The editors of our local newspaper made some interesting comments about morality in a recent editorial. They were mainly commenting on an incident in which a local gas station accidentally keyed a price of 34.9 cents per gallon instead of $3.499 into its gas tanks. Since customers were paying at the pump, the gas station attendant did not catch the error right away. Cars lined up down the street to take advantage of the mistake. The editors comment on one woman, who

. . . told reporters it normally costs her $100 to fill her SUV. She proudly showed off a receipt for $8.85 after pumping her tank full last Monday.

The editors post the question, “Was filling up at 34.9 cents stealing, or did those who lined up just take advantage of an opportunity offered them?”

They then quote one possible response from an online respondent,

“The oil companies have been ripping us off for years,” a reader who uses the screen name jstib1 wrote on our Web site. “She paid the price the pump said to pay. It’s not like she filled up and drove off without paying for what she bought.”

They then quoted another reader who thought that customers taking advantage of the mistake were dishonest. The comment of the editors was then, “It’s a fascinating debate, isn’t it?”

The editors then present a list of similar moral decisions that they consider not always clear:

• Do you tell the store clerk when he or she gives you too much change?
• What if it’s a substantial mistake, say $20, and the clerk is the daughter of a friend?
• What if it’s only $1 and you don’t discover the error until you get home. Do you spend $5 in gas to return the $1?

“Now let’s up the ante”

• You happen upon an item in a garage sale being sold for $2.50 that you know is worth $30,000. Do you tell the seller, or take advantage of a great deal?
• Your neighbor has wireless Internet access and you can receive the signal in your home. Do you save yourself $50 a month by using his signal?

Their conclusion?

Truth is, these questions can only be answered as you consult your own conscience or perhaps your higher power.

We’re not going to tell you what is right and what is wrong.

But those people in Rapids who filled up for one-tenth of what gasoline should have cost?

They’re all crooks.

Here’s the irony. The day after telling us that they won’t tell us what is right or wrong, they write an editorial justifying their right to endorse a specific political candidate.

Now, if a newspaper wants to use its editorial opinion page to endorse a specific candidate, I have no problem with that. However, what makes them think that moral choices are out of the realm of reasoned public discourse? We are free to agree or disagree with their pick of a presidential candidate. Are we any less free to agree or disagree with their moral reasoning?

Their comment on morality is very telling. “Truth is, these questions can only be answered as you consult your own conscience or perhaps your higher power.” According to these editors, decisions of conscience are even more private than political decisions and are therefore not fair game for public discourse.

Yet, moral decisions are based on objective truth, and therefore subject to the kind of reasoned judgment that should happen in public debate. In fact, the “dilemmas” that the editors present are actually fairly clear-cut to anyone who accepts the existence of objective moral reality.

Let’s give it a try, shall we?

• Do you tell the store clerk when he or she gives you too much change?

If the clerk gives you too much change by mistake and you do not tell him or her, you have not paid the asking price for the items you purchased. This is a sin against (commutative) justice.

• What if it’s a substantial mistake, say $20, and the clerk is the daughter of a friend?

A greater amount of extra change can make the sin against justice more grave.

• What if it’s only $1 and you don’t discover the error until you get home. Do you spend $5 in gas to return the $1?

The small amount of change makes the sin less grave, but it does not justify knowingly keeping the extra money. While spending $5 on gas to return $1 of extra change seems disproportionate, justice would demand at least a phone call to the store. You could also return the dollar on your next trip into town.

“Now let’s up the ante”

• You happen upon an item in a garage sale being sold for $2.50 that you know is worth $30,000. Do you tell the seller, or take advantage of a great deal?

These scenarios are perhaps a little more complex. In this case, special knowledge of the worth of an item may give you the right to sell it for more than you pay for it. However, if the value is this disproportionate, justice would demand that you at least offer the seller a fair amount based on your ability to assess the true value of the item and to get the higher price. What percentage of the true value would be fair? That may be a prudential judgment to be made in dialogue with the seller.

• Your neighbor has wireless Internet access and you can receive the signal in your home. Do you save yourself $50 a month by using his signal?

This one is only difficult because there are no physical goods being stolen, and the act of piracy is so easy. However, if by social contract it is understood that you need to pay for a service to use it, using it without paying is stealing. There is probably a difference between using free-floating WiFi waves in a particular instance (especially given the fact that so many public places offer free WiFi access) and permanently hijacking the signal. If you want Internet access, you should pay for it.

Finally, let’s take one more look at the gas station situation. Remember this quote?

“The oil companies have been ripping us off for years,” a reader who uses the screen name jstib1 wrote on our Web site. “She paid the price the pump said to pay. It’s not like she filled up and drove off without paying for what she bought.”

First of all, this statement is purely illogical. The error did not hurt the oil company. It hurt the gas station, who had already paid for the gasoline and is reselling it. If this was a local gas station, the consequences are quite immediate. If it is a chain gas station, the consequences might be more easily absorbed, but are still felt by real people trying to run an honest business. Secondly, the sentiment that oil companies have been ripping us off for years does not in turn justify ripping them off. If we believe oil companies are ripping us off, we need to use recourse to legislation, legal action or economic forces (however, the truth still remains that American gas prices are among the lowest in the world – perhaps we’re just spoiled). Finally, customers who drove off with a full tank of gas for a tenth of the cost were not paying for what they bought. They knew that the lower prices was the result of an error, not of a promotion by the gas station. They were taking advantage, and they were unjust.

One of my maxims of morality is, “If we got the easy moral decisions right, we could more easily forgiven for struggling with the difficult ones.” The editors of our local newspaper don’t even want to try to get the easy moral decisions right. Conscience is not a private decision. It is a reasoned decision-making process made in the context of a community engaged in reasoned discourse with the goal of arriving at objective moral truth.

End Note

“Would you fill up with 35-cent gas?” Marshfield News Herald. 20 October 2008. Gannet News Service. 6A.
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