Asymmetrical Information

Assuming I'd like the music...

I would not take them.

Because I'm afraid of getting caught.

Sell them on StubHub and give the cash to the family/heirs.

Um no, because taking things that don’t belong to you without the owner’s permission is stealing.

And because if the boss finds out, this “unidentified hospital worker” will soon be an “unemployed hospital worker” whose last place of employment fired them for stealing from patients.

I wouldn't take them for two reasons:

1) There is always some chance of getting caught, so it wouldn't be worth the risk.

2) I would rather buy my own tickets (or go home and watch a good movie) than abase myself by stealing from a dead man. The tickets would be, after all, his property, or the property of his heirs, or of the state.

Are the ticks printed with his name?

If not, what is there to lose?

p/s: I don't go to concerts anyways XD

it doesnt matter if the person is unidentified or not, the tickets are not yours to take.

ethics isnt about what you can get away with its about standards of behavior. once you start down the road of "oh he isnt going to use it, or shes not going to miss it anyway" you can rationalize all sorts of unethical behavior.

No.

Is there something I'm missing that makes this a hard decision?

What's the problem here? You're unable to bargain, because you can't reach anyone legally entitled to the tickets. The only value of the tickets is in their use at the concert, which is a limited-time value. It means you have a time-expired asset that goes from X value to ZERO in two hours, and no opportunity to bargain.

Take the tickets. What possible ethical consideration is there in simply letting them become worthless?

As an utterly practical consideration, these might well be two tickets out of a set of three, four, or more (a family, a season ticket package, a social club, or whatever).

What are those people going to say when they see you (and your significant other) in those seats?

For that matter, what are you going to tell your SO about how you got the tickets?

So, based on morality, risk to job, and risk to well-being and relationship: leave them be.

I agree with Flynn about the ethical considerations. That said, I wouldn't take the tickets unless they were for an act that was worth my time to go see, even for free. And there are very few of those around.

If not, what is there to lose?

You mean besides your job and your reputation?

The last thing any hospital or anyone in the health care field wants is a news story about some misconduct by one of their employees involving a patient even if they wouldn’t be found liable in a legal sense. I doubt it would matter at all to them that the patient was “unidentified” at the time and saying “they were going to expire anyways in two hours” won’t matter to the security guards as they escort the thief out of the building.

And that probably goes double for future employers who not only have to ask if they want to risk hiring someone that they know is a thief (it’s easier not to hire in the first place than it is to fire) – but a thief whose judgment was so bad, they were willing to risk their losing their job and damaging their reputation for a pair of concert tickets.

What's the problem here?

There isn’t one. They don’t belong to you so they’re not yours to take. End of discussion.

No, because 1) it's stealing and 2) the tickets could be used to identify the person (i.e. if they were bought from Ticketmaster with a credit card.)

2) the tickets could be used to identify the person (i.e. if they were bought from Ticketmaster with a credit card.)

Good point or even the decedent wasn’t the original ticket purchaser, if they can find out who bought them originally the police might be able to work their way backwards to finding out who they were finally sold or given to.

The difficult part of this question is what if it is 1976 and Led Zeppelin is playing a sold out show in Madison Square Garden? Or (insert favorite band here). If we are thinking like any utilitarian, the tickets going unused indicates lost utility, so you should take the tickets. I don't like this argument though, and think stealing is stealing no matter if the person is dead. P.S. technically you are stealing from the rightful heir...

Take the tickets BUT replace them with cash in an amount equal to their face value plus the maximum legally permitted markup (assuming this is a state in which scalping is illegal).

No.

A true measure of who you are is what you will do when you know that no one is watching you or will ever find out.

So far we have:

Argument(s) for taking the tickets:

1) The tickets would likely expire unused because the rightful owner cannot use them

Argument(s) against taking the tickets:

1) Taking the tickets is stealing even if you cannot immediately identify the owner or their heirs
2) You could lose your job
3) You could damage your reputation and relationships
4) The tickets aren’t actually “useless” as they might assist in identifying the decedent

That about sum it up?

I do not.

There was a time when I would have sold my integrity for a smile.

It's worth a bit more to me now. Certainly, more than a pair of tickets.

Having said that, it does have a kind of Nick Velvet-ish flavor to it, doesn't it? In two+ hours, the tickets are worthless. If I am taking something from you that has no value, either monetary or otherwise, did I actually steal anything?

Some venues (prolly not ticketmaster) would refund the money with a death certificate. So another reason not to.

I'm with AughtSix... how is this a hard question?

Reagan Fan,

You've missed the point entirely.

It doesn't matter if the guy had two concert tickets or $1,000 in cash in his pocket. Those things have no value to him because he's dead.

And whatever the ancilliary value is (to heirs / identity searches, etc.) matters very little as well.

What matters first and foremost matters to you: taking them is stealing and stealing makes you a thief.

Simple enough, right? No need for philosophizing or utilitizing.

Cheers,

Agree with everyone else. You have absolutely no legal entitlement to them, and taking them would be larceny. The only other ethical alternative, besides leaving them alone, is scalping them (if they can be sold for above face value) and giving the cash to the heirs/devisees. But I wouldn't.

I'd take the tickets, use them to impress a woman at a bar, invite her for dinner but let dinner linger until it was too late to go to the concert, head back to my place for a nightcap and "whatever" and then return the tickets the next morning.

. . .

What?

Really - what's wrong with that?

Ok, who here has taken something that didn't belong to them? And had a good reason for doing so.

ps. I wouldn't take the tickets

No. I already have plans for tonight...

He may also have some gold fillings that are now of no use to him. I doubt seriously that his family (assuming they can be located) is planning to make use of them either.

So, go ahead take them AND the tickets!

What's wrong? Is there a problem with that?

I wouldn't take the tickets for several reasons, and I am assuming they are for an upcoming reunited Police concert, front row, with backstage access, and free Chinese food and a limo home.

1) I believe it is wrong to steal, on a basic human level.
2) Religously, I believe it is wrong to steal and I would offend the God I profess to believe in.
3) I am afraid I would get caught if the tickets were part of a wider set, or purchased by cc, or had some other conditions.
4) I would feel too guilty trying to enjoy the concert and however good the concert was, the memory would be linked to thoughts of the dead man.
5) The fun of most things, is to save up, use your own money, and feel a sense of satisfaction at what you choose to do by your own hand.

Oh.. wait.. groupies? There are hot groupies there and tantric Sting is willing to share? Oh now you tell me.

The particulars of the situation make it weird. The tickets have a relatively trivial value. And they're tied up with a big tragedy (death). And it's in a situation (medical care) where most of the practitioners' income, far exceeding the value of the tickets, is based (through extremely lucrative legal protection for their guilds) on a reputation for putting the welfare of the customer above monetary concerns. Because of the trivial value, our taboos involving the tragedy of death, and the very high monetary value of preserving the appearance of being above monetary concerns, taking the opportunity to make some kind of symbolic gesture is probably the smart thing to do.

What if we make the situation a little less weird, though, so that symbolic gestures aren't so obviously the right answer? A sailor comes across very valuable floating debris, or perhaps even an entire ship which has become unmanned somehow. If he doesn't do something with it it will probably sink soon and be lost to all; now what? As far as I know, it's pretty common in such situations to come to rough and ready solutions where the sailor can take it and, if possible, split the value somehow with the original owner. Symbolic gestures like just letting the abandoned ship go down would not be appreciated.:-|

I'm not certain there is any ethical issue involved based on my experience with the help at my mother's nursing home. Alive or dead, the patients' stuff disappears constantly and the perps never get caught because you can't prove they took it. Even sentimental stuff with no commercial value grows legs in a nursing home.
They should all burn in hell for stealing from the dying.

By taking the tickets you lose a "little bit" of your honor and integrity.

Only a "little bit."

Like being a "little bit" pregnant.

One difference (of many) between the soon-to-be-worthless concert tickets and the soon-to-be-worthless chunk of debris floating on the ocean is that the tickets have an owner while the debris is abandoned. It ethical and legal to salvage the debris; it is not ethical or legal to salvage the tickets. (I think. I'm not a property law expert, so maybe a good lawyer could make a case for the tickets being fair game, but I doubt it.)

Concert tickets? Hardly. Now if it were a winning lottery ticket, now there is incentive!

