A customer walks into a shop. The customer walks around and picks up a few different items, and the proceeds to the cashier. The shop keeper has been thinking about ripping off this person by either charging more for the goods, or simply short changing the customer. For the sake of the argument let us suppose that the shop keeper would not be caught. He would get away with this. However, ultimately the shop keeper decides not to rip off the customer because he is afraid that if he were to be caught, than people would not come to his store because he would be known for ripping people off.


So, the question is: is the shop keeper moral? He ultimately did the right thing, but perhaps his motivation is wrong. But does motivation and actual act both needed for something to be moral, or is a moral act good within itself?

Question: why are we discussing this? Is this a new means to procrastinate? If so, I like! lol.

On topic: Personally.. I think what matters is doing the right thing. But to be truly good in my opinion, you'd have to have the right motivation along with the right act. But then again, really? How often does that happen? Especially for ethically charged scenarios. So do the right thing, and maybe the right reason will creep on you and you'll internalize it one day after doing the right thing tons of times.

I always say (and yes, I really do always say) that actions are based on intentions.

Morality cannot be judged by one's actions. Let's make this case a bit more extreme, say...violence. Beating a guy to a pulp in a wrestling match is okay, but doing so out on the streets isn't. Yes there are legal barriers and what not, but it all comes down to the purpose for doing so. Intentions.

If the shopkeeper's motive for not ripping off the customer is due to being caught, his act isn't moral. It's selfish.

EDIT: The person who posted after me brought up a good point. Killing a bunch of people with the intention of gaining upliftment/forgiveness certainly isn't moral. This is where the common-sense factor comes in.

Essentially, it doesn't matter. It never will matter. People judge. And what stays with a man after death is what people made of him during his lifetime. To everyone else, he was just doing what he's normally doing. It's all subjective, grey-matter. People judge other's morality based on actions. Individuals judge, or rather should judge, their morality based on intention.

The day the latter stops though, all hell will break loose.

i wanna hug him

Originally Posted by AelyaS

is the shop keeper moral?

Are religious people who only do "good" things to avoid hell moral?


Ah, good ol' arguin' ...

Does it matter?

Do we really care about why people act morally as long as they do it?

All morality is derived from consequence, so yes, he is. I don't hold his moral standards very high, however.

Originally Posted by arathbon

Does it matter?

Do we really care about why people act morally as long as they do it?

Yes we do, because if we remove the drive for people to be moral (however much) then society becomes more chaotic and undesirable. People are more likely to think they'll 'get away with it'. If we bring awareness to the fact that doing good for its own sake, for the sake of society, or for the sake of people in your community, then we drive humankind as a whole away from arbitrary selfishness.

I definitely think intentions are more important because what you intend usually translates into actual actions. But then again, how can you ever know someone's intentions to deem them moral or immoral?

I try to think of myself as morally sound, though the whole idea of morals is completely subjective to begin with, so there's really point in arguing it.

I'm like 95% sure this topic is going to end up a huge discussion of morals that can be summarized with "My morals are right and yours are wrong, this is why" anyway.

To answer the topic question, in this case, I believe* that the shopkeeper is being moral. I'm oversimplifying, but in the end, as long as he did the right thing, then he's being moral.

If the situation could be so simply painted in black and white by stating "If the only reason he didn't con the customer was because we was afraid of being caught", then we're probably all immoral to some extent. There are plenty of "bad" things I'd like to do, but I don't because of a fear of getting caught. Minor shoplifting, emotional manipulation, arson, and destruction of random stuff by various means are all things I'd like to try, but I usually don't out of the fear of getting caught. Does that make me a bad person? I'd like to think not. Consider cases in which there is a clear victim and that victim's degree of suffering as well as cases when there's no victim, or the degree of suffering is negligible.

*note that "in this case" and "I believe" are individually significant clauses that should be considered if one chooses to reply to this post.

Originally Posted by AelyaS

A customer walks into a shop. The customer walks around and picks up a few different items, and the proceeds to the cashier. The shop keeper has been thinking about ripping off this person by either charging more for the goods, or simply short changing the customer. For the sake of the argument let us suppose that the shop keeper would not be caught. He would get away with this. However, ultimately the shop keeper decides not to rip off the customer because he is afraid that if he were to be caught, than people would not come to his store because he would be known for ripping people off.


So, the question is: is the shop keeper moral? He ultimately did the right thing, but perhaps his motivation is wrong. But does motivation and actual act both needed for something to be moral, or is a moral act good within itself?

I think technically he is moral because he did the right thing. He did the right thing because he feared the consequences of getting caught and having a bad reputation.

The motivation behind his moral decision was not moral, but then again we can't always be moral. Have you ever told someone that they looked good after a new hair cut when really they didn't? You morally did the right thing, but you lied, which can be considered immoral because you didn't tell the truth.

It's a tricky thing to argue, and I think it could be argued either way to be honest.

Thought morals were always a personal thing, in which every one had different morals.

So if he thought he was moral he was
If you think he isnt, then he isnt
For me, Aslong as the outcome is good, he is moral, I couldnt care less what he thinks or what his motivation was.

It is what we do that defines us. Why we do it is important too, but not nearly as important as what we actually do. The shopkeeper is moral until he commits an immoral act, but if fear of financial loss is the lone reason he resisted being immoral, eventually he will find a way to rip people off without such a risk of being caught.

In first year Psych, at the beginning of the influence of others activity, we do an activity where we get people in the class to write down what they would do if the were invisible for 24 hours (and whatever they do cannot be traced back to them) and the answers I've seen from classes range anywhere from Mischief to theft to rape.

The point of the activity was to show that everyone's actions are constrained by the influence of other people. I'd assume most moral choices can be ascribed to adherence to ingrained rituals, religious mores, and/or social mores. If that's the case, what the shopkeeper did is moral.

Originally Posted by Mazer

...eventually he will find a way to rip people off without such a risk of being caught.

Thats what I was thinking too, hes on the 'slipperly slope' to moral decay.

Perhaps this question isn't very well defined, since the context is missing. Maybe it would seem more morally permissable if we knew why this shopkeeper wanted rip off the customer? Is it greed, or has this person wronged him in the past and he feels the need to get him back?