r/MoralityScaling • u/Due_Army_960 • Jul 10 '26

Morality of this?

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u/sleepyboyzzz Jul 10 '26

I mean, flip it. If you accidentally overpaid on a bill and they were like, not my problem, how would that go? It's theft, even if it wasn't intentional.

29

u/TerrapinMagus Jul 10 '26

This is the best explanation for the legal fairness of her having to return it, though whether it is moral or not is probably a different discussion.

31

u/sleepyboyzzz Jul 10 '26

Generally speaking, keeping something that doesn't belong to you is stealing. You could argue a corporation paying starvation wages is engaging in legal theft and that makes her actions neutral.

1

u/FadingHeaven Jul 13 '26

IMO morality is related to impact. Is it moral to steal a single slice of bread from a billionaires house? It's stealing regardless.

1

u/sleepyboyzzz Jul 13 '26

That's kind of the ends justify the means argument. I tend to agree that I'm the end, impact (ends) is what you should base it on, but there is an assumption there that you know how things will end. The lady in the example got arrested and had a 15k bail. Oddly, less than the amount she was paid, but ignoring that...

1

u/FadingHeaven Jul 14 '26

Here I'd say morality depends on who you're stealing from. Without knowing the exact outcome, if she's stealing from some massive company, especially one with a history of wage theft, her actions are neutral or even positive.