If it was money, no, I wouldn't take it, because it belongs to someone else now. If the tickets definitely can't be given to an heir or other person with any sort of claim on them, then sure, why not. He'd probably want them to be used, but you know what, it doesn't matter what he would want because HE'S DEAD. I understand some of the arguments raised in favor of declining the tickets, but let's remember sanctimony doesn't equal morality. We're assuming the tickets will go unused if you don't use them, and He. Is. Dead.

I don't believe there is an ethical issue involved, just a legal one. There is nothing inherently immoral in taking possession of something that would otherwise go usused. Stealing is only wrong if it is taking from someone else who is capable of using it.

In this case, the ethics are only the law, and social conventions dictating that you would look bad taking something from a dead dude.

So, I probably wouldn't take the tickets, but I would feel resentful of the law and society for the next two weeks for forcing me into such a position.

As for what God would think, I would hesitate to guess.

Why not, if one could, take his organs too!

Whole matter treated in 'Crime and Punishment'.

Just to be clear, if the patient is dying - no. If he is 'sure' to die before the concert but has not yet - no. If there is any way that it would be found out and cause trouble for your employer - no.

Cognitively, we have trouble digesting the idea that the person no longer exists in a fundamental sense. But why ascribe rights or intentions to the poor dead guy when most of us (I assume) don't do so for, oh, I don't know, a fetus, who at least would exist at some future time? So should we have kept the loot in the pyramids where it was? Why, fer chrissake?

"There is nothing inherently immoral in taking possession of something that would otherwise go usused."

I will swing by your place to pick things that currently being unused that I might have a use for.

"Stealing is only wrong if it is taking from someone else who is capable of using it."

So it would be ok to take concert tickets from someone who was blind and deaf?

Taking the tickets is stealing and wrong. End of discussion.

I find it amusing that some people actually find this an "ethics" question. Robert Scarth is right. Imagine the family's response when they find out that the concert tickets of their loved one's favorite group were taken by some guy in the hospital cause "He ain't gonna use them."

It is not up to us to decide how property is to be used.

The tickets are now owned by the estate of the deceased and without permission from the estate, it is stealing. It is legally wrong in that sense.

It is wrong morally, because I don't know whether the deceased would consent to me having the tickets even in this situation. I could certainly imagine him not giving me the tickets if he was going with people he cared for and he would rather they have empty seats next to them and more room to enjoy the show. They certainly gain utility from the seats going unused. I gain utility from going to the concert. The owner hasn't given me permission to use his property so I can't morally take the tickets.

The bottom line is utility will be gained from the tickets not being used by reducing the negative externality of a crowded concert hall.

Edit: First Line: It is not up to us decide how other people's property is to be used without their permission.

I really like the mental image of the "unmanned" ship. What, does its wife have it totally whipped? Or did it just wimp out and cringe at the thought of a North Atlantic gale?

Serously, that question is covered by the law of salvage. Tow the ship to the nearest port and bring a salvage action in the local admiralty port. The original owner will get a cut and so will you.

On the ethics question, I wouldn't take the tickets, but I will say this: if you ethics depend on whether or not you'll get caught, you can't properly call them ethics.

That's "local admirialty court"

it is bad bad mojo to steal from the dead

Ok, just think about it. And you might argue, but even if I was a nurse, docter or anyone who works with the sick and dying I'd most likely not be checking their pockets being that the clothes would either be trashed or given back to the family... But if I did happen to stumble upon them I would probably go to the concert and feel guilt ridden and miserable the whole time.

I'm surprised no one mentioned the old argument that small crimes lead one to big ones. It is not always true. But what is always true.

The tickets do not become worthless. They do become worth less in cash - later as memorbelia they might become valuable. Heirs might value them for sentimental reasons.

The remarks about goods or abondoned ships found at sea or washed ashore are right. Historically (and sometimes today) it was finders-keepers. That led to mischief and some good novels over the years - fake lights to lure ships onto reefs, etc.

"The bottom line is utility will be gained from the tickets not being used by reducing the negative externality of a crowded concert hall."

Huh? I don't know what kind of concerts you go to, but at the ones I attend, a crowded concert hall is a POSITIVE. Therefore, utility is gained if the tickets are used, not if they are unused.

i'm with woodstock: i don't think there's anything inherently wrong here if no-one's being harmed. but i wouldn't take the tickets, because of the risk of (a) offending people and (b) losing my job, etc.

but to flip it around for a second, if you were the dead guy, would you rather somebody used the tickets or not? i'd sure as hell prefer they were enjoyed, if that were possible. and that goes for if i was a family member too too.

No. Respect for the dead.

Nope, for the same reason I didn't smoke pot while on active duty - too much to lose if I got caught.

Is there such a thing as objective right and wrong? No, I don't think so. I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure it can't be proven. I think that we follow moral codes because it is of value to us to do so.

Upon first seeing the tickets, of course I would be tempted. But as so many have already said, stealing is stealing, no matter the cash value of the item I would be pocketing. The tickets may not have cash value after tonight, but they will have sentimental value to the family, and they may be worth more at a later date, depending on who was performing.

That's a long way of saying no.

OK-- I just found out more information about this.

The concert is Sanjaya, he of American Idol fame. Your 11 year old niece is dying of cancer. She has less than a month to live. The only thing she wants to do before she dies is to see Sanjaya in concert.

The Make a Wish Foundation regrets that they are unable to help.

No one is going to know it's you that took the tickets. There were 25 people in the ER when that guy croaked.

Where's your ethics now?

No, because it would be unethical to deprive my wife and children of the livelihood of my paycheck -- as this is a "fireable" transgression at any hospital.

The question is too easy the way it's originally posed, in which you're a hospital worker. Leaving the tickets behind is the only sensible answer regardless of ethical issues because taking them might put your job in danger. So let's change the facts a little: the ticket-holder is some random stranger who collapsed on the street. The tickets fall out of his pocket as you try to assist him. An ambulance arrives and you hear one of the people say that the now-dead man has no identification.

The concert is Sanjaya, he of American Idol fame. Your 11 year old niece is dying of cancer. She has less than a month to live. The only thing she wants to do before she dies is to see Sanjaya in concert.

The Make a Wish Foundation regrets that they are unable to help.

No one is going to know it's you that took the tickets. There were 25 people in the ER when that guy croaked.

Where's your ethics now?

I’m sorry but I must have missed the part where the tickets that were not mine to steal to use for my own benefit somehow because mine to steal because I wanted to give them to someone else to use.

So let's change the facts a little: the ticket-holder is some random stranger who collapsed on the street. The tickets fall out of his pocket as you try to assist him. An ambulance arrives and you hear one of the people say that the now-dead man has no identification.

In that case, you should go to the police department with the tickets and turn them in as lost property while noting in your report the time and location where the ambulance arrived. That way if the police can connect the dead man (based on where the ambulance picked him up) to the tickets, they could use the serial numbers on the ticket to find out who sold them and who bought them and eventually identify the dead man. It might mean you miss out on a concert you really had no right to attend, but it could also be what enables the man’s family or loved ones to find out what happened to him rather than going through the torment of weeks, months, or even longer of not knowing.

I would be all in favor of allowing the hospital to harvest any organs they can from recently deceased people.

I am a Christian. I think you are more than just your physical body. Especially after you are dead. Those organs could save countless lives.

At the very least, those who wish to opt out of the program should be forced to sign a "no donor" card instead of the other way around.

So, while I would not take the tickets, I would take your organs. Hmmm... I guess you could ask where my ethics are. ;)

It just occurred to me that the "no identification" condition is largely irrelevant. Even if the dead man's identity is known, it's unlikely in the extreme that his family members are going to be attending the concert in two hours' time. They're not going to care about the concert at all and they're not going to go rushing to the box office for refunds even if the tickets are refundable.

Does this change the answer?

I absolutely would not take them. First of all, they aren't my property regardless of whether or not the other person can use them. Secondly, his heirs might be able to get a refund on them if they aren't used.

"local admiralty port" -> "local admirialty court"
You traded one misspelling for another. :-)

I can sort of see Dr. House taking the tickets for the nominal purpose of identifying the body ... you know, interviewing the people of the adjacent seats during the intermission....

