I enjoy hypothetical moral dilemmas, so if you think of one or, even better, are facing one in your life, ask me about it. Come to think of it, a lot of the time I spend with my old friend Kevin Lim is spent discussing moral dilemmas, whether they are primarily moral issues or social/ political/ economic/ personal issues with a moral dimension. Anyway, I encountered one today, and here it is, with a little embellishment to make it interesting.
Say you bought something from a hawker stall and the assistant hands you excess change. Easy, right? You return what is not yours.
But picture this scene. The assistant is relentlessly getting scolded and ordered by her boss, who is working within the same stall (cooking, perhaps). The boss nags and nitpicks the poor assistant on everything - have you done this, why haven't you done that, can you be quicker - while throwing in a few personal jibes - slow, stupid. The assistant is a middle-aged or slightly senior lady and appears to be under considerable stress. In those few seconds, your mind concocts a detailed back story of a single mother with rebellious teenage children about to start on expensive tertiary education. Or perhaps a former stallholder who could no longer keep up with increasing rent and is now forced to work for someone else. Or maybe both stories woven together.
No one has noticed, but you realise that she has given you 4 two dollar notes instead of three. If you return it to her, the boss lurking in the background will surely notice, and you know her bad day will get worse.
Do you return the two dollars to its rightful earner, or do you wrongfully keep it to give the poor lady a break for the day?
