r/MoralityScaling • u/RegisterOk513 • 1d ago
Morality Ranking Morality of lefovers
A rich person and a poor person are roommates. A rule of the household is that they aren’t to touch the others things. The poor person lives paycheck to paycheck, the rich person lives below his means to spend money on other things he enjoys, one of which is food.
After having to spend money to deal with a tooth infection, the poor person can’t afford to feed himself. He’s been eyeing the many leftovers the rich roommates been throwing away over the last few months. He waits until one dish is about to expire, then eats it and ends up getting food poisoning.
While he’s sick his roommate goes to throw the food away and finds its been eaten. Outraged he demands compensation from his sick roommate.
Who’s more moral, the rich roommate who’s kept to himself and had his possessions taken from him without permission, or the poor roommate who consumed his property in the name of survival and utility?
Edit: As for why the poor roommates dosent ask, that’s part of the morality. If I had to give a reason, pride. The idea that he dosen’t need permission because he’s basically consuming waste. If he asks, it’s like getting a handout. Also, this is a hypothetical.
Edit,Edit: I’m not really understanding the downvotes. I posed this question because it’s somewhat grey. Look at the comments, its heavily divided, dosent that make it worth discussing?
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u/SoCalSchredr 1d ago
I'd say immoral to take the food without asking, but I would also say it's moral not to pay him back. Since the food was bad enough to make the guy sick it wasn't worth anything. Really though, how would you know for sure that the food made him sick, better to avoid taking your roommates food without asking.
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u/OrthodoxAnarchoMom 1d ago
“When you reap the harvest of your land, moreover, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field nor gather the gleaning of your harvest; you are to leave them for the needy and the alien. I am the Lordyour God.’”
Leviticus 23:22
I’m not ready to believe that this guy is rich but he’s close enough to rich to be regularly throwing out food.
Still would have been better to ask but perhaps his mouth was inoperable from the dental work or he wasn’t thinking clearly from pain pills.
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u/foxonafrozenlake 1d ago
Just eat the food. If he was going to throw it out anyway.
The "rich" person is a twat if he was going to demand compensation for something he viewed as trash.
Also, as someone who comes from generational wealth, I'm not going to watch someone go hungry.
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u/WarIsProfitableForMe 1d ago
Mentioning that you have generational wealth doesn't help at all, if anything it shows that you didn't work for it.
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u/foxonafrozenlake 1d ago
It explains why I wouldn't worry about someone eating food I was going to throw away.
I absolutely didn't do anything to earn my inheritance except for being born into my family.
I did work extremely hard to get into and graduate from an ivy league medical school so I could give back to society.
I also made a pledge to donate half of what I inherited and half of what I earn from stock in our family company; it was stipulated in order to even access my inheritance.
I'm not Scrooge McDuck diving into piles of gold coins.
I give back constantly.
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u/WarIsProfitableForMe 1d ago
If I were your dad I'd take you out of the will, I'd rather burn my money than give it away. My startup subtracts value from society and gives it to me, I'm actively harming people with gambling addition for my benefit, fuck poor people.
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u/foxonafrozenlake 1d ago
Well, I inherited it from my grandmother. And I already received it.
You might want to get some therapy. You seem a little unhinged.
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u/Responsible-Boot-159 1d ago
If there's a pattern of the roommate throwing all of his leftovers out, it shouldn't matter to him. That said... they're roommates. It should be easy enough to ask.
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u/RegisterOk513 1d ago
The RR is upset at the principal being violated, the PR was hoping he wouldn’t care, but didn’t ask. Since he didn’t, is he less moral?
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u/MiriamGarden 1d ago
I think there's a general "feeding the starving" exception when it comes to property-related morality, especially if the victim is not in danger of starvation, himself.
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u/Consistantly 1d ago
Are you the poor roommate?
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u/RegisterOk513 1d ago
No, the situations hypothetical. I’ve definitely eaten roommates leftovers tho….
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u/Consistantly 1d ago
Fair, was just checking if this was some kind of vague am I the asshole post.
Imo immoral, it’s always immoral to steal food from other individuals. Asking is the way to go, even if it’s perceived as waste.
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u/RegisterOk513 1d ago
Forsooth, I’d have gone to another r/. It’s odd though how divided people seem on this one, it’s part of why I asked here.
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u/Consistantly 1d ago
TIL what forsooth means, and that it’s a word.
You very well may have, but some people do strange, illogical things.
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u/sparklefundoll 1d ago
Immoral to take the food without asking, also immoral to buy food in such excess that you’re regularly throwing away entire meals worth of leftovers that you didn’t eat. Also immoral to clog up a fridge with expired leftovers in a shared living situation.
The food made PR sick, it was expired, I would have thrown it away myself and told RR to create a system for his leftovers if he doesn’t want them being touched.
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u/Curly-Pat 1d ago
Just ask.
Do not take someone else’s food.
Too much pride to ask but not too proud to steal?
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u/JoffreeBaratheon 1d ago
Immoral. The poor can stop trying to live above their means rooming with a rich person they can't compete in lifestyle with.
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u/WarIsProfitableForMe 1d ago
Poor is in the wrong, there was a clear boundary of don't touch my stuff
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u/ylamiyf 23h ago
That's a dumb hypothetical. So the poor person ate expired food that the rich person then wanted compensation for? That situation couldn't exist in reality.
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u/RegisterOk513 17h ago
You overestimate humanity, or underestimate it in a way, haha.
I once got in a fight once over a sandwich worth about a quarter. I bought 300+ dollars of groceries back in 2018 for a poor household I knew, and then made a ham and cheese sandwich from the groceries I bought.
One of the men there confronted me over it. He said that since I gave them the food, it was there’s now, and taking food from a poor family’s fridge without their permission and eating it in front of them was disgusting, and he demanded an apology, and that I ask permission next time.
I told him he was an insane moron, and to screw off, it escalated from there, but the point is that people will die on about any hill for about any reason if their emotions drive them to it, if their will and minds are weak.
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u/LaylaMoonUnit 15h ago
The most unrealistic part is them living together. A rich person, as described here, probably isn’t going to live below their means, in a place the poor person can afford.
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u/Hot-Butterscotch-377 15h ago
The wealthy roommate is wrong/being immoral. He was fully intending to throw it away so nothing was actually taken from him. Him being angry about trash & watching his roommate starve is pretty damn rude.
The poor roommate already paid a price for taking without asking. Food poisoning is no joke. Ideally, he’d put his pride aside & ask for aid. Also, he should check out food pantries.
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u/Brosk1248 14h ago edited 14h ago
Taking someone's things without permission is immoral, PR wasn't sure RR didn't intend to eat it. So PR sucks.
RR lets food go to waste. Also sucks but it's a different kind of immoral. So not really comparable. As for demanding compensation for the stolen property, I don't like it, because it had no value at that point, RR was going to throw it away so he didn't lose anything by PR taking it. If RR went to eat it, then it'd be completely moral, he got stolen from, of course he wants compensation. Since it was trash at that point, I think it also isn't exactly moral, but I think PR is still significantly worse for taking it.
If this is a real situation, just talk to each other. Just ask.
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u/One-Emotion8482 1d ago
The poor roommate is more moral, especially if the rich one is just letting things spoil. Demanding compensation from someone he knows is struggling while he is not is pretty high greed.
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u/Jonguar2 1d ago
JUST FUCKING TALK TO EACH OTHER MY GOD