"Huh? I don't know what kind of concerts you go to, but at the ones I attend, a crowded concert hall is a POSITIVE"

I think it is positive to a point but I hate extremely crowded sold-out concerts. To me, it would be a negative, and that's all that really matters. We don't know whether it would be a positive or negative externality to each individual, and we don't know whether the deceased or his heirs would allow us to see the show. The moral thing would be to not go to the show, even if going would increase overall utility, in order to respect the rights of the deceased and his heirs to do what they want with their personal property.

Our society enforces many laws against "victimless" crimes. There are arguments in the above posts that this crime is victimless, yet still a crime, therefore the action should not be taken. Some go to the additional effort of establishing a "victim" who is not a direct party to the crime. The direct parties are the hospital worker and the dead guy. The indirect parties are the hospital, medical provicers. potential patients, other concertgoers, and 11 year old nieces. The reactionaries amongst us will not allow that there could be any situation in which it is correct to commit the crime. The situational ethicists will allow that "it depends". I propose a new twist for both the reactionaries and situationalist. #You were handed the tickets by another hospital worker who made the actual theft. He is a favorite of the supervisor, if you try to decline the tickets or report him you will be unjustly betrayed as the thief and fired. Maintaining your job and reputation therefore depend on you covering up for and benefiting from this petty crime.

You were handed the tickets by another hospital worker who made the actual theft. He is a favorite of the supervisor, if you try to decline the tickets or report him you will be unjustly betrayed as the thief and fired. Maintaining your job and reputation therefore depend on you covering up for and benefiting from this petty crime

I would immediately get out my celphone, call the police, and report my coworker for having stolen the tickets. The supervisor is only a threat if *he* is the one determining who stole the tickets. Getting a third party involved protects me.

The hypothetical situation is dippy anyway -- we're supposed to believe that a thief would (a) give away what he stole, (b) *frame* you if you turned him down (thereby attracting attention to the crime) and, most unbelievably, (c) TELL you that he'd frame you if you turned him down?

Eesh. Why not try a more realistic hypothetical... like, say, "aliens threaten to destroy the Earth if you don't steal the tickets". :)

I think about what the dead guy would want, it's his property but that doesn't mean I can't perhaps guess at his wishes. Putting aside all danger of being caught, if I didn't think the guy would mind I'll take the tickets. Maybe do something nice for 'him' in exchange, maybe send flowers to the funeral or something.

I would immediately get out my celphone, call the police, and report my coworker for having stolen the tickets. The supervisor is only a threat if *he* is the one determining who stole the tickets. Getting a third party involved protects me.

Good answer, I was thinking much the same thing when I read the scenario (except use a landline so the company has a record that you made a call to the police and when). I wonder if it might not be a good idea after filing the police report to then call the supervisor and let him know what happened including that you’ve filed a police report. Even if the thief is a favorite of your supervisor, there may be others in the organization who would not be willing to go along with firing someone who just reported a theft to the police by one of their employees.

Ok, who here has taken something that didn't belong to them?

Me, one time, when I was ten years old. Lesson learned, I'm not cut out to be a thief.

But there seem to be a number of nursing home workers who are...

Thorley and Dan, Thank you for your insightful responses. Acting on your instruction, I shall go forth and report all rulebreakers that I come accross in my travels. Even if their original infraction is minor and my jeopardy is great. I shall drop the dime even if they believe their illegal action was intended to benefit another. (11 year old dying girl) You have convinced me, there is no such thing as a victimless crime. There is always a victim, even if it is the fine print of the law itself. The law must be upheld and enforced even if doing so destroys all. (Cue the aliens!)

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't this a small premise of the ER episode that aired in syndication this morning on TNT?

"You are a worker in a hospital. An unidentified patient dies on your ward. In his pocket are two tickets for a sold-out concert for two hours hence. You are pretty sure he isn't going to be identified in time to use the tickets."

How quickly does he have to be identified in order for him to use the tickets?

I gather that a great many readers of this blog follow "rule" rather than "act" ethical systems.

If I'm a worker at a hospital, then I won't be leaving to go to a concert during my shift. Also, even if he's identified in time to use the tickets, this still leaves the problem that he's dead, and most dead people don't attend concerts (well maybe Grateful Dead).

I would not take the tickets for two reasons:

1. Theft is wrong, even if the stolen items appear to be useless to the owner.

2. Though the unstolen concert tickets would not be used, there are scenarios where a friend or loved one would benefit from knowing about them. For example, the man could have bought the tickets as a surprise for his wife. She might be comforted by the fact that he did something nice for her before he died.

No one has mentioned the potential forensic value. Does no one watch CSI? Obviously, the death is unexpected, since the patient figured to be at the show that night. The tickets could potentially have information relevant to his cause of death (where was he coming from, where was he going, who was he meeting there, etc.). Maybe not, but it's up to the authorities to make that call.

Wow. I guess I will take the unpopular position, at least sort of.

It's amazing how many responses to this question do one of two things:
either they answer an ethical question in legal/practical terms ("getting caught isn't worth the risk"), and as Rob Lyman noted, if you don't do something for fear of getting caught, that is hardly an ethical position on the matter.

Or they dodge the premise of the thought experiment by assigning value to unused tickets (for ID, for refunds w/ a death certificate, for slightly more legroom for potential concert-going friend of the deceased, and my favorite, for sentimental value -- I wonder who really would relish the concert tickets Uncle Joe had on the night he got hit by a bus).

The soul and the challenge of the question is that the tickets will have no value to anyone once they go unused, and that they *will* go unused.

There are ethics problems here, but they aren't as simple as garden variety theft. In order to steal, you have to take something of value from someone. If someone were to walk up to my house and take, say, a glass bottle from my trashcan, I wouldn't call it theft (trespassing, perhaps). It has no value to me, just as the tickets have no value to the dead person or his heirs. As to what his unexpressed wishes might have been... well, we can't presume unexpressed wishes. That's why we have wills and such (oh, and lets please say that the use of the tickets was not proscribed in a will).

The real ethics problems stem from the fact that those living need to have trust and faith in the medical system and in the caregivers. The patient should never have to worry that the items on his person are valuable enough to alter his course of care, or put it him at risk. The value of the tickets to the doctor, in a perverse way, may provide some incentive (however small) to be less than thorough in treatment.

[BTW: the parallels to this and organ donation/harvesting are blindingly obvious].

Incidentally, for those of you in the "taking from the dead man is theft" camp, let me try a different thought experiment:

A dying man comes up to you on the street. He tells you he has no heirs, and tells you the location of a small fortune he has hidden. He tells you that you are welcome to the money, under one condition. He dies before he can tell you what he wants. The next day, you learn from the paper that he indeed has no heirs and no will.

Would taking that money be theft?

I'm genuinely curious here.

Brad:

You are right, the tickets will go unused and not have any value. However, the right of personal property does have value and using the tickets violates this right even of a dead man.

I agree with everything else you say though, great points.

Also, regarding your new scenario, I would take the treasure. At that point, nobody has a full claim on it, but I have a somewhat claim and an assuming better claim than anybody else.

Is this post contradictory?

The tickets may have a great sentimental value to the heirs. They indicate 'where his head was at.'

There are certainly ethical boundaries that rule our behavior with strangers. But what if you were friends with the guy and his family, knew the situation under which the tickets were purchased, and didn't work for the hospital? Would that change anything? Would you then be more likely to use the tickets in his memory and give the money for the tickets back to the family?

It is theft. The tickets don't belong to you. When I attended a police academy, there were several vignettes on similar themes, with the basic moral that if you did such a thing, you'd be fired and probably prosecuted. Thirty years ago, my ethics were a lot more loose, and if something wasn't bolted down, well...

One similar story: you're a cop, and arrive at a traffic accident. The driver in the car is dead, and there is a bag from [famous fast food chain] in the car. Driver's not going to eat it, so you do. That is your last day as a cop.

Or a slightly different version of the original story as told:
You're a worker in a hospital. An unidentified patient dies on your ward. In his pocket are two tickets for a sold-out concert for two hours hence. You are seen doing this by another person who reports it to the administration. Now the administration has a simple question to ask: WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU STOLEN WHILE WORKING THERE?

Great points made above, but no one's shared my second reaction.

