Your Moral Compass

DeletedUser

Betsy, was your indignation about this person more to do about her boasting rather than what she actually did? Was it acually the smugness displayed than the actual deed? If this person had shown some embarrasment at having got away with the petrol, would you have viewed her differently?
 

DeletedUser

I think if she had felt some embarrassment, she would never have told us about the incident.

But if she had shown some remorse and then had told us, yes, I would have viewed her differently. I would still have suggested that she go back and pay the extra $30, though.
 

DeletedUser

Now you have to answer your own dilemma, Hell.
One true love dilemma? Yep, I would sacrifice 10, 20, 100, 1000, 10000, a million. I lost my one true love when I was 19 and would sacrifice most everyone on the planet to have her back. I'm selfish that way I guess.
 

DeletedUser

No comment for the above.


Look at it this way, Ten lives to one, I love the girl, but thats ten people, and shes one, put just about anybody in that spot, even myself, and I'd chose to let the ten live.
 

DeletedUser

Look at it this way, Ten lives to one, I love the girl, but thats ten people, and shes one, put just about anybody in that spot, even myself, and I'd chose to let the ten live.
Spoken like someone whose major loss in life was his allowance. :rolleyes:
 

DeletedUser

Not fully true,how would you feel if you were one of those ten people, and you knew I had chose to keep my loved one alive, and let you and the other nine die.That's ten faimilys that will be greifing because a loved one died so I could make one faimily gratefull that I spared the girl, theres logic to both sides, keep the girl, keep the relationship, keep the strangers, spare more lives.
 

DeletedUser

You won't make a choice in the "applicant" decision, Hell, because you don't have enough information, and yet your scenario has even less information. :dry:

One true love dilemma? Yep, I would sacrifice 10, 20, 100, 1000, 10000, a million. I lost my one true love when I was 19 and would sacrifice most everyone on the planet to have her back. I'm selfish that way I guess.


You used the term "morally bankrupt" earlier in this thread. I'm going to come up with another one. Moral burden. It's not just you being selfish here. You have forced selfishness upon your one true love. It is for her that millions have been sacrificed. How much of a moral burden are you willing to allow her to bear? How much can she bear before the weight of the knowledge of how many were sacrificed causes her to break down and become a different person than the one for whom the sacrifices were made?

It's too fantastical, anyway. An exceptionally small number of people are ever going to be in a position of having to choose between the lives of others and the lives of loved ones. We can speculate on how we may act, but we're never going to have to find out. Get too much change back from a cashier? That will happen. Choose between the lives of a multitude of others vs. one? I don't think so.
 

DeletedUser

Yeah, that's the thing. I'm mostly a pragmatic, logical person, but until you're there, looking straight on the loss of a loved one, you truly don't realize just how much you would be willing to do. Logic, pragmatism, everything takes a backseat to the overwhelming gut-wrench. That's a real moral dilemma, something tangible, even Earth shattering (albeit, only your small piece of the Earth).

I guess I'm not into this whole nickel & dime moral compass scene.
 

DeletedUser13113

Look at it this way, Ten lives to one, I love the girl, but thats ten people, and shes one, put just about anybody in that spot, even myself, and I'd chose to let the ten live.

It's easy to give a common answer to questions. But let's get to the meat. Would it matter if the 10 people who were going to die were elderly and going to die within the next 10 months anyway? Or what if these 10 people were comatose vegetables, kept alive only through a machine? Or, what if the 10 people were convicted gangbangers who boasted about their killings?

Stuff to make you think on.
 

DeletedUser

It would also depend on how/why they were going to die. It would be much harder to make the decision to either give up a loved one to someone who wanted to kill him/her (especially if it were the police who wanted the loved one) or have the person kill others than it would to decide if you would allow a loved one to be killed in order to give organs to others who needed them to avoid dying.
 

DeletedUser11019

id rather not get into all that
been there and held the dead..not pleasant.(my condolences)

about the gas pumping.
couple of options come to mind.
1.complain to the zit faced kid
2.complain to the gas owners
3.leave id and drive off
4.hand the kid a jerry can and hose,,"ten bucks and not a drop more or less" then smile..,.then watch him syfen the gas out the car(petrol kinda burns and itches ya know)

moral issue here is that in many companies or even restaurants, the personnel have to pay for the damages or loss, spilled food or drinks,
in this case it would have cost the kid and entire weeks earnings.

in London they would even measure the spillage tray after work,,to count how many pints have been lost during the night,,this would come out of your salary.
....it all has todo with tax cost of merchandise and profit.

next time dont complain to the waiters,,they are trying to earnt a living too
and if you take food out o there mouths,,they will spit in yours too.
 

DeletedUser

moral issue here is that in many companies or even restaurants, the personnel have to pay for the damages or loss, spilled food or drinks,
in this case it would have cost the kid and entire weeks earnings.

If the kid had to pay for his mistake he would learn a lesson and make sure he did`nt do it again which is something we all have to do. (or top up your unleaded fuel with diesel if he was that way inclined)

All companies have to make a profit and staff incompetence/laziness/lack of thought affects that so you can`t blame them, Good staff will always make the books right anyway if possible.

