No, I don't think you can expect it. But you can take it if it is offered. We can reasonably expect what we are owed. In this case, you literally aren't owed anything because you didn't do all that much. We can't be owed what we don't earn. (Even if the the owner of the wallet exclaims, "Oh, boy, I owe you. Gee, thanks!" and scampers off without giving you a dime.) In your example, I assume that you find the wallet on the street. Or in the seat of a taxi cab. Or anyplace. We just stumble on them. Even returning them often isn't difficult. So no, doing these minor good deeds is simply part of being a decent person. But this doesn't mean you can't graciously accept a reward if it is offered. And I think it is nice to offer, to celebrate the decency of that wallet-bearing stranger. And by the way, if you set out to a good deed on the understanding that you will be rewarded if you succeed (as in, help me find my cat and I'll give you ten bucks), then you rightly have a claim on the reward.

What I find so interesting about question is that it forces us to evaluate assumptions about why rape occurs. The second position you suggest, that a woman's style of dress contributes to her rape, assumes a good deal. It assumes that rapists are paying close attention to fashion, that they are then overwhelmed by provocative styles of dress, they subsequently lose control over otherwise normal desires, and then rape occurs. In other words, this is a story about beguilement and sexiness. It seems to me the above assumptions don't describe rape at all. Maybe they are more apt for a seduction scenario. Rape, on the other hand, is about the rapist's control, dominance, sadism, and humiliation of his victim. The fact of the matter is that all kinds of women - from nuns to sluts - are raped every day. If more modest fashion choices were all that was needed to protect women from rape I'm sure women en masse would step forward for their rape-proof makeovers. If only solving sexual...

I just wanted to weigh in again to reassert that the belief that a woman's style of dress contributes to her rape is, in my view, totally absurd. Is rape unknown in Africa or the Middle East, where more modest norms of dress prevail? Of course not. We know from interviews with convicted rapists that most rapists do not remember what their victims were wearing. In fact, a widely cited Federal Commission on Crimes of Violence study found that only 4.4% of all rapes involved any sort of particular, precipitating behavior (such as flirting) on the part of the victim. Thomas Pogge's above speculation on the psychology of acquaintance rape, wherein a man avenges himself on some perceived humiliation by raping his acquaintance, may be totally correct. According to his reasoning, the soon-to-be rapist sees himself as humiliated and rejected, and then driven is to act out by raping his victim. In that case, Thomas Pogge is saying that it is victim's rejection of her suitor (or his...

Dear Fan of the Golden Rule, We are a pair, as I am also enthusiastic about the GR. But instead of the version you cite, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," I prefer this version: "What is hateful to you, do not do to others." This second version is found in Rabbi Hillel. It is also found in Confucius and many other sources. The difference between the two formulations is that the first asks someone to determine how one would like to be treated and then extrapolate that to a code for behavior towards others. The second formulation asks someone to determine what one hates and then simply refrain from doing that behavior towards others. I think I prefer the second version for its simplicity. Figuring out how you want others to treat you is fairly abstract, but picking out what you hate is usually pretty easy. Now, on to the case of the failing student. Everyone hates to fail. So the teacher would say to himself, "I hated failing, so I ought not to...

Making judgments - both insignificant and momentous - is essential for everyday life. But people who use the term as an insult mean something apart from 'using one's faculty of judgment.' To call someone judgmental is to say that one is quick to condemn others, and perhaps enjoys a sense of superiority while doing it. Meant in this sense, being judgmental is an unfortunate character trait to have. Judgmental people assume a position of moral superiority and deign to pass verdict on the rest of us. The problem you raise is that sometimes we really are in a position of moral superiority to others. Perhaps being judgmental towards Nazis, for example, is justified. Certainly it is justified if one is a judge at Nuremberg. But most of us are not judges at Nuremberg. For the most part, judgmental people aren't effective in helping wrong-doers see the errors of their ways. The arrogance of judgmental people obscures the rightness of their ethical stance. At the core of all ethical systems...