Death is a traumatic event. What if the pair of tickets were part of a larger group? Attending the concert would be a way to inform friends of the death of their friend. Rather than have friends wonder what happened to their friend, they could hear about their friend's death from a compassionate hospital worker.

This is essentially the same question as to whether it is okay to run a red light at two in the morning at a deserted intersection. Victimless crime -- except for two things.

1. Nobody has infallible judgment.

2. Habits you pick up when nobody is around have an unpleasant way of manifesting themselves later when others ARE around.

In case (1), sooner or later your fallibility will create a victim, and no amount of past success at victimless crime will undo the damage; worse, you may increase your retribution by inadvertenly revealing your past history in the matter. In case (2), you will either create a victim, or plainly demonstrate your disregard for the ethics and/or law in front of someone who is in the position to deal retribution.

Strong ethical principles, broken only when an extreme dillemma forces your hand, will generally preserve you from these. If not, then he who lives by the sword will die by the sword, etc.

Death is a traumatic event. What if the pair of tickets were part of a larger group? Attending the concert would be a way to inform friends of the death of their friend. Rather than have friends wonder what happened to their friend, they could hear about their friend's death from a compassionate hospital worker.

Good gravy, I know I'm something of a lightweight but that last half-glass of cabernet in the fridge shouldn't have hit me like this.

*blink*

*blink*

Oh wait, you're serious?! You don't think you'll be immediately disbelieved as a sick prankster, and then add pain to their experience when they discover that you are, in fact, a thief and a very creepy cad who has weirded them out, desecrated the memory of their friend, AND ruined the concert experience in one wackadoodle hat trick?

Turn the tickets over to the police, who may be able to track down the immediate family and then commence notification in a more traditional and sensitive way.

Thorley and Dan, Thank you for your insightful responses. Acting on your instruction, I shall go forth and report all rulebreakers that I come accross in my travels. Even if their original infraction is minor and my jeopardy is great.

Don't be a schmuck. The scenario you painted didn't involve a "minor" infraction -- it involved blackmailing me with the threat of losing my job. That's a major felony and an even worse personal affront.

If your response to that sort of thing is to meekly accept the stolen property, well, congrats on being a gigantic pussy. As someone who is apparently both smarter and more honest than you, however, I think I'll just go ahead and rat out the criminal to the police, thereby keeping both my job and my self-respect.

A dying man comes up to you on the street. He tells you he has no heirs, and tells you the location of a small fortune he has hidden. He tells you that you are welcome to the money, under one condition. He dies before he can tell you what he wants. The next day, you learn from the paper that he indeed has no heirs and no will.

Would taking that money be theft?

If the man had no heirs then the money has no owner, and therefore cannot be "stolen". Although I imagine the government would try to claim ownership, if you recognize that sort of thing.

The two concert tickets, on the other hand, almost certainly DO have an owner. You just don't know who it is yet because you haven't identified the body.

I'd take them, go to the concert, and if anyone asks, I went there to see if I could identify who the dead person was by asking those who sat next to those seats.

Truly, though, I think the main factor here is that the tickets go from something with worth to worthless in a time period that precludes their being worth anything UNLESS you take them immediately.

Let's alter this - say you are chewing gum and you find an empty gum wrapper in his pocket and you need to spit the gum out really fast. The empty gum wrapper is the corpse's heir's property - should you use the wrapper? Obviously, it is valueless. No one will miss it because it is valueless. Are you a theiving scum if you take it? Technically, according to the law, you are. But most people would not consider it theft.

Or if this were a comedy, you pick up the corpse and go to the concert with the corpse...

If the man had no heirs then the money has no owner, and therefore cannot be "stolen". Although I imagine the government would try to claim ownership, if you recognize that sort of thing.

Ok, so the dead person's interest in the property ceases with him and his expressed wishes, right?

The two concert tickets, on the other hand, almost certainly DO have an owner.

True, but they have no value. (And assigning them post-concert value merely serves to turn an interesting question into a profoundly uninteresting one).

If, instead, he was holding today's paper, and you took it instead of giving it to his eventual heirs, is it theft (even of the pettiest sort)?

Let's do another one:
Your neighbor goes away for vacation in the Spring, during which time apples fall from his tree. Every year, they rot, and he has even complained about having to clean them up when he gets back.

Would taking the apples be theft? Would it be wrong?

If someone died in my ward, I probably wouldn't be getting off work in time to make it to the concert.

Brad: these scenarios really aren't that hard to work out.

Concert tickets on the corpse: the tickets belong to someone, you just don't know who yet. You can't take them, even though they will have no value once they get into the hands of who they belong to.

Salvage on the sea: the property has been abandoned. You can claim it if you want it.

Stuff in your trash can: you've discarded it and thus abandoned it and thus someone else can come along and claim it. But not if they have to trespass on your property to do it, so they can go through your trash can on the curb but not if it's still in your back yard (or wherever you keep it).

The dead guy's hidden treasure: with no heirs and no will (and his dying testament to you doesn't count as a will because he never finished it) the property is ownerless. You can claim it if you want, ethically, although legally the state will probably try to claim it.

Your neighbor's apples: they belong to him, you can't take them. He may have complained about having to clean them up each year, but he hasn't told you you can have them. Sounds like an ideal opportunity for you to make him an offer, though. But you see, that's how commerce works: two people enter into an agreement recognizing mutual benefit. It doesn't work if one party just assumes that the other party wouldn't mind.

Got any more stumpers for us?

All of this, of course, is null and void if you don't think there is any ethical obligation to respect property. Lord knows there are precious few people who do these days, more's the pity.

This would get very interesting, though, if you compare the concert tickets, the intestate dead guy's treasure, and organ donation.

It's wrong to take the concert tickets, even though they're valuable to someone else right now and will be worthless to his heirs, because the guy presumably has heirs who became the owners of the tickets as soon as he kicked the bucket. It's okay to take the buried treasure because the guy has no heirs and no testament.

So what about the organs of somebody who dies intestate with no heirs? Are they fair game?

It depends on whether we can make any presumption about the deceased's wishes, testament or not. Is there any evidence that someone who dies intestate would have wanted their organs harvested? Is there any evidence that they would not? Perversely enough, I'd have to say that the relative ease with which someone can now indicate their intentions to donate (just sign the back of your driver's license!) is strong evidence that, if they have not done so, their desire is to not have their organs harvested.

As a petty legal point, the property of a decedant does not belong to "his heirs" or to "nobody," it belongs to his estate, which is a distinct legal entity. It gets handed out to his heirs/devisess/legatees/creditors from his estate by the executor or administrator under the supervision of a probate court. Without that court's authority, you don't own it, even if you're a legal heir and it should come to you anyway. In the case of the hidden treasure, if someone has absolutely no legal heirs (and such people are very rare), then the government will get it from the estate.

Same thing with salvage at sea: you don't own it until you've brought an action in admiralty court and given the original owner a chance to pay you a salvage fee.

And oral will, BTW, is usually only valid for soldiers and sailors who fall in battle, and for limited amounts of property. (The rule varies by state)

These legal points are entirely aside from the ethical point.

Your neighbor goes away for vacation in the Spring, during which time apples fall from his tree

I see that somebody here has never owned an apple tree.

There are two tickets; at the very least, you are stealing from someone else.

There's also the scenario, mentioned way up thread, of these being part of a group that you will now be seated with and have to explain yourself to.

And finally, some good cliches wear ragged and thin when they're not used enough: "Character is what you do when no one's looking."

As a petty legal point, the property of a decedant does not belong to "his heirs" or to "nobody," it belongs to his estate, which is a distinct legal entity.

True. The "dead man's treasure" thing was supposed to tease out the moral concept of stealing from the legal one. Clearly, taking the treasure ("It doesn't belong to you!") is theft in a legal sense.

I was curious whether the quality of property hinged on the existence and desires of the original owner or not. Most people that responded seem to think that taking something from the dead is not theft unless there is a third interested party that you are also depriving.

With the apples/trash, I was wondering whether depriving someone of a thing of value is required for theft. For Eddie, apparently not. Stealing the apples, the tickets, or a newspaper can't be condoned just by noticing that they are otherwise worthless -- the aspect of being property gives them value.

Personally, I have trouble seeing the "theft" in such situations. I can't get away from the idea that some harm needs to occur for their to be an offense, so I don't really see the moral wrong on that level.

