ECON 490 LA Prompt for Reflection #3
Hold up is an example of "opportunism" - taking advantage of circumstances. Sometimes people don't act opportunistically, even when they have the chance. We talked about being a "good citizen"
and that might be one reason. Another is that opportunistic behavior can be unethical. Still another is that people are patient and "good things come out to those who wait." Give an example of where you or somebody you know didn't act opportunistically though they had the chance. Then speculate as to why. Also consider whether these various explanations amount to the same thing, or if they are different.
One afternoon I drove to pick up 2 friends I hadn't seen in a while so we could go to lunch. We went to a nice restaurant nearby and had a good meal. Afterwards, we were walking towards my car in the parking lot when I noticed something shiny on the ground. It turns out the shiny object was a money clip with a wad of dollar bills -- $210 in total. I looked around for a person who looked like they had lost something, but no one was around. I went back inside the restaurant to ask if anyone inquired about any missing money, and no one had. Finally, I waited in front of the restaurant for around 10 minutes, perodically checking inside the restaurant and parking lot for slightly panicked people. When no one showed up, my friends and I left the restaurant. In the end, we split the money evenly between the 3 of us.
In such a case, I believe there were two cases of opportunism. One is when I initially found the money. I could have quickly taken advantage of the situation by leaving immediately, completely disregarding the person who had lost their money. However, I spent effort in locating them, in the process ignoring my friends' complaints of the chilly weather. Another case of opportunism would be in the car. I could have chosen to keep all the money myself, since I was the one who found it (finders keepers). But I chose to split it evenly because to me, I didn't feel worse off if I had 1/3 of the money as opposed to all of it. In other words, when splitting the money I felt it was a Pareto efficient outcome.
In evaluating my actions, I would say they were more "good citizen" in nature. As a "good citizen," I felt I had a responsibility to find who the money belonged to, so I looked and asked around earnestly. I believe those actions were part "good citizen" and part ethical. Ideally, I would have found the owner of the money. However, I'm not a "perfect citizen," so I did end up keeping the money. Whether I should have left the money with the restaurant staff did cross my mind, but I thought the consequence from that would be the staff would not even try to find the owner, but instead instantly keep the money for themselves.
All in all, I'm still a bit unsure whether such a situation would be counted as not acting opportunistically. Is there an amount of "good citizenship" or good ethics you must demonstrate before you're allowed to take advantage of the situation, if it can be called that? I would be interested in hearing some input on this.
There have been some econ experiments done on the type of situation you describe that ask whether taking microeconomics impacts how you would behave in that sort of situation. The finding is that students who have taken an econ course are apt to act more selfishly. But, if I recall correctly, they haven't separated out whether it is more selfish students who are prone to take econ or if it is the econ course that changes student behavior toward the selfish end.
ReplyDeleteIt's also interesting to consider the case where a wallet is found with identifying information in it and also a lot of cash. Is one apt to behave differently in that case?
I find this dilemma interesting, because you wonder whether or not you acted opportunistically. I thought the best way to decide would be to ask what it would look like if you were to act ethically. If you have no means of getting in touch with the owner, should you give the money to the restaurant hoping the person who lost the money clip would go back there to look for it and, if so, that it would be there intact for that person? You could also donate the money to charity in order to wash away the stigma of taking the money. However, I do not think that giving the money to charity would alter the ethics of taking the money and choosing to use it for your own purposes, whether it is in making a purchase or giving to a non-profit organization.
ReplyDeleteThus, the question remains of whether it is ethical to take the money. Your judgment in this situation was also based on your judgment of other’s behavior. You felt the restaurant employees may take the money. Thus, giving the money to the restaurant may not keep it safe if and until the person who lost the clip claims it. Assuming that this is what you believe, it is a kind of ethical worldview that you hold on others’ behaviors in a similar situation. This is often overlooked, but can be important in determining what the appropriate action should be.
As such, according to the way you framed the situation, either you give it to the employees to take or you give it to yourself. Being as you left yourself with two options, it would seem that, according to a cost-benefit analysis, it would be ethical that you give it to yourself. In this situation, the benefit is the addition of $210 to your friends and yourself. The cost is feeling grimy about taking the money and knowing it will not get back to the owner. The cost of giving the money to the restaurant is that you no longer have $210 and that you worry that the money will not actually return to the owner. The benefit is that you feel that it is up to fate and not you as to where the money ultimately ends up. In a sense, you wash your hands of it.
I think it would also be appropriate to analyze this situation using similar situations. For example, nobody has qualms about finding a $20 bill on the ground and taking it. It appears to belong to no one, although surely it ended up there accidentally at a loss to someone. The discomfort tends to lie in the fact that it is a large sum of money and it is in a clip, making ownership of the money very visible. Just as it would feel ethical to contact the owner if a wallet containing their contact information was found, it would also feel that way with the clip. The fact that this situation lies between other situations that have different behavior leads to an ethical dilemma that may not have a correct answer; it is gray.
One option you may not have thought of was that you could take the money to the police station and then let the restaurant know that that is where the clip is, in case the owner does look for it. You could also take the money and give the restaurant your phone number so that you could give back the money if the individual who lost the clip came to claim it, but you could keep it if it is not claimed.
That's a very interesting experience about opportunism. I think whether acting opportunistically or not can be connected to the witness. If there were no friends with you, what was your choice can reflect whether you are a opportunist in fact. Many people act quite different with or without being watched, and some economic experience were carried out to research it. Maybe there is also something else besides ethics. For example, someone act differently when watched by friends or strangers. Because no more contact with the strangers, people can do what they really want. However, future connection with friends need people to act as an honest one to be trusted.
ReplyDelete