You'd have been better off never to have come across that cursed ring. My guess is that you didn't lose the ring but Satan reclaimed it and passed it on to someone more evil than you. — Hanover

If you knew what I was pawning it for, you would be convinced that it was a piece of Satan and if that is the case? I am damn happy that I am rid of it. :halo:

thanks - I really appreciate that. I miss him so much, but I am starting to get to the point where I can enjoy the good memories.

thanks - I really appreciate that. I miss him so much, but I am starting to get to the point where I can enjoy the good memories. — Sam Sam

You are a strong person and somehow, I think your brother is watching over you and helping guide you.
He may have even guided you here to The Philosophy Forum!

Welcome Sam Sam~ We are happy to have you with us~

:heart:

"How do we know..." you asked earlier. Exactly. I counter with, "Should you know, and if you agree that you should, how would you determine the answer?"

Ans- By asking. This has been the advice of many responders so far.

"... An ethical dilemma is where you have two possible responses to an ethical question and you can't figure out which is the most ethical..."

Somewhat true, but incomplete. An ethical dilemma must have at least two permissible options from which to choose. We haven't established if all the options here are permissible. To the point, IS IT okay to just keep the ring? That's what we're attempting to establish.

The other components of an ethical dilemma are that the correct, or best, option is not immediately obvious without some analysis/calculus, and that the option of not acting at all is illegitimate; one of he permissible choices must be undertaken.


I agree with you, however; this doesn't constitute an ethical dilemma. A box of 'railroad' junk sold in a driveway yard sale would not include a boxed diamond ring let alone a loose one, any more than a used car would include a well-maintained and loaded pistol in its glovebox. No way, no how.

Correct! Contacting the last people who were responsible for the box and it's contents becomes the current box holder's obligation in order to hopefully return the ring to it's owner.

There are multiple possibilities here in regards to who actually owns the ring, how it got there, and whether or not the person you contact in regards to it will tell you the truth.

But! The person who has found the ring has a choice to make about whether to be honest about an unusual situation to the previous representative of the box. Once the current holder has been honest, their responsibility to their fellow human has been met, and any deceit after the fact is not their responsibility.

There are many benefits to honesty. Karma is not dogmatic in my opinion, but rather reference to the cause and effect of maintaining civility in society.

Seems like it was hidden there by someone intending to use it as an engagement ring.

How dusty was the exterior box?

Maybe there's an interesting story behind it... Someone spent a good deal of their income on a diamond ring intending to ask someone to marry them, but for whatever reason they never got around to it (or maybe they did and were rejected?). How could they have forgot about it? Did something happen to them?

If it's a relatively new or clean box, then it stands to reason that someone may still have intended to use it as an engagement ring, in which case it seems like keeping it would be to steal more than just three months salary, you would be stealing love itself dammit!

Update - I took the ring to a jeweler. Here is what he told me:

The band is 14 K yellow gold

There is white gold around the stone

The ring weighs about 3 DWP (penny weight)

It is size 5.5

The stone is surrounded by 12 baguettes (small diamonds)

The stone is a diamond – it is about .45K with a cut quality of SI1 or SI2 (mid-range)

Estimated value $900

"...and any deceit after the fact is not their responsibility..."

Deceit is intentional, so one who engages in it is always going to be responsible for it. Kant would have waved us away from any deceit since it is uttering falsehood, i.e.- lying.


I think what you mean is that, once one does the right thing (inquiring), one is then only obligated insofar as her conscience dictates. If the seller makes a reasonable case that the ring was not meant to be included, the right thing would be to return it expecting nothing more than gratitude. If the person doesn't respond (you can ensure emails are opened at the recipient's end) after 72 hours, I would say my obligation to do the right thing has been completed; the ring becomes my rightful property.

Sam Sam, that estimated value seems low to me. I paid $1400 43 years ago for my wife's engagement ring, a solitary brilliant cut of the same quality and 0.6 weight. When we last had the ring appraised by a qualified gemologist in 1986, its value had risen to $3K. I know the market varies, but I think the ring you describe is probably insurable, for replacement, near USD$3000. I could be wrong...