As far as sacrificing the many for the few we have been delegating others to make that decision for us for years with no qualms (Military Commanders, Politicians. Government Nuclear shelters anyone-who picks who goes in there?) and it is human nature to pass the buck on difficult decisions, nothing to do with morals. If the question was asked of each of you how many of you would actually kill your son or daughter to save 20 people you have never met and likely never will. I very likely would not and if that makes me morally bankrupt then so be it, I can live with that if my kids are safe.

So-called "moral decisions" are made daily in our lives and we don`t think about them that much, so what if the kid has to pay the difference for the fuel, we don`t have to worry about it, what if the barmaid has to cover that extra beer that was`nt ordered, not our problem. It does`nt matter in the long run what you do or why you do it in these cases because someone will always have a different moral standpoint and so there is no wrong or right answer. You could even deal with the same situation differently based on how you feel in that particular moment and what your personal situation is.

There is also the question of "societal norms" and exactly what they are. Where you are and who you are are quite closely linked and what is considered correct in one place could be disapproved of elsewhere. Some Arab societies consider "belching" after a meal shows appreciation whilst the same action would not go down so well in suburbia so the example offered in op could be skewed simply by locational differences. If it was a garage in a high crime ghetto area you could be risking your life by not paying the difference whereas a more affluent area could mean the cost difference is not so much a problem.

These questions have just too many variables for there to be a straight yes/no -pay/don`t pay answer and can only do what is right for you at the time.



\me gets off soapbox now and heads for pub
 

DeletedUser11019

hmmm interesting
like slurping of noodles..its rude in Europe but not in china.
but thats more table manners and other.

but it is a moral question about the poor gas pumping kid.
because of one mistake,,its going to cost him a weeks salary.

in American restaurants the tips actually pay the salary,(and its lousy)
so...do you walk in there and start complaining about everything until the point the waiter gets the sack and has to pay up....oh yeah you feel good coz you got a free meal......what about him?

tip.
dont ever drop a barrel o Guinness beer, (you would have to let it stand for a week before even contemplating opening it.)
KABOOM.
 

DeletedUser

I wouldn't even consider driving away with $50 dollars of petrol for $10. I wouldn't even bother complaining.
I'd let him know that i had only asked for $10 and then let him of the hook. Life's too short to make a big deal out of this stuff.
(i would have pumped my own fuel in the first place so i guess its moot anyway)
 

DeletedUser

I wouldn't even consider driving away with $50 dollars of petrol for $10. I wouldn't even bother complaining.
I'd let him know that i had only asked for $10 and then let him of the hook. Life's too short to make a big deal out of this stuff.
(i would have pumped my own fuel in the first place so i guess its moot anyway)
Sucker born every minute, hehe.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there are people who do these 'mistakes' to increase their sales. Using a kid to do it leaves them far more wiggle room to claim innocent mistake.

Granted, this is not a common scene, but at least one should question the incident and not merely assume innocence. I guess that's part of these morale compass questions that i'm struggling with, insufficient information.

For example, in my claim of not wanting to sacrifice my "true love" for the lives of others, as others pointed out, I didn't provide clarification of "who" those others would be, nor of the circumstances I may be in that would cause me to react in such a definitive manner, nor of the emotions associated with the event that would interfere with a logical examination of the incident. My statement was a gut reaction, not a logic-based reaction. I grabbed from history to reexamine something and came with "how my mindset was at the time." As I mentioned earlier, I'm a pragmatic, mostly logical man, but emotions can and do override logic, pragmatism.

What I'm trying to say, and reiterating what godsarseii indicated, our moral compasses are not fixed-states; they vary according to the wants, needs, location and circumstances. You just can't pin it down, no neat packaging, no simple answer.
 

DeletedUser10480

After a 20 second scan......

These are lifeboat scenarios. Men don't live their lives in lifeboats.
 

DeletedUser

Personnaly just to let you know i will ask to speak to the 15 year olds manager and have a go at him for letting a 15 year old work at his station i will question the 15 year old first to find out if his getting underpaid....

but then i will harrase the manager and cause a huge problem for him.... with all the comoation i will eventually tell him i caame here to pump up 10 dollars worth so iam only paying 10 dollars... if they try to touch my car i will smash his station windows...
 

DeletedUser10480

I recognize you from your town that is known for cheating, breaking their 'honorable word', and hitting builders.

I'd expect not much less from you than for you to "smash his station windows"====at a gas station.
 

DeletedUser

What I'm trying to say, and reiterating what godsarseii indicated, our moral compasses are not fixed-states; they vary according to the wants, needs, location and circumstances. You just can't pin it down, no neat packaging, no simple answer.
I wanted to write something meaningful here, but while thinking about exactly what I wanted to write I just lost interest.

So a simple answer that basically agrees with Hellstromm.

To answer the OP: I would do anything from letting the kid know about the mistake and giving back the extra petrol, to making a huge fuss about it and demanding I get the extra for free, to just driving off and let the kid and manager sort it out, to driving off and calling the manager from my cellphone letting him know that the kid just gave me 40 bucks free petrol. This all depending on how I feel at that moment.

But my moral compass is semi broken.

Except on some cases. My faithfulness to my wife as example. I will never deviate from that, no matter what.

So I guess I only half agree with Hellstromm. I believe that everyone of us has a fixed moral compass, or rather some lines that you will not cross. But the further we move away from those lines the more our compass will deviate depending on our mood/situation at the time.

And there, turns out I said something meaningful after all.
 

DeletedUser10480

Go get better principles. Live by those and see if they fit better with an honest lifestyle.
 
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