Saints or Sinners

[Harrowby Hall]

We all experience them - those moments when we "break the rule" but feel we have achieved something.

I go walking with a group of people every Sunday morning. We meet in a different place each week - often in a public car park.

Yesterday we assembled in the car par of a country park. There was a parking fee - £2.50 for the day, pay and display. Our walk lasted about three hours and we returned to our cars in order to set off to the pub where we had booked lunch. Several of us spent a few moments hanging around the car park ticket machines waiting for newcomers to whom we could give our parking tickets to save them the cost of parking.

Ethical problem (this forum is Religion and Ethics after all): overall, is it better to make someone happy because they do not have to pay for the privilege of being in the country park, or have we broken faith with the owners of the country park who provide and maintain park and its facilities?

[Steve H]

The recipients of the tickets will be happy, and the owners of the car park won't even know, so there is a net increase in happiness. Therefore, as a utilitarian, I say that it's ok.
Anyway, it's not necessarily even breaking the rules: you pay for the use of one space for a fixed time, so if you leave before your time is up, it's probably within the rules for someone else to use the rest of the time. It's still only one space for the fixed time that's being used. It depends on whether the ticket says "non-transferable".

[Bramble]

In your question is the suggestion that there may be a definitive answer and that by sufficient thinking we might navigate our way there, which is very much in the tradition of western ethical philosophy. But usually this search for certainty leads to agonising deliberation rather than any solid foundation for making ethical choices, and for the most part in daily life we somehow manage to do ethics in a practical way without overthinking things. Ethical rules so often have to be bent or broken because they don’t quite fit actual situations and we just have the feel of what’s right, as you did with your parking tickets. One can always reason one’s way to alternative conclusions because there are so many possible ways to tell stories about whatever it is that’s happening, but maybe ethics is better done another way, attending to bodily sensations of comfort or unease, rather than becoming embroiled in too much head stuff.

[Roses]

I have given my parking ticket to others, if there is still a lot of time left on it. I don't remember ever accepting one from another person, I prefer to pay for my ticket.

[Harrowby Hall]

A little more background - at the pub afterwards someone made a comment about our behaviour and it developed into a discussion, I thought that it was exactly the sort of discussion that this forum was made for ...

My views - for what they are worth - are very similar to those of Steve H.

[ProfessorDavey]

I think most of us would be happy to give our ticket to someone else as we leave, and also pleased to receive a free ticket.

I suspect in many cases these tickets are indicated somewhere as 'non transferable' but I don't think that would prevent many people giving their ticket to another person.

Now of course an increase number of ticket machines require you to put in you car registration number which makes transferability more tricky. Now I think this is somewhat dishonest unless the per hour charge is reduced (which I doubt it is). By providing an all day price and non transferability the car park authorities are effectively making more money than the car/hour price would suggest as one person may use a space for 3 hours in the morning and another 3 hours in the afternoon and they effectively pay for 2 spaces for the whole day.

[Roses]

When I went to the supermarket earlier, I was just about to pay for my goods when I realised I had left a pot of cheese and chive spread in the trolley, it was almost concealed by my bags. If I had left it there no one would have been any the wiser, but I took it out and paid for it, which was of course the right thing to do. What would other posters have done?

[jeremyp]

The recipients of the tickets will be happy, and the owners of the car park won't even know, so there is a net increase in happiness. Therefore, as a utilitarian, I say that it's ok.

Except that the country park is deprived of some revenue which might have helped improve happiness in other ways. What if they go bust next week and they were only short by £10 say? Plus you've also got to factor in the opportunity cost of HH having to hang around to transfer his ticket.

Anyway, it's not necessarily even breaking the rules: you pay for the use of one space for a fixed time, so if you leave before your time is up, it's probably within the rules for someone else to use the rest of the time. It's still only one space for the fixed time that's being used. It depends on whether the ticket says "non-transferable".

I tend to view it slightly differently. This was a ticket for "all day" so it's not a fixed period (within reason). Personally, I would not give my ticket to somebody else. However, if it's a supermarket carpark where I definitely have paid for a fixed period e.g. three hours, I think it's ethically fine to give my ticket to somebody else, even if it does say "non transferable" on it. I've effectively rented a space for that time, surely it's up to me which car I choose to park in it.

I know you could extend that argument to the country park example, but it doesn't seem quite as OK to me.

[jeremyp]

When I went to the supermarket earlier, I was just about to pay for my goods when I realised I had left a pot of cheese and chive spread in the trolley, it was almost concealed by my bags. If I had left it there no one would have been any the wiser, but I took it out and paid for it, which was of course the right thing to do. What would other posters have done?

I would have done exactly as you did. Shoplifting imposes a cost on everybody, effectively a tax on everything you buy. Furthermore, if everybody did it, there wouldn't be any shops.

[ProfessorDavey]

I tend to view it slightly differently. This was a ticket for "all day" so it's not a fixed period (within reason). Personally, I would not give my ticket to somebody else. However, if it's a supermarket carpark where I definitely have paid for a fixed period e.g. three hours, I think it's ethically fine to give my ticket to somebody else, even if it does say "non transferable" on it. I've effectively rented a space for that time, surely it's up to me which car I choose to park in it.

I see it differently.

An 'all day' ticket is just as much a fixed period as a one hour ticket - you have just as much rented a space for that time, just that the fixed period extends to the end of the day. So if I buy an all day ticket when I know I only need to stay for three hours presumably I am buying it because I cannot buy a ticket for a shorter period. I am in effect being made to buy 'more time' than I wish for. So in that case I would feel less ethically concerned about giving my ticket to someone else even if it says "non transferable" on it than if I am largely able to buy the amount of time I need.

Try it this way - imagine I am hungry and think eating an apple will solve it. I go into a shop and they will only sell them in a pack of six apples. They tell me I cannot give my 'spare' apples to anyone else. As I'd been forced to buy far more product than I need I'd feel little concern about giving away the other five, rather than require each of those people also to have to buy six apples. I think my justification for going against the 'non transferability' rule would be weaker if I can buy any number of apples, from one to six.

[Roses]

I would have done exactly as you did. Shoplifting imposes a cost on everybody, effectively a tax on everything you buy. Furthermore, if everybody did it, there wouldn't be any shops.

I totally agree with you.

[Steve H]

When I went to the supermarket earlier, I was just about to pay for my goods when I realised I had left a pot of cheese and chive spread in the trolley, it was almost concealed by my bags. If I had left it there no one would have been any the wiser, but I took it out and paid for it, which was of course the right thing to do. What would other posters have done?

Not boasted about my honesty on a forum.

[Roses]

Not boasted about my honesty on a forum.

Have you any honesty of which to boast?