I'm still curious what other people thought. Would they really think less of an "apple-stealing" neighbor?

I see that somebody here has never owned an apple tree.

Got me :-)

You don't take them for yourself. That was easy.

The harder question is what to actually do otherwise. I think it entirely appropriate if you were to sell the tickets and give all the revenue to the man's next of kin, being sure not to take a gratuity in return. However, I would not criticize someone who chose to do nothing whatsoever.

Brad,

I have no special insight into ethics, which is why I haven't weighed in on that question. But I do know some law...

Legally, theft does not require that you take something of value, which is subjective in any case. I have a perfect right to prevent you from taking my moldy old pizza crusts and 5-year-old phone books if I like. They're mine. You can't have them. The trash-on-curb example is one of abandonment, not one of valulessness.

You can take abandoned property freely. If the apples are considered abandoned, then take them; that isn't an unreasonable take on them given that they're just being left on the ground to rot (keep in mind you'll have to trespass to get them, of course).

Also, leaving them on the ground promotes the breeding of noxious insects such as coddling moths, which could potentially make them a common-law nuisance if you and others in the neighborhood also own apple trees. That doesn't justify self-help, but it's a wee bit of leverage if the guy decides to sue you.

The wishes of an owner can matter to the state of property, but need not. Again, abandonment (which hinges on the intent by the original owner to abandon) makes property fair game. But if a person shows no intent to abandon, then after his death the only "wishes" which matter legally are those expressed in a proper will, not what you think he wanted or what he said right before death.

If the state came after you in the treasure case, your best bet is to argue that he made an inter vivos gift, that is, that he gave it to you right before he died, so it didn't pass into his estate. Frankly that's a loser on your facts; it seems more like he attempted to enter into a contract but failed to. Also, a gift requires delivery; a symbolic act (like giving a treasure map) is adequate, but you didn't give one. But hey, making a losing argument is no worse than just giving up.

As I said, no ethicist I. Just a lawyer.

"So, while I would not take the tickets, I would take your organs. Hmmm... I guess you could ask where my ethics are. ;)" - Reagan Fan

I agree (first time ever, probably). Though I should stress, I think it should be policy that organs be harvested, not that individuals should go on organ raids for the greater good.

I, personally, would not benefit from harvesting the organs, however, I would benefit from stealing the concert tickets.

There are any number of ways that taking the tickets could cause a harm. Receiving a benefit that I do not deserve while possibly inflicting harm on others is wrong.

You can try to frame the hypothetical any number of ways, eliminating one by one the conceivable harms that could result from stealing the tickets, but you can't eliminate the unknown possible harm. At some point, you are reduced to, "Would you take the tickets if you had divine certitude that no harm could result?" At that point, you might as well ask, "Would you do something immoral if it were not immoral?" It is just nonsense.

The question of when your own moral judgement should supercede societal norms is an interesting one. Personal gain is not a justification I feel comfortable with, since I don't like the idea of others using it.

Ok, so the dead person's interest in the property ceases with him and his expressed wishes, right?

Well, the chain of events you described was this:

(1): Man tells you where the money is.
(2): Man says you can have it, if you agree to a condition
(3): Man dies without specifying the condition.

Since I was told the location of the money -- now ownerless -- without ever agreeing to anything, I don't see what obligation I have to the dead guy. If I'd agreed to certain conditions in exchange for being told where the money was, then I'd be obligated.

"The two concert tickets, on the other hand, almost certainly DO have an owner."

True, but they have no value.

If they have no value then there's no reason for me to want them.

But of course they DO have value. Its just that it is likely that, by the time the guy's heirs find out they own the tickets, that value will probably be almost entirely gone. The tickets are still owned by them. Besides, how do I know that the new owners won't stroll into the hospital and ask for the tickets five seconds after I leave for the concert? What's my excuse in that case, exactly -- "oh, I figured you wouldn't show up in time so I went ahead and stole them"?

And might I add that it is REALLY ghoulish and creepy to attend a concert using tickets you got off a dead body two hours earlier? That's, like, bad movie serial killer behavior.

Your neighbor goes away for vacation in the Spring, during which time apples fall from his tree. Every year, they rot, and he has even complained about having to clean them up when he gets back. Would taking the apples be theft? Would it be wrong?

If your neighbor wanted you to take the apples, he'd tell you to take the apples. Besides, even if it isn't theft, it IS trespassing to go and muck around in his yard while he's away. You wouldn't do it while he was home, after all.

Since I was told the location of the money -- now ownerless...

No. Not ownerless. Owned by his estate.

Look, suppose he tells you the conditions and then dies. Can you just take the money without fulfilling the conditions, since he's dead and it's now "ownerless"? No--you formed a contract with him (I'm neglecting the complexities of actuallly forminga contract here). Complete your half and you become a creditor for the amount agreed to, and he is bound to pay you. Since he's dead, you take your debt and present it to his executor, who is bound by law to pay the debts of the estate.

No conditions, no contract, no debt, no right to anything from his estate. Money is not yours.

Your neighbor goes away for vacation in the Spring, during which time apples fall from his tree. Every year, they rot, and he has even complained about having to clean them up when he gets back. Would taking the apples be theft? Would it be wrong?

You must have an odd relationship with your neighbors if you can conceive of this type of situation, yet one or both of you does not immediately propose a mutually beneficial solution. Has he caught you raiding his yard before during his at-home season, or what?

But of course they DO have value. Its just that it is likely that, by the time the guy's heirs find out they own the tickets, that value will probably be almost entirely gone.

Well, I'll admit from the outset that I am going with the spirit of the premise. I'd rewrite the assumption as:

By the time the guy's heirs find out they own the tickets, that value will be gone.

No qualifiers, no maybes, no last minute relatives that want to express their grief through concert attendance. Just a premise that the tickets are worthless to the heirs; their only value is in your possible use of them.

The direct question that this poses is: is theft without harm wrong? Hence the apple or soon-to-be-outdated newspaper analogies. Changing the assumption, to add some external material value to the tickets, really makes this a boring question. Taking a thousand bucks out of his pocket that the family will value is uncontroversially wrong.

Njorl says:
At that point, you might as well ask, "Would you do something immoral if it were not immoral?" It is just nonsense.

I dunno, something about the question intrigues me. Is theft without harm immoral? Is that really so nonsensical?

Since I was told the location of the money -- now ownerless...

No. Not ownerless. Owned by his estate.

You're talking about the law; I'm talking about ethics. The two have nothing to do with each other.

Ethically, the money is unowned. I don't give a rat's ass about the legality except from a personal cost/benefit analysis perspective.

Look, suppose he tells you the conditions and then dies. Can you just take the money without fulfilling the conditions, since he's dead and it's now "ownerless"?

Yes, unless I agreed to the conditions. Otherwise there's no social contract to honor.

No--you formed a contract with him

No, I didn't. The problem here is that the guy is giving me knowledge and THEN specifying what I owe him for it. I've no moral or ethical obligation to meet his price. If I came up to you and said "there is a sunken treasure ship at X'Y"Z.zzz x A'B"C.ccc -- I'll sell you that location for $10,000", I have NO obligation to pay you. You were stupid enough to give me information without negotiating the price first, and I am entirely within my rights to make use of that information without doing a damned thing you say.

If you did it the other way around -- told me you'd give me the information if I agreed to your conditions -- THEN I would have to enter into a contract with you to get the knowledge. But that obviously doesn't apply here, because the guy in the hypothetical case DIES before even saying what the contract IS. It is glaringly obvious that I can't possibly be bound by a contract if I never (a) heard what the contract specifies or (b) agreed to it!

By the time the guy's heirs find out they own the tickets, that value will be gone.

But you're not omniscient, so you don't know that. You don't know that the heirs won't find out about the tickets until it is too late and you don't know that the heirs will consider the unredeemed tickets "worthless". You're just *guessing* that the tickets' owners will lose nothing from your theft.

Megan's original scenario did not presume omniscience on the part of the would-be thief. If you want to ask what would happen in the case where you know with absolute certainty, without actually asking them, that the heirs will lose nothing from your theft, the only answer I can give is this: who cares? That has never happened, will never happen, and indeed CAN never actually happen in real life. There is no point in worrying about the ethics of situations that can never really happen.

