God willing, I would return the ticket and the wallet to the owner.
I would never think to look up the numbers on the tickets, so the situation would not arise. But if it did, and the winner wanted to reward my honesty to the tune of a million dollars or so, I would not refuse.
With my luck, the winner would give me $20 and hurried thanks on his way to a life of dissolute luxury.
Regards,
Shodan
No way in hell would I check that lottery ticket, but since you shouldn’t fight the hypothetical…maybe I should have the guy come pick up his wallet so I can look him over and decide if he’s the sort of person who really deserves that kind of moolah.
He better be one charming son of a bitch. My standards just went through the roof!
If it was a trivial amount, and a lucky dip ticket (so the original purchaser probably doesn’t even know if it won), I’d cash it. Otherwise, I’d surrender it to the Lottery organisation in the hope that the rightful owner would be grateful enough to reward me, or that it would default to me if they failed to come forward.
I have plenty of ideas for how I could spend millions - if they were truly mine to spend, but I don’t believe someone else’s millions would salve the guilt my conscience would suffer at spending them.
(and it’s important to note that ‘finders keepers’ isn’t valid for lost tickets in the UK lottery)
ETA: my personal ethics are quite important to me, and have been tested in the past. Granted, never to the tune of millions, but I feel there is a principle to be observed.
The guy was a dumbass for not signing the ticket, and has no claim on the money (especially seeing as his randomized series of numbers won–it was dumb luck and he can’t claim responsibility for it). But the hypothetical as it stands is quite unrealistic. Someone who plays the lottery as much as that guy would have known to sign the ticket right away. Regardless, this falls under finders, keepers.
I believe the poll is incomplete. It is not ethical to cash in the ticket. But it is not unethical, either. It’s morally neutral. It is also not illegal. So I would certainly do it. And I would anonymously return the identification and cards to the guy, but I would trash all the losing lottery tickets and throw away the wallet itself. In this way, the chances of him realizing that he had the winning ticket are minuscule. I don’t want to cause him unnecessary hurt. Sending him a portion of the winning prize would be torture when he realizes what he lost. Keep him in the dark about it, unless you are cruel, or you plan to give him the whole shebang.
A rational person is not foolish enough to give a 20 million cash prize to someone who was so careless as to 1) lose his wallet and 2) forget to sign the ticket. A supremely irrational person would burn the ticket. An irrational person would give it back. An irrational and guilt-motivated person might offer to split the winnings with the guy.
Dunno. That just seems bordering on the sociopathic to me. What difference does it make what the object is? People lose stuff. If it was a mobile phone, a laptop computer, a Rolex watch, would it be OK to keep it just because he was dumb to lose it?
The owner’s reason for losing it and my (lack of) justification for keeping it aren’t even parts of the same transaction, as far as I can see.
No, that wouldn’t be OK. But you’ll notice I listed 2 criteria for keeping the ticket, not just the one you addressed.
It’s not just that he was dumb to have lost it. It’s that lottery tickets are a special case where they have to be signed to be considered proprietary. It wasn’t signed. He has no moral or legal claim on it. Only an irrational person would hand it over.
Additionally, the ticket itself has no intrinsic value (unlike real property like a watch or computer). It’s not like you can fence a piece of paper with numbers written on it. After the drawing expires, it’s of zero extrinsic value, as well. It’s not analogous to losing an intrinsically valuable material object which will maintain its value until the atoms disintegrate years from now.
Are you claiming that keeping a lost valuable item, when you know who the actually owner is, is not immoral or unethical?
Is it possible you mean that cashing in the ticket, as an isolated act, is not in and of itself unethical? In the narrowest sense, I would agree, so long as we both agreed the proceeds would ultimately go to the wallet owner. Ethical perhaps, but pretty stupid, since I’d guess the person turning in the ticket would be liable for the taxes.
In my mind there is no question whatsoever that keeping the ticket and the money is unethical. Luckily for me, the price of my ethics is 80 million dollars. So I would keep the ticket knowing I had committed an unethical act. I would engage in an orgy of hookers and blow in an attempt to forget my evilness.
Virtually none of what you’ve said here is accurate. Just because it’s a “bearer” instrument doesn’t mean one can’t have a legal entitlement to it. The owner of the wallet bought the ticket, so it’s his. Just because it’s easy for you to do the wrong thing and cash it doesn’t make the ticket any less his, legally or morally.
And your last paragraph makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
I would find a lawyer and have him draw up a contract stating that I would split the winnings with the rightful owner. Then I would contact the owner and explain the situation.
Oh yes, and regarding the poll… It is not a question (in my mind) of “ethics aside”. I would have to acknowledge to myself that I was indeed committing an unethical act by keeping the ticket and the money, and I would do it anyway.
Sorry, but I find your whole argument morally hollow and self-serving.
This would be an interesting question for a real lawyer to come along and comment on. It would seem to me that by drawing up such a contract you would be acknowledging who the rightful owner of the ticket really is.
I wonder what the law says about “finders fees”?
I’ll try to make it simpler for you.
computer = thing
lottery ticket = ticket to money
thing != ticket to money
You do understand the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic worth, yes? A computer always has intrinsic value because the whole is made up of parts that can be sold for monetary value, or scrapped if nothing else. A lottery ticket has no intrinsic value because it’s a thin scrap of paper with ink blots on it.
A computer has extrinsic value so long as it is operational. A lottery ticket that can be cashed in right now has extrinsic value (80 million extrinsic values as it were, heh). Once the due date for cashing is past, the ticket has no extrinsic value, and is a piece of wastepaper. Comparing a lost computer to a lost lottery ticket is stupid and pointless, and logically invalid.
__
As for why it is morally neutral to cash in the ticket, it’s only because he didn’t sign it. If he had, then I would 1) be violating the law to cash it, and 2) feel I was taking something that somebody had a legitimate claim on. In the hypothetical situation, I don’t feel that he has a claim to the winnings. YEthicsMV
No it’s not. It’s a lost item, and the original owner would like it back. There is a valid comparison to be made.
I don’t see that what you just said has anything to do with morality, except that you used the word ‘morally’ in there.
I honestly don’t know what point you’re trying to make here. No one has suggested that the ticket has expired. If it has, you’re right, it would be worthless. So what? As it stands, it’s worth $80 million.
You know what else is a “thin scrap of paper with ink blots on it”? A dollar bill. Are you arguing that has no “extrinsic value” as well? Is it not okay to steal a computer because it’s operational, but it is okay to steal a dollar because it’s not?
Whether or not the value is intrinsic or extrinsic is entirely beside the point. It does have value, it is a lost piece of property, and it has an identifiable owner.
Or perhaps rachelellogram is claiming that once a piece of property is lost it no longer belongs to anyone except whoever finds it?
Well, in a sense that’s true – or, more accurately, it belongs to the first person to claim it. I wouldn’t have any moral problem with cashing in the ticket if there were no i.d. in the wallet. I think it’s wrong to do so because, with the i.d., I have a reasonable chance of finding the owner.
The point that comparing a lost computer to a lost lottery ticket is logically invalid.
No, I’m not. I’m talking about a lottery ticket. Not dollar bills.
I can certainly understand that you would be outraged if I said this. But I never said this. Straw man - Wikipedia
You do understand that posting a laundry list of non-sequiturs isn’t the same as making an argument, right?
All I can figure is that knowing the ID of the wallet owner is irrelevant to rachelellogram. If we accept there is no ticket owner because the ticket isn’t signed, that means all the cash inside is also up for grabs, along with the wallet itself (who “signs” their own wallet?), and anything else besides signed licenses and credit cards.