How ethical are you? Take this ethics litmus test to find out how you will be voting

I recently came across an old news story with a new perspective

. In April of 2008, when gas prices were surging to the mid three dollars, a filling station in North Carolina set the pump price of premium gasoline to 35 cents instead of $3.35 a gallon. This wasn't discovered until 6 in the evening when the police arrived to determine why there was a traffic jam at the pumps. All day people filled up, told their friends, went home to get their second car and fill it up, etc. At no point during the entire day did a single person press the button to inform the clerk of the irregularity at the meter. At some point that was likely due to avoiding the wrath of the person lined up next in line at the pump, but not even an anonymous phone call was placed to point out the error. Without thinking too hard and being honest to yourself, what would you do?

Based on this true story, 100% of people would take the reduced price gas and drive away. In their minds they undoubtedly justified it as "payback" for what was largely viewed as the oil companies gouging the populous; however, on an ethical level they were stealing directly from the station owner who took the full force brunt of the hit to his/her very narrow profit margintypically less than 10 cents per gallon. Remember, though, this was a time when the average American citizen was unable to distinguish their contempt for the oil companies from their contempt for gas station owners. There were multiple reports of threats and even a few cases of violence stemming from rage at the pumps.

I presented this problem to a few people I know and was amazed at their varying answers. My wife and I both believe in a kind of cosmic, karmic moral code where stealing in any form will result in reciprocal difficulties later. She would have reported it. I would have too, but part of me feels like I should be rewarded by not having to pay the full price but receive the gas at the .35 cent price. After all, I saved the owner thousands of dollars. Also, I can picture the clerk scrambling for a calculator, or worse, trying to do the math on paper without the aid of a cash register to tell him how much change to give me. It is this inconvenience which drives part of my "reward for reporting" thinking. My wife was fine with paying the difference, but said whether she would deal with the difference right then or come back later would have been determined by whether our son was in the car seat. I would pay the difference, but I wouldn't be pleased about doing so. I know myself well enough to know this. A co-worker of mine said he would inform the station, but would not pay the difference to anyone but the owner. His thinking came from years of experience managing people in similar jobs. "They'd take my money and pocket it," he said. "I'd call the station owner myself." So, the mitigating circumstances of a decision seem to be centered about who we perceive is actually being robbedeither the station owner or the pumper (time and/or money).

While everyone I asked seem to indicate that they would inform the station, this actual story is anecdotal evidence that this is not what would happen in North Carolina. Do North Carolinians lack the moral compass to act ethically? Surely, if anything, North Carolina represents a snapshot of American culture as a whole. Your answer tells a great deal about you. Did you find yourself justifying your action? If you have to justify an action it is probably, actually against your internal moral code. In that instance, what drives your ethics or how you act within a social system where you apply or don't apply your morals is actually contingent upon things not directly tied to your strict moral code. This is important because while most people claim to be voting their conscience when they go to the polls, they're actually voting their perceptions of what is right based upon their personal filter of the sound bites coming to them through media.

Currently there are two main schools of thought in the American political system. I won't name names or say one school is better than the other because I don't think I have to. One party/group claims that bailouts and social programs are handouts to people who have not earned these freebies and worked hard to be entitled to them. It's akin to rewarding the lazy, they claim. The other main school of thought is that the bailout and social programs are necessary to overt economic collapse and keep the wheels of the machine moving forward. The first cautions that the laziness of the populous is what created the fiscal crisis so it shouldn't be encouraged with handouts. The second blames big business and the captains of industry, the rich, and justifies the handouts as necessary to keep the machine working. The first can point to the tangible economic staggering of the economy and claim it as proof that the bailouts and social programs are not solving anything, regardless of the fact that the economy is a behemoth ship which is slow to turn and is traveling on the course set years before. The second has to rely upon the hypothetical future as proof as to what it was able to prevent. Which is correct? It depends little on your personal moral code, which probably recognizes that helping people less fortunate is the "right" thing to do. It probably depends very little on logic and reason which would dictate that paying now can prevent having to pay twice as much later and would lead to a better society. You can't see the avoided future but you can certainly see the present. It probably has everything to do with how you have been swayed by media and sound bites rather than your careful contemplation and due diligence. In this instance, it appears people tend to let media and political ads do the heavy work of thinking for them.

But how does this all relate to the price of gasoline in North Carolina? Simple, I suppose. What would you have done and what is the reason you would do it that way? Your answer defines how closely your morals align with your ethics. What you know is right isn't necessarily what you're doing in any given situation, be it as simple as returning a few dollars you were overpaid or as complex as casting a vote. If you find that's more true than not, it might be a good time for self-reflection and a personal recommitment to living your moral code. So, without thinking too hard and being honest to yourself, what will you do? Turn off the 24 hour news cycle and media machine which only survives by stoking the fires of indignation and playing upon fears and ask yourself what is the real issue at hand. How important is this to me and am I voting according to how I really believe? Now go vote.

How ethical are you? Take this ethics litmus test to find out how you will be voting

By: Shawn Mann

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