bloger at Feb 19, 2008 12:26:10 PM
speaking as a former cab driver:
the comments of several to get ID info, give purse to driver, get cab number and driver name, and let driver know you will attempt to contact owner to let owner know you gave purse to driver is very good.
Also, this illustrates one of the reasons why you should always write down the cab number and driver name when you take a cab. In some places, like NYC, you are automtaically given a receipt with such info.
And cash, drugs, etc. are different. See e.g, Blank Top Chronicles:
http://blanktop.blogspot.com/2007/08/me-blank-top-your-phone-number-please.html
Posted by: chug at Feb 19, 2008 12:28:36 PM
