Wallet found

While out on a Sunday morning stroll, walking your Chihuahua, you find a wallet on the ground full of cash. (No credit cards or identity details etc). Two questions:

1. Would 'you' hand it in to the police?
2. Would a religious person be more likely to do so?

Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke
While out on a Sunday morning stroll, walking your Chihuahua, you find a wallet on the ground full of cash. (No credit cards or identity details etc). Two questions:

1. Would 'you' hand it in to the police?
2. Would a religious person be more likely to do so?

In my case 1. no.
2. I don't know. I doubt it.

Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke
While out on a Sunday morning stroll, walking your Chihuahua, you find a wallet on the ground full of cash. (No credit cards or identity details etc). Two questions:

1. Would 'you' hand it in to the police?
2. Would a religious person be more likely to do so?

I happen to belong to a neighborhood based "bulletin board" that can also post to adjoining neighborhoods. I would post a "found" item, of something like "wallet found if you lost it, describe it, its contents, and where lost."

Of course someone else like a thief, might have removed/altered the contents. So I'd have to consider the response(s) carefully.

I'd also call the police and report it. If they say they have an on-going case or report that it is material to, I'd hand it over. (I understand that they would return it to me if it didn't prove of interest to them.)

If neither of these panned out, I'd keep the cash. My holier-than-thou self says I would donate it to charity, maybe to a foundation that supports therapy for chihuahua owners.

I have no idea about the religion question. You can probably find research experiments being done on this.

Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke
While out on a Sunday morning stroll, walking your Chihuahua, you find a wallet on the ground full of cash. (No credit cards or identity details etc). Two questions:

1. Would 'you' hand it in to the police?
2. Would a religious person be more likely to do so?

1. Eventually, yes, of course. However, I for one would first literally camp out [sitting in a parked vehicle] since it was lost on a weekend and its owner would likely retrace his or her travels at least until sundown [maybe again Monday night]. 2. Categorical criteria such as "religious" or irreligious, atheist or agnostic, theist and/or believer in the person and work of Jesus Christ on our behalf seldom if ever functions as the sole cause of human behaviour.

Would peoples responses differ if the item in question was a valuable fallen off a truck belonging to a large corporation? (an iPhone for example fallen off an Apple truck).

Also, is your desire to return the wallet simply a sense of duty, or a concern for the possible suffering the owner might experience at its loss?

Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke
While out on a Sunday morning stroll, walking your Chihuahua, you find a wallet on the ground full of cash. (No credit cards or identity details etc). Two questions:

1. Would 'you' hand it in to the police?
2. Would a religious person be more likely to do so?

1. yes you hand it in to police.
2. No religious people generally are no more moral than the non religious.

Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke
While out on a Sunday morning stroll, walking your Chihuahua, you find a wallet on the ground full of cash. (No credit cards or identity details etc). Two questions:

1. Would 'you' hand it in to the police?
2. Would a religious person be more likely to do so?

1. Yes, but not out of a sense of duty, since my ethics are not deontological (duty or obligation based), but generally more Aristotelian. I believe that attempting to return the wallet (directly or indirectly) enhances both my own eudaimonia (flourishing well-being), that of the person who lost the wallet, and the eudaimonistic possibilities of the society in which I live.

2. Such an ethics can also be nourished by religious views, but I can’t say that religious people are more or less likely to respond the same way.

Yes i would hand it in.

I'm guessing that a religious person would be more likely to. Or more specifically in a group of religious people vs a group of secularists, I think there would be more people in the religious group who would hand it in.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
1. yes you hand it in to police.
2. No religious people generally are no more moral than the non religious.

Surprisingly i would give the same answers. (Although when i was younger i almost certainly would have kept the money).

I think handing in the money, for me, is less a sense of duty and more an issue of good conscience and guilt avoidance. .

Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke
While out on a Sunday morning stroll, walking your Chihuahua, you find a wallet on the ground full of cash. (No credit cards or identity details etc). Two questions:

1. Would 'you' hand it in to the police?
2. Would a religious person be more likely to do so?

A similar thing happened to me recently. I pull up at my bank on a busy Friday and go through the "drive-thru" ATM and I see the previous customer pulling away. I pull up and the screen is beeping at me "Do you need more time?" The previous guy had left his card in the machine and his card was still active. I could have looked at his balance and withdrew the machine limit (which I think is $300 per day), but I didn't even think of it. I answered "No, return my card" and took his card out and laid it on the front seat and proceeded with my transaction (being very sure to reclaim my card). I parked and took the card into the bank and waited in line to see a teller and I said someone left their card in the drive-thru ATM and handed it over. The teller seemed surprised that I would actually do this for another human being. I make an effort every day to treat people as I would like to be treated, and I would hope someone would do the same for me someday. I didn't even look at the guy's name on the card (who knows, it might have been worth dinner, right? 🙂 ). This is just the way I was brought up and I did this without a thought of doing anything else.

As to your question of "Would a religious person be more likely to do so?", I say, well, yeah, probably, but I don't know if I'd put a bet on it. There are plenty of "outwardly religious" people who are quite awful human beings inside (and vice versa). I think it levels out to about 50-50 of all human beings would return the money, "religious" or not.

Originally posted by Suzianne

I think it levels out to about 50-50 of all human beings would return the money, "religious" or not.

And the Chihuahua?

Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke
And the Chihuahua?

Hehe.

Dogs are the world's foremost opportunists. Even though they show their humans unconditional love, they will fight amongst themselves for the opportunity to scarf up some food dropped on the floor. They don't ask questions, "Who does this belong to?", "How did it get here?", they just gobble it down and look for more. Dogs don't worry about questions like these. 🙂

Originally posted by twhitehead
Would peoples responses differ if the item in question was a valuable fallen off a truck belonging to a large corporation? (an iPhone for example fallen off an Apple truck).

Also, is your desire to return the wallet simply a sense of duty, or a concern for the possible suffering the owner might experience at its loss?

Also there is this, where I live.

http://www.shouselaw.com/appropriation-lost-property.html

An Apple truck? Contact Apple.

Address: 10300 N Tantau Ave, Cupertino, CA 95014
or
Phone (408) 996-1010

would probably do.

That wallet full of cash is mine, by the way. If you find it, let me know.

Back in ancient times when there were phone booths, I was preparing for a vacation, had about 1000 bucks in travelers checks, so I am phoning wife, talk, talk, talk, leave said phone booth. Of course without travelers checks. I get home, and I get a phone call on house phone, (cell phones were in the distant future). A guy has my checks, says come down to such and such a place, here they are. I go, they are there! Not sure, but I think he could have cashed those checks at least for a while when they would have been canceled the next day so there was a window of opportunity if he has so chosen. But he did not! I gave him 20 bucks reward and he was happy with that. Back then deep in century 20, that was a good chunk of change.