Alex Taylor on Ethics and Morality

I’m going to be accused of click bait, I know it...

 

I suppose it’s the perceived duty of all published writers to play Grand Inquisitor (I really mean commentator) on public behavior in such a way that doesn’t specifically address a hot-button topic, but calls to question our interpretation of the topic so as to create an air of uncertainty. Given the date of original publication to the Gainesville Times — Tuesday, December 27, 1988 — I imagine this might have something to do with 1988’s presidential election and the serious rhetoric surrounding it, namely the Iran-Contra affair and its prosecution. Ethics, morality, and the common good. All perception, right? More after the column…

Can’t relate to the dead horse lotto? Here’s an actual morality tale that occurred just a few months ago:

A sparkling new local fast food establishment held their Grand Opening this past June. A couple weeks later, someone (me) noticed that this restaurant was charging the wrong sales tax rate — 8% instead of 6%. Since my overage amounted to a few cents, and the drive-thru was busy, I let it go. No biggie; they’ll sort it soon enough. I wouldn’t return until they did. A week later, a local social network was abuzz with queries regarding the tax overage. The restaurant’s management was alerted. They said they were aware of it, blaming their sales systems and corporate management. A hot debate ensued. Comments varied from accusations of mob lynching, absurd vigilantism, “Just think of all those employees you want to put out of work!”, “It’s just a few cents! You can’t afford it?!?”, tax codes broken, jail, mathematical computations of the three-week haul (it is significant, mind you), but mostly, “It’s just a mistake and they will fix it.”

Thing is, they didn’t until news of the online firestorm reached a local county commissioner. The rate quickly changed to the correct 6%. So, what happened to the ill-gotten tax dollars? (Estimated somewhere between $1000-$1800) Nobody seems to care.

For me, as soon as management was aware they were overcharging and continued to do so, they were violating law, ethics, and of course, morality— the other F-word… fraud. That’s from my perspective, a pickpocketing for extra change as it may be. From other customers’ perspectives, it wasn't a big enough issue to worry about because of the workers needs and the personal needs for that new restaurant outweighed the few cents out of their pocket. From the restaurant’s perspective, it wasn’t important to correct the issue quickly so long as no business was lost and nobody important made inquiry. Unfortunately, this seems to be a standard practice for certain upstarts who possess a playbook for deviant gains.

Oh, and speaking of whistleblowers, Facebook's latest appears to be leading a morality charge that also seeks to define and generalize what the company considers misinformation, which much of it is, while commingling/mislabeling truthful information that happens to disagree with its preferred narrative of "the truth". Today's filtering has become quite complicated, indeed!