I’ve been thinking a lot about ethics lately. No, not the book variety. No, I am not writing a paper on ethics. It’s ethics in real life. You know, something like: Is getting $450 per week worth a little lie or two? And you know what I realized: The temptation is damn, well, tempting! If I say x instead of y – I will get some money! It is as if the system rewards lying. And the only thing stopping me would be ethical qualms: I would have to lie to get the money. I also realized through all of this how easy it is to slip down the slide of unethical behavior. The “everybody does it” line keeps creeping up, too. And it seems foolish not to do it. Is this why all religions have postmortem rewards? Because honesty isn’t rewarded in real life but dishonesty often is rather lucrative? I am also having trouble figuring out why exactly it would be wrong to take the money – other than “lying is wrong.” It seems like I’d be foolish not to take it. Then again, Greece is – among other things – experiencing what happens when everybody thinks this way. There is no such thing as free money. It has to come from somewhere. If I take it someone else has to give it. But what is in it for me if I don’t take it? It seems like I’d be loosing $450 and feel a bit better because I didn’t lie. That seems foolish on some levels. It seems like letting the gravy train pass by just for the ethical high-road feeling. I’d never expected ethics to be this complicated!

If we fall back on the book ethics, the case is pretty clear. Kant would say don’t take the money because you don’t want to have a rule “it’s okay to lie if….” Bentham and Mill would say don’t take the money because if everybody would take the money, there wouldn’t be enough left for everybody. But that’s just it. The thing is: There would be. There is enough money in the economy – if we were to spread it out more evenly – to pay every adult a basic, bare bones minimum income. You know, like, $450 per week. And that’s where the ethics really collide: If the system itself is unethical, if the few profit on the backs of the many, is it unethical to take advantage of it? Or to put it differently: Can I really change a system by refusing to participate in it? Or am I just ending up hurting myself?

It would be nice if someone where just willing to write me a check once a week. No strings attached… Like a private redistribution of wealth… In the meantime, I haven’t decided yet what to do. I have realized, though, that ethical decisions are not as clear cut as the books make them out to be.

Update on May 20: After reading this post on liars, I decided to cancel my claim. My integrity is priceless. I can live without the $450/week. Sure it would be nice to get it (and I am still open to the private wealth redistribution idea ;-)! But I didn’t leave my corporate job just to start lying (again). I want to live with integrity! And saying x when I should be saying y is just not part of that kind of life! (Of course, right now I have the luxury of making that choice… But I’d venture to say that all the people who lie could survive without saying that lie.)