On down the rabbit hole.

But you're not omniscient, so you don't know that. You don't know that the heirs won't find out about the tickets until it is too late... the only answer I can give is this: who cares? That has never happened, will never happen, and indeed CAN never actually happen in real life.

Ok, so the only way this action can be ok is if you know omnisciently that the outcome won't harm someone. Near certainty or absence of malice aren't enough.

Do you drive to work? Many people do, and not a single one of them knows whether this might be a day that they, through misjudgement, might cause a fatal car wreck through accident or lapse of judgement. It probably isn't, of course. But not one of them *knows* that. And, in aggregate, these accidents do happen -- they are a known byproduct of road travel.

Is it wrong to do something that probably won't, but might, harm others for your own convenience or benefit?

I think omniscience is too high a bar to set -- reasonable expectations (such as in this case) are perfectly fine for us to base decisions on. If the fact that we might make a mistake in judgement prevented us from doing anything that caused harm, we'd never do anything.

I also think it's pretty clear that the question, while not supposing omniscience, does suppose a good enough ability to assess that the situation at hand, and posits an extremely low probability of the tickets being used, so low that they can be taken as an assumption.

(I mean, really, would your response change if it was 10 minutes instead of two hours? How fine do we need to slice this before the spirit of the question can be accepted?)

There is no point in worrying about the ethics of situations that can never really happen.

These are thought experiments. They are impractical, but designed to get at some underlying principle. If something needs to be likely to form an opinion on it, isn't that a form of moral relativism?

It's not really a hypothetical situation. Been following the World Series ticket scandal in St. Louis? Scalping is illegal, and the STLPD has UC officers that arrest scalpers and confiscate tickets. Since tickets these days have bar codes that are scanned instead of having the stub torn off, the cops gave the tickets to friends and family to go to the game, then retrieved the tickets to be entered into evidence. No harm, no foul, right? Wrong. http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/7E0E282B909D12E0862572C00017765C?OpenDocument&highlight=2%2C%22World%22+AND+%22Series%22+AND+%22Tickets%22

Ok, so the only way this action can be ok is if you know omnisciently that the outcome won't harm someone

I didn't say that the action would be ok if you knew omnisciently that it wouldn't cause harm. I said that I don't care to discuss that possibility because it can't actually occur. You are trying to excuse your theft by saying "nobody got hurt". I'm simply observing that saying "nobody got hurt" is a crock of shit, because you can't possibly have known that when you robbed them.

Many people do, and not a single one of them knows whether this might be a day that they, through misjudgement, might cause a fatal car wreck through accident or lapse of judgement

If you don't see the difference between assuming that the responsible exercise of your rights won't hurt anybody and assuming that violating someone else's rights won't hurt anybody, I am certainly not going to waste my time explaining it to you. It is the same as the difference between consensual sex and "I could tell she wanted it" rape. Both *might* cause harm. One is evil and the other isn't. Figure it out.

No.

Violates the NOK and (dead)individual's personal sphere of action as described by Philip Wylie. I buy into this idea of personal and public spheres of action/influence, and the laws in this case are written correctly.

Dan, ownership is a legal concept. In the vernacular of the commenters here, the treasure "belongs" to the government (which would get it from the estate in the absence of heirs), and taking it is stealing from the government just as surely as taking the tickets is stealing from the a dead man's children. OK, so the government may (or may not) know where the treasure is to claim it. But the heirs may or may not know the tickets exist.

You are harming someone: the general treasury, the bulk of which comes from taxes on your fellow citizens. I can't see how you square that with your refusal to take the tickets unless you want to argue that the harm is simply so diffuse so as to not matter.

You can't defend your action by saying it's what the dead guy wanted, because you know full well it isn't what he wanted. He had conditions that you didn't meet.

The problem here is that the guy is giving me knowledge

OK, here's the crux of the problem. He isn't giving you knowledge. He's offering to give you property if you meet his condition. If I tell you where my house is and then say "You can take the car out of my driveway if you give me $10,000," that doesn't mean you can just go take my car because I foolishly "gave you knowledge" before getting the full price for it.

If you had happened to stumble on his hidden treasure while he was alive, you couldn't just take it on the grounds that, by virtue of being hidden, it was ownerless. Nor, if he had heirs, could you just take it from them after his death. His heirlessness doesn't change that, it just means the government is the "heir" instead of his family.

Perhaps the information really is the issue: the government doesn't know where the treasure is, so your taking it doesn't "harm" it. In that case, cheating on your income taxes is also ethically acceptable. After all, if the government doesn't know you owe taxes, you can just keep the money without hurting anyone, right?

No, thanks. I don't need the karma.

No, that is stealing. Stealing from the dead no less. Yuck.

Sell them on StubHub and not give the money to heirs.

I'm going to throw out a complication to the hidden small fortune scenario: what if the location he gave you was empty, so you searched for a few weeks and found it on a nearby island or a mile away from where he said it would be; you also are pretty sure from the circumstances that, in truth, he'd forgotten the exact location of where he'd hidden his treasure. Could you report it to the government as a Lost & Found or something similar? Is it, in this situation, abandoned?

Legally speaking, if he forgot where he put his treasure but didn't intend to abandon it, it is "mislaid" and remains his property, or that of his estate.

If you don't see the difference between assuming that the responsible exercise of your rights won't hurt anybody and assuming that violating someone else's rights won't hurt anybody, I am certainly not going to waste my time explaining it to you.

So, let's follow this to the next (and last) logical step: it is immoral for a hospital worker to throw out every gum wrapper, day old newspaper, and half-eaten apple that belonged to someone.

Who knows when the heirs might show up, and the harm it could possibly unintentionally have caused to deprive them of some bit of property, no matter how worthless. Right? I mean, there is no way to omnisciently know that these things have no value. They might be sentimental, after all. Or the newspaper might have collectors value in 50 years. Or they might want to have known what the guy was reading when he died.

Does that sum it up?

I said that I don't care to discuss that possibility because it can't actually occur.

Ah, heck. I'll go one further, and say that such a situation can occur. Perhaps you know that it is the hospital's policy not to release personal effects for two hours, for reasons of processing and ensuring identification.

Further, rather than taking the tickets themselves, you simply copy them, and use the barcodes for access. The actual paper ticket is given to the family, but not until after the concert is over.

Still stealing?

(I don't think these are terribly far-fetched. Print-by-email and other forms of ticketing are becoming increasingly common, and I can certainly imagine a hospital having a brief "holding time" on personal belongings before they are released to next of kin.)

"No market value" is not at all the same as valueless. Pictures of my grandchildren are pretty valuable to me, but not to you. Rotting garbage left by the decedent in a nursing home room is valueless, but in a compost heap it's future fertilizer.

All of which means, if it's not your own property, keep your cotton-pickin hands off of it! (With some necessary exceptions for public nuisances and items left on others' property.)

Dan, ownership is a legal concept.

The concept of ownership predates human sentience itself, let alone human law. So the notion that any discussion of ownership must yield to the law is obviously ridiculous.

In the vernacular of the commenters here, the treasure "belongs" to the government

I already addressed the fact that the government would try to claim ownership, and that it was up to the individual whether they felt like yielding to that claim or not. You're not saying anything new here.

You are harming someone: the general treasury, the bulk of which comes from taxes on your fellow citizens.

Only in the sense that I am harming a thief when I refuse to hand over my wallet. Denying the general treasury money to which it has no ethical claim is not harm, or in any case not harm which it is morally wrong to inflict.

So, let's follow this to the next (and last) logical step: it is immoral for a hospital worker to throw out every gum wrapper, day old newspaper, and half-eaten apple that belonged to someone

Since that is, in fact, not the next logical step and you haven't bothered to explain the "logic" you used to get to it, I'm afraid I don't see the point in responding.

Perhaps you know that it is the hospital's policy not to release personal effects for two hours, for reasons of processing and ensuring identification. Further, rather than taking the tickets themselves, you simply copy them, and use the barcodes for access.