You are doing the right things. Your conscience will be a good guide that you can trust. Your instincts will tell you if and when you can safely pocket the ring and do with it as you please.

"I think what you mean is that, once one does the right thing (inquiring), one is then only obligated insofar as her conscience dictates"


Yes. Kind of and...

" If the person doesn't respond (you can ensure emails are opened at the recipient's end) after 72 hours, I would say my obligation to do the right thing has been completed; the ring becomes my rightful property"

No. If the other person does not reply it could be for a number of reasons, and at that point only your guardianship of the ring is your role, not your ownership of the ring. The possibility of a reply remains, and regardless of how much time passes, the ring does not belong to you because you did not exchange for it under contract.

We'll have to disagree. In my code, and being pragmatic as well as ethical, responsibility lies only in a reasonable attempt to determine the veracity of the inclusivity of the sale. Just as the accidental inclusion is not the buyer's responsibility, neither is it his responsibility to chase down an unreachable seller interminably, or to safequard the ring for as long.


In ethics, even in Kantian terms, no one is obliged to conduct himself any more than is convenient, provided the act is done in Good Will, and that it passes the tests of ends and universalizability. We would not expect our hapless buyer to pass guardianship, as you put it, on to his son, and his son to his son, in perpetuity. In fact, it would cease to be convenient even on his deathbed. If he passed guardianship onto a trusted agent, say a lawyer or to the police, one would require payment to locate the 'rightful' owner and the other would not have much of an incentive to act except to place the item in a lost-and-found holder. I can tell you which of these would be convenient, but I'm not sure they would be satisfactory.

Estimated value $900. — Sam Sam

That's £700, man. I mean, £700 is not £10,000, but still, I would keep it. I can't be the only one. Out of sight, out of mind. I wouldn't be haunted or racked with guilt.

I would say it is not convenient to contact the previous holder in the first place, but that it is still necessary in terms of honesty to do so.
Consider if ten years away, you wear the ring and someone says "hey, that ring belongs to my grandmother." They give you precise details that would lead you to conclude that they are being factual. Do you give it to them, or do you say "well I'm sorry, but I've already had it for 10 years, so it is mine."

Of course this probability is rare, but the possibility remains, and so does your responsibility of returning it to the family that *did* obtain the ring by means of contract, because they sacrificed their energy (work, money) to acquire it fairly and you have not.

....or at least we assume that they did.

Again, once it's out of your hands the negativity revolving it is no longer your responsibility.

In other words I would say
"Finders keepers, unless you find the loser."
And also I would say
"Exhausting your ability to find the loser is a respectful responsibility."
And
"Keeping the posibility of the loser rediscovering the object is a respectful responsibility."

Unless the loser tells you to keep it.

Again, we disagree. I would not find it inconvenient to do the right thing...a pragmatic, a reasonable, attempt to ascertain the legitimate title to an article whose ownership is ambiguous. A message left on an answering machine, a text message if possible, or an email....these things take but seconds, and would be among perhaps twenty similar exchanges about which we would not give a second thought on any one day.

I would not have the ring after ten years. I would not wear it, and probably would either give it away or sell it for cash and use its value for something more valuable to me. I would do so without compunction, having made that reasonable attempt to feel more secure in my decision-making.

Let's continue the scenario you present:

"Did you by any chance find a diamond ring in that box you bought from us years ago?"

"I did! I sent you a text message, left a message on your phone, and sent you an email. I tried to call you about three days later, but your phone went to the answering service. So, I eventually decided just to keep the ring." I would shrug, express sympathy, but no regrets. I was reasonable in my attempt to make contact and to wait a period before I considered the matter closed.

What each person must do is what his/her conscience dictates. I would freely take what I thought were responsible steps to determine ownership, but then I would assume, at my convenience, when the item becomes truly mine. For me, three days is plenty, along with those three different attempts at contact.