My Loving Friend, Man, do I wish I head that back-story that is "more complex"! It seems to me that there are several possible scenarios that have brought you to this point, and the details of those scenarios might make a difference in what I am about to say. But lacking the details...I press onward! First, let's take it as a given that your partner in the committed relationship does not know you have found extra-curricular love, and will be hurt to discover this, and you are anxious to avoid this hurt. Nonetheless, I believe it is your duty to tell this person right away what has transpired. A list of reasons why you should disclose this information: the physical: if this love with the other person has been consummated, you are introducing a third person's sexual history into your relationship. This might have health consequences for everyone. the historical: you forged a responsibility to him/her when that commitment was made. The fact that you cannot uphold it "forever" may be...

Hello My Veggie Friend, This is a question that also puzzles me. I am not sure if fairness is the central issue. Let's deal with the resentful vegetarians who continue with the program because they 'cannot ingest meat properly.' My understanding is that born-and-raise vegetarians can adapt to a meat diet. They will encounter some initial stomach upset, but this will go away in short order. From a nutritional point of view, someone raised vegetarian could make the switch. From a moral and psychological point of view, the change will be much more difficult. I don't know why you personally are a vegetarian. For me, I eventually became convinced when I read the classic article "Eating Meat and Eating People," by the fabulously smart Cora Diamond. I won't try to recount her views here precisely, but what I took away from the article was simply that people become committed to vegetarianism when their concepts of food no longer includes animals. I suspect the resentful vegetarians you describe...

Dear Becky, This sounds like a good project. I have some suggestions. First, you might want to change your research strategy. Instead of google, I would take advantage of your academic library. Part of your tuition goes to fund library subscriptions to databases, such as EBSCO or Lexus-Nexus. These databases have tons of academic journals, featuring articles that have been vetted by professional philosophers (or economists or what-have-you). Google, on the other hand, will punch up whatever is popular. So my first recommendation is to go the database route because it might help you on the theory end of civil servant ethics. My second idea is to do practical research on your local or state government. I know my state (New Jersey) is so renown for ethics violations by civil servants that there is a major push for ethics reform. In our case here, all state employees must watch a one hour power point presentation on professional ethics. I personally have vowed not to steal yellow...

Greetings, My Daring Friend! I wonder if the word 'wrong' is what is tripping everyone up. There are of course several nuances to wrong. It's wrong to text while driving (wrong = dangerous as well as illegal); it is wrong to end a long-time friendship for frivolous reasons (wrong = rash and inconsiderate and foolish); it's wrong to wear "mom jeans" (wrong = embarrassingly out of style). When it comes to sporting love bites, I am not convinced the wrong committed by you rises to the level of a full-fledged moral wrong. It certainly is wrong in the sense that it violates a social norm of appropriateness, the norm being that evidence of sexual satisfaction should only be flaunted by rockstars. But social norms about what is appropriate are deeply important and they can't be dismissed too quickly or cavalierly. They are the expectations of behavior, and each of us must make an account of ourselves. When someone flaunts such a norm - particularly one to do with sex - there will be a price to...

First, let's dispatch with the abortion argument you mentioned. This is a classic example of a 'begging the question' argument. (So classic it appears in tons of logic texts!) The reason why it is question-begging is because whether or not a fetus is a person is exactly what is under debate in the abortion controversy. By assuming the very point they are looking to prove, proponents of this argument commit the sin of begging the question. Your problem is a bit different, and more interesting. You are wondering if the seemingly attractive premise "killing innocent people is always murder, and therefore is always wrong" is actually worth much. All of your examples seem to be cases of killing innocents by accident. (Whether war is ever an accident is a question we can [sigh] leave aside.) I think it is reasonable to say that killing someone by accident is not murder, though it may be grossly negligent and blame-worthy. You want to define murder as killing another, with the malicious intention...

Your question reminds me very much of a quote from the Russian author Dostoyevsky: "If there is no God, everything is permitted." Crime and Punishment is his wonderful novel. The main character proposes to do exactly as you say, commit a murder just to test the limits of ethics. Spoiler alert: it doesn't turn out all that well. Can there be ethics without a higher power to act an the heavy, the enforcer? I certainly think so, knowing many ethical atheists. There are any number of schools of thought that can give us ethics without religion. Three popular options are deontology, utility, and virtue. Kant, the deontologist, thinks that respect for rationality is a reason to be moral. Mill, the utilitarian, thinks that arriving at a greater good is a reason to be ethical. Aristotle takes another route: we ought to organize our lives not around a set of rules per se, but around developing well-balanced characters . Imagine you talk with your own Raskolnikov, who is set on...