... and once again you use your magical future-predicting powers to determine that the hospital is not only 100% guaranteed to stick to its policy here -- even though the owner will likely explain that the tickets are about to become worthless -- but will go even further than that, and refuse to even let the owner photocopy the barcodes the way it is letting you do. Oh, and that the owners are guaranteed to not be able to turn in the unredeemed tickets for a refund after explaining that the original purchaser died just before the concert, because ticket-sellers are always total dicks and never make an exception for extraordinary circumstances. And that the *hospital* won't suffer serious financial harm once it comes to light that its employees rob the dead. And so on, and so on. You know all this, because your assumptions about what harms people are always right.

Dan,

You are opposed to taking the concert tickets, as I understand it, because they belong to the heirs, if any. Am I right about that?

Yet you keep saying, over and over, that the hidden treasure is "ethically owernless." You have not once offered any explanation of why the tickets have an owner but the hidden treasure somehow does not.

So, which of the following principles makes the hidden treasure yours, ethically?

1) Property not in one's immediate possession belongs to whomever knows its location (so you can take my car without paying me if you know where it is).

2) Property which is "hidden" is ownerless by virtue of being hidden until someone comes and takes it (nobody owns it, so you could just as well have claimed it if the man had been rushed to the hospital and lived or if you had stumbled upon it by accident).

3) Property which is "hidden" belongs to the owner until his death, at which time it becomes ownerless (So even if the dead man had identifiable heirs and they knew where the treasure was, you could still take it for yourself)

4) It is wrong to deprive identifiable heirs of property the law gives to them, but not wrong do the same to the government (So that you could simply take the heirless dead man's wallet [or concert tickets] and walk away, even if he had never told you that you could have it).

Which of these rules do you adopt to distinguish the tickets from the treasure? Or is there another possible rule which I have missed?

And what about the gold fillings he's gonna be buried with?

Not going to his heirs and he's not using them, either!

Ew

You are opposed to taking the concert tickets, as I understand it, because they belong to the heirs, if any. Am I right about that?

Yes.

You have not once offered any explanation of why the tickets have an owner but the hidden treasure somehow does not.

Yes, I have, but I'll re-explain below.

Which of these rules do you adopt to distinguish the tickets from the treasure? Or is there another possible rule which I have missed?

Yes, you missed the answer I thought was obvious, and which I have in any case already stated:

5) Ownership ends upon death unless an heir or heirs exist, in which case ownership transfers to them (an heir being, by definition, the person whom the current owner has consented to transfer ownership to upon his death).

The man in the "Hidden Treasure" scenario has no heirs, ergo the treasure becomes unowned upon his death.

I'd also like to address #4:

It is wrong to deprive identifiable heirs of property the law gives to them, but not wrong do the same to the government

It is wrong to deprive heirs of property because an "heir" is, by definition, the person who has been given the property by its previous owner.

The government's only claim on the property is that they have a whole lot of guns and the power to seize the property by force. That's a solid claim from a practical standpoint, but an empty one ethically and morally. The government is being "deprived" of the money the way the school bully is "deprived" of a weaker kid's lunch money when that kid hides it in his sock.

an heir being, by definition, the person whom the current owner has consented to transfer ownership to upon his death

Aha! This was the definition which has been missing all along.

So if a man dies suddenly, with no will and without ever having expressed any wishes as to the disposition of his property (he wasn't expecting to di, after all), his wife/children/parents/extended family have no (ethical) claim to it at all? Anyone who happens to be present at his death can take his wallet and car keys, and if they can get to his house quickly, before his family gets home from whatever they're doing, he can kick them out and keep all of his stuff?

(There is some issue as to whether the man "owns" the house and contents free and clear of any claim by his wife, but suppose for a moment that he bought all of it before ever meeting her and that he has always been the sole breadwinner. Or suppose he's a single man and you beat his parents and siblings to the house).

That certainly is one possible ethical rule. Not, however, one I would choose to adopt.

Since that is, in fact, not the next logical step and you haven't bothered to explain the "logic" you used to get to it, I'm afraid I don't see the point in responding.

Hm. I thought I had explained the logic behind this. It is impossible to know which of a person's property is "worthless", ALL property of the deceased must be passed on. As you point out, our knowledge will always be, by definition, imperfect.

So, perhaps the man wrote a safe combination on the gum wrapper. Or, perhaps the heirs would like to plant apple seeds. Without omniscience, we can't say for sure what value *any* bit of the man's property might hold. By the sole virtue of it being property, it must be respected regardless of percieved value, because we lack certainty.

Hence, it is the ethically wrong to use or dispose of ANY of this man's property, gum wrappers, day old newspapers, and half-eaten apples included.

.. and once again you use your magical future-predicting powers to determine that the hospital is not only 100% guaranteed to stick to its policy here...

Fair enough. But requiring infallible knowledge only strengthens the above case.

The government's only claim on the property is that they have a whole lot of guns and the power to seize the property by force.

Do you believe taxation is theft?

perhaps the heirs would like to plant apple seeds

Somebody should tell them that apples grow poorly on their own roots, so they should consider rootstocks from a serious nursury for grafting.

Indeed, it would be unethical not to tell them.

Somebody should tell them that apples grow poorly on their own roots, so they should consider rootstocks from a serious nursury for grafting.

Indeed, it would be unethical not to tell them.

My lack of apple knowledge continues to be my Achilles' heel :-)

The government's only claim on the property is that they have a whole lot of guns and the power to seize the property by force.

The government also uses those guns to maintain the existance of private property.

Another function the government provides in this circumstance is that it dissuades mobs from loitering in hospitals looking to swipe dead people's concert tickets. If it's ok for you, then it is ok for anyone. If it is ok for anyone, then it is ok for everyone. By what authority then do you deny people the right to lurk in hospitals waiting to snatch up the concert tickets?

"As you point out, our knowledge will always be, by definition, imperfect...

...Hence, it is the ethically wrong to use or dispose of ANY of this man's property, gum wrappers, day old newspapers, and half-eaten apples included."

There is a difference between "take" and "dispose". The hospital undoubtedly has a policy of getting rid of trash, therefore it will dispose of items considered trash. Paradoxically, anything worth taking is not trash, and may not be taken. If you want it, you can't have it. If you don't want it, help yourself.

You may ethically throw the tickets in the trash, because you think they are valueless. You may be wrong, but being wrong is not unethical.

A next question might concern picking the tickets out of the trash after a coworker tosses them in there. Perhaps you are a nurse who sees the tickets, and leaves them with the deceased. An orderly then prepares the body to go to the morgue and tosses the tickets in the trash. Can you keep those tickets? Suppose it is not an orderly who tosses them, but instead is someone in authority at the hospital who sets policy, can you take them then?

I can't believe comments keep coming up with the 'no heirs' argument. His estate is the heir.

As an attorney already pointed out the estate is a legal person. It has the legal rights of a living person. And it exists even if no living heirs are ever located. People are free to dislike that just as they are free to dislike the weather. It still is.

Ethics is a separate question. But the law is clear - taking stuff is theft.

As far as the buried treasure. The question is whether the treasure was owned by the dead man. If he merely knew of it then he did not own it, just as I do not own the money I see in a bank.

If he owned it, the treasure goes to the estate. Otherwise the law decides who owns it. Sometimes that is the finder, sometimes the landowner, sometimes whoever can prove they lost it, and sometimes it defaults to the state.

Oh, don't argue the dead man promised you the tickets or treasure. Promises usually don't count. And even when they do count the estate must deliver them, you can't just take.

There is a difference between "take" and "dispose". The hospital undoubtedly has a policy of getting rid of trash, therefore it will dispose of items considered trash. Paradoxically, anything worth taking is not trash, and may not be taken. If you want it, you can't have it. If you don't want it, help yourself.

You may ethically throw the tickets in the trash, because you think they are valueless. You may be wrong, but being wrong is not unethical.

Well, this really gets at the heart of my contention. I thought that, if you perceived the tickets to be valueless to the heir/owner, then taking them wouldn't be morally wrong. (And clearly, that is the supposition that is implied in the scenario). When I asked about this, the answer I got was that you can't trust your perception, and that value may still exist.

This seems true regardless of whether or not you want the ticket. Under this construction, if you take a used gum wrapper, put the gum you are chewing in it, and then threw it out, you'd have done something immoral, because you took some value away from it.

In terms of property, taking or disposing seems pretty much the same to me, as long as you are going by an honest perception of value. You are simply adding another assumption here - that because you want something, you can safely assume that someone else does, and therefore it has value to them as well as to you.