I was on a Catholic forum once and asked this question in another form.

I asked, if my father stole a neighbor's car and then gave the car to me in his will, do I have a moral obligation to return the car. Everyone said yes.

So then I asked, what if it was my grandfather who stole the car. Everyone said yes again.

So then I asked, what if it was my great-grandfather? Now everyone is getting impatient, and tell me that receiving stolen property is wrong, Wrong, WRONG, period. Ok, they're being consistent.

And then I was naughty and asked...

Should we give North America back to the Indians?

The thread somehow magically died at that point. What a surprise! :smile:

Should we give North America back to the Indians?

It's a good question. I interpreted it as "Should the next generation be responsible for the previous generation's mistakes?"
And I would say yes, we are under obligation to amend the circumstance because if it was stolen it was taken without consent, and thus removes the opportunity that the object, in this case America, possesses from one society and gives it to another by force instead of an equal exchange.

At this point there are too many Americans, and we can't all leave in order to allow the Natives to start from scratch because it is a near impossible move to make. However amends of this magnitude have to come with comprimise. Reverting back to square one is too complicated in this regards to justify it's possibility as a route of action, so instead of giving them the entire country, the country allots them afirmative action.

"I did! I sent you a text message, left a message on your phone, and sent you an email. I tried to call you about three days later, but your phone went to the answering service. So, I eventually decided just to keep the ring." I would shrug, express sympathy, but no regrets. I was reasonable in my attempt to make contact and to wait a period before I considered the matter closed.

This doesn't equalize the exchange.
At this point you still have acquired energy (work,money) without giving the same amount of energy (work, money) back to them.

"...Reverting back to square one is too complicated in this regards to justify it's possibility as a route of action, so instead of giving them the entire country, the country allots them afirmative action. .."

I translate this as, "It is inconvenient."

Affirmative action is inconvenient to the majority and convenient to the minority.

So in other words it is inconvenient, but the majority has a responsibility to the minority that it has created.

"This doesn't equalize the exchange.
At this point you still have acquired energy (work,money) without giving the same amount of energy (work, money) back to them. "

I am not under any obligation to 'equalize' the exchange. It was deemed by both parties to be equal, even if accidentally, when it was concluded. Both parties left, each with a misapprehension. One was potentially salutary, the other not. In Good Will, I offer to return an item that is apparently, or possibly, unintended for sale. If the person never contacts me, even with several earnest attempts to for me to contact him, at some point I can let the matter go.

BTW, to whom would be cede the nation and all of its states and infrastructure? The greater numbers of non-aboriginals are irrelevant, just as, to follow your logic, the passage of time is irrelevant for the possession of the ring...or its 'guardianship.' So, we should give it, the nation, back. But, to whom? To which congregation of supremacy, and at what point in time should we fix the supremacy? At which point in time should we accept the ownership of any one congregation...or tribe...or organization...or culture? There were many, and they quarreled and raided constantly.

In my opinion you are obligated to equal the exchange otherwise it's theft.

And granting the entire nation and it's infrastructure to any group other than the group who currently retains it would be near impossible. This is why we compromise by alloting the representatives of that ancestry a "leg up" in opportunity.

Now I'm not even saying that affirmative action is the end of balancing the exchange, but it is an example of an attempt to.

Other people have also said they thought that estimate is low. But to me it is irrelevant - it will not change what I do.

Follow Up Question - If I am able to reach the seller I will return it and ask nothing in return. But, if he offers me a reward, is it proper for me to accept it?

Should we give North America back to the Indians? — Jake

What entitlement does a descendent have over an ancestor's property and what grants someone superior rights just because they stood on the property first?

My brain plays tricks on me and always goes to dilemmas presented in films like The Butterfly Effect in scenarios like these.

Anyone getting this drift or am I just tripping? — Posty McPostface

Pass the weed and I'll tell you if I feel the same way.