Sunday, March 26, 2006

My Moral Quandry

Today when I got home from taking my friend to the airport I found $120 in the street. There was no one around, and it was lying in the dirt. I would like to get this back to the rightful owner. However, the money could have come from anywhere, and I don't think going around asking people "Hey, did you lose some money?" would be an effective means of getting it back to the rightful owner. Plus people around here can just be plain scary, and I don't want to go knocking on doors. So the question, remains, what do I do with the money?

Option 1:
Should I take it to the police? Or will that just be making a personal donation to an NOPD officer? Everyone tend to believe that I might as well throw it in a hole as trust the cops here. Even if that's the case, does the fact that they are corrupt relieve me of my moral and legal duty to turn it in?

Option 2:
If the cops can't be trusted, should I give it to charity? If so, which one? I'm leaning towards habitat for humanity as they're helping out down here.

Option 3
Should I keep it? Maybe was the universe going my way and paying be back for some good karma. Or is this a karmic test? Which takes us back to option 1 and 2.

I guess perhaps it's funny that this is my big moral dilemma, but I tend to feel that if you'll fudge on some of the little stuff you'll fudge on the big stuff too. This maxim does not apply to eating/drinking in the library - I firmly believe that some rules were made to be broken. Especially library rules, grammatical rules, curfews, etc. Other rules like don't touch the art, stop on red, and don't poke the bear exist for good reason.

My moral quandry is cast into even sharper relief as I just learned that a person I very much respected has done something that most people (myself included) would consider quite immoral. I respected this person precisely because he seemed immune to the particular vice he indulged. Most importantly, this person gave me hope that there are some truly decent people out there that "have it all. "

While it should come as no suprise that people have moral failings, and I think it is best not to judge too harshly, it is the way the this person represented himself that troubles me. If I had not bought into that persona, I would not have been shocked, which makes me wonder if I saw only what I wanted to see.