That's probably a good behavioral guideline, but it doesn't strike me as necessarily true. Nor does it seem unreasonable to think that the hospital worker (or apple gatherer, etc) believed it to be worthless to the heir.

So, either way you are taking someone else's property, and making a decision about what to do with it based on its perceived lack of worth. An error in judgement? Sure, perhaps. But I'm still not convinced it is an immoral act. Intent matters.

Or, put more simply, my original question was whether theft without harm was immoral.

Destroying someone else's property, though, isn't theft. It's commonly called vandalism.

So, is vandalism without harm morally acceptable in a way that theft without harm is not?

So, is vandalism without harm morally acceptable in a way that theft without harm is not?

--There is no such thing as vandalism without harm. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it crash to the ground it does make a sound. If you go deep into that forest and carve your initials on the dead fallen tree, you have still committed an act of vandalism. The degree of moral offense is so infinitessimally small that it may not be measureable, and certainly not important. Those who claim that a minor immorral act is just as venal as a major immoral act, argue with bad logic. For an awful example, This morning I thoughtlessly killed an innocent gnat that was lazily crawling on my kitchen slider glass door. The moral thing for me to do (assuming that I was not willing to allow the gnat's unknowing tresspass to continue unabated) would have been to carry the poor creature a couple of steps to the patio and release it to the outside air. Am I on a moral level with a murderer of humans? Of course not. Dan, you may disagree with me only if you stipulate that you have the mind of a gnat. If you do, I will apologize profusely and turn myself in. The matter of degree is crucially important. The answer to the crux of the original question is that the ticket theft is a petty theft. Petty, as in, no big deal, small potatoes, much ado about {almost} nothing. Moral relativism allows that morality and immorallity lie on a contiuum, from Gods holy mercy to the most vile depradations and monstrous crimes of evildoers. My above insult to Dan is unmerciful. But because I can flex my morality enough to allow me to accomodate my sense of humour at Dan's expense (and the poor late gnat, may it rest in peace) I can enjoy my own bad act without feeling guilt.

Now a question. If there is no guilt felt by the perpatrator, is the act immoral?

Aha! This was the definition which has been missing all along

heir /ɛər/ –noun
1. a person who inherits or has a right of inheritance in the property of another following the latter's death.

So by "the missing definition" you apparently meant "the definition listed as entry #1 in the dictionary"? Pretty sneaky of me to use the actual definition of a word like that, I admit...

So if a man dies suddenly, with no will and without ever having expressed any wishes as to the disposition of his property (he wasn't expecting to die, after all), his wife/children/parents/extended family have no (ethical) claim to it at all?

If a man dies without having told us who his heir is then obviously we need to figure out if he did, in fact, have an intended heir. But the man in this case explicitly said he did NOT have an heir. Obviously there's a big difference between being not saying who your heir is and saying you have no heir.

The government also uses those guns to maintain the existance of private property.

No, the government uses those guns to protect the property rights of the people who own the private property. The government no more causes the existence of private property than it causes the existence of a right to free speech.

This is a valid role for government, but it does not confer upon the government the authority to dictate what rights people possess or violate the rights possessed by the people -- just as the role of police in preventing rape does not confer upon policemen the authority to have sex with anyone they choose.

But the man in this case explicitly said he did NOT have an heir.

True. But perhaps he was wrong, b/c he was hallucinating. Or desperate and lying. Or simply mistaken - perhaps there are debts he has forgotten that would become leins on his estate that he doesn't know about. He is dying, after all, so that might not be on his mind.

And the newspaper... well, newspapers are always right, as we know. No chance of error there.

That perfect knowledge requirement can be a pretty big hurdle.

To step into the Rob territory:

heir /ɛər/ –noun
1. a person who inherits or has a right of inheritance in the property of another following the latter's death.

So by "the missing definition" you apparently meant "the definition listed as entry #1 in the dictionary"?

Previously:
(an heir being, by definition, the person whom the current owner has consented to transfer ownership to upon his death)

These look like two very different definitions to me. The latter requires the owner's consent. The former is agnostic on the matter, just stating one who inherits or has right to inherit. There is no further delineation of what defines that right of inheritance.

Dan,

Brad is right; your definition included the wishes of the decedent. That's important because the government would have the "right to inherit" the heirless man's property.

Meanwhile, you're fighting the hypo with your verification argument (everyone but Brad seems to be doing that around here). Suppose you find a man dying on the street. You ask him if he has last words for his wife and kids. He says, "I'm single, but tell my brothers and sisters I love them." Then you ask, "Who should get your property after your death?" He says "I never thought about that, I don't know, give me a second..." Then he dies.

You take his car keys, his wallet, and drive to his condo and assume ownership of it and everything in it. No ethical problem, right?

your definition included the wishes of the decedent.

It required consent. As it is impossible to acquire rights to owned property without the consent of the prior owner there is no difference between having the right to inherit something and having the owner consensually make you an heir.

That's important because the government would have the "right to inherit" the heirless man's property

The law says that, yes. As noted repeatedly before, this is an ethics discussion, not a discussion of the finer points of estate law. The law tells us nothing about what is ethical or moral to do, ergo the law has no relevance here (despite your obsession with mentioning it).

You take his car keys, his wallet, and drive to his condo and assume ownership of it and everything in it. No ethical problem, right?

I already stated in my previous post that failing to state an heir (your scenario) is an entirely different scenario from having no heirs (the scenario I was responding to). So there are only two possible reasons why you'd be asking "no ethical problem, right?": (a) you didn't bother reading what I wrote or (b) the difference between stating a negative and failing to state a positive is beyond your comprehension. In either case I certainly can't be bothered to explain the distinction for a second time.

Dan, I'm sure everyone is satisfied that you're much smarter than I am.

Now, try actually answering the question. Can you take the dead man's stuff or not?

If not, why not? Has he somehow given implied consent to someone else, despite saying clearly he's never even thought about it?

And if you can't take it for whatever reason, who can?

BTW Dan, I don't actually disagree that the government's ethical claim to the treasure is very weak, nor do I think that your definition of heir is necessarily wrong as an ethical matter.

But 1) your ethical claim to the treasure is equally weak, and your disobedience to the law, duly enacted by your elected representatives, weakens it further, and 2) your definition of heirs has some unpleasant and undesirable consequences, which you refuse to acknowledge.

How about his kidneys? Same thing, but with higher stakes.

Does the guy have an organ donor card in his pockets, or just concert tickets?

"The government no more causes the existence of private property than it causes the existence of a right to free speech."

The government does cause the existence of a right to free speech. You can pretend you'd have that right, or any right, without a government. Pretending is pleasant.

Rights are fiction. They are very good fiction. I am glad my culture has embraced those particular fictions. But they are fictions nonetheless.

In truth, what we call rights are just agreements.

The government does cause the existence of a right to free speech. You can pretend you'd have that right, or any right, without a government. Pretending is pleasant.

So what the Nazis did to their citizens would be A-okay, as long as the majority of the population approved?

Where do you draw the line?

Njorl - let me take this one step further. If I said I had a right to private property, say, or freedom from assault that might require the government to actively defend that right. But the government doesn't defend my "Right to free speech." It just fails to interfere with it. Without a government, there would be no government to interfere with my speech.

The "right to bear arms" the right to "freedom of assembly" the right to "freedom of speech" are rights which limit the power of government.

"So what the Nazis did to their citizens would be A-okay, as long as the majority of the population approved?"

It never ceases to amaze me the way people on this blog are unsatisfied with the words I use and insist upon attributing ridiculous statements to me.

No, what the Nazis did was not "A-okay". How you could extract that sentiment from what I wrote is a mystery to me. The Nazis did what they did because they could. What governments do is not always proper.

"Without a government, there would be no government to interfere with my speech."

The problem with that is "without a government" is a meaningless phrase given the existence of two or more people.

I believe the moral thing to do involves going to the concert. Check to see if the 2 tickets are from a larger bank of tickets and if anyone can identify the deceased. If that doesn't work when, or if, the family shows up reimburse them. Don't do any of this sneaking about putting money in his pocket, that will just make you appear and feel guilty. This would only work if you are someone in a position responsible for the deceased like a doctor for anyone else this reasoning would be tenuous.

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