Finders Keepers = Moral?

Is Finders Keepers a valid excuse for keeping temporarily/accidentally abandoned property?

  • Yes, always

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Yes, in certain circumstances

    Votes: 12 66.7%
  • No, never

    Votes: 6 33.3%

  • Total voters
    18
Boo, I always turn things into the lost and found. Even wallets full of money. It makes me a bit sad everyone doesn't. Some things aren't replaceable. I have a scarf that someone knit for me that has immeasurable sentimental value. If I saw some random person wearing it, I'd choke them with it.
 
No offense, but it is your own responsibility to look after your items. I've left things lying around too and have had them taken, so I know what it feels like, but I still think the onus is on owners to make sure their property is safe. If someone else picks it up in their absence, it is largely their own fault. It's a different case if the items were stolen.
Sure, it's my responsibility, and I fulfill that responsibility by returning to retrieve them. I'm not counting on someone else to track me down and deliver the lost item. All I want is for people to mind their own business and refrain from taking whatever property is not being actively guarded.

I don't see why the fact that another person lapsed in shis vigilance makes it morally acceptable for you to take advantage of that lapse. As Shai Gar elaborated, society would be pretty messed up if everyone behaved that way. We function with a basic respect for property because we can't afford to spend our time stealing each other's rather than producing our own and trading it consensually. I could go around picking pockets, blaming the owners for leaving them unbuttoned, but instead I recognize a categorical imperative along with most of the rest of society.

Also, keep in mind that the scarf was in a theater, and if nobody came to retrieve it, it would be up to the theater's owner to decide what to do with it. It does not become fair game for any other person who happens to be in that theater at the time. Front lawns are just as easily accessed, but that does not make it moral to walk onto them and take the gardening implements that are left out. Nor is it moral to toss a Salvation Army bucket into the back of your truck when the bellringer leaves for a bathroom break.
 
Yes it is, if that person reports their item as missing to the police then (assuming the police track down the person who picked it up) if the person who found it refuses to give that item back to its original owner then under the law it's considered theft.

This is why there's usually a legal time limit for recovering or reclaiming lost items, you hand something you found to the police, they give the owner X amount of time to reclaim it, and if they don't then it's yours to keep.

So basically, by not handing in the scarf or otherwise making an effort to find its true owner then in the eyes of the law your friend is a thief.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost,_mislaid,_and_abandoned_property

Yes! Thank you! So good to know!
That's how I felt, but I thought that it wasn't illegal!
I said later to her that she practically stole the scarf, but she was like "No, I didn't steal it, I found it".
Thanks for the info!!! :)

I, in all honesty, found a photograph I had lost and given up hope on wedged between ketchup and chocolate syrup in the refrigerator.

LMAO!!!

Boo, I always turn things into the lost and found. Even wallets full of money. It makes me a bit sad everyone doesn't. Some things aren't replaceable. I have a scarf that someone knit for me that has immeasurable sentimental value. If I saw some random person wearing it, I'd choke them with it.

Haha- I'd like to see that.
 
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Sure, it's my responsibility, and I fulfill that responsibility by returning to retrieve them. I'm not counting on someone else to track me down and deliver the lost item. All I want is for people to mind their own business and refrain from taking whatever property is not being actively guarded.

I don't see why the fact that another person lapsed in shis vigilance makes it morally acceptable for you to take advantage of that lapse. As Shai Gar elaborated, society would be pretty messed up if everyone behaved that way. We function with a basic respect for property because we can't afford to spend our time stealing each other's rather than producing our own and trading it consensually. I could go around picking pockets, blaming the owners for leaving them unbuttoned, but instead I recognize a categorical imperative along with most of the rest of society.

Also, keep in mind that the scarf was in a theater, and if nobody came to retrieve it, it would be up to the theater's owner to decide what to do with it. It does not become fair game for any other person who happens to be in that theater at the time. Front lawns are just as easily accessed, but that does not make it moral to walk onto them and take the gardening implements that are left out. Nor is it moral to toss a Salvation Army bucket into the back of your truck when the bellringer leaves for a bathroom break.

I understand what you're saying, and I do agree in some ways. Momentary lapses in vigilance are something probably everyone experiences from time to time, and society does function a lot more smoothly because of the fact that most people do not take advantage of them, but this in itself does not make it wrong. It would be wrong if the OP's friend intended to take the scarf all along, or if she deliberately went out of her way to make it so that the owner could not retrieve it. In this particular situation she probably was wrong to take it, since it was in a theater, and all theaters have lost and found boxes, and also, she didn't wait for the person to come back. But if she had, then there would have been no malicious intent on her part, and her taking the scarf thereafter would not (imo) have constituted a morally reprehensible act.

Also, taking something from somebody's front lawn is a completely different situation to the one described by the OP, as is taking the salvation army bucket. In both of these scenarios there is a clear and obvious owner - the homeowner, and the charity - therefore if one were to take these items, it would entail disregarding the fact that there was a specific party to whom they could have been returned. That would be clearly wrong.
But say, for example, instead of a salvation army bucket (which usually has a label on it, which would identify the organization it belonged to), there was just a $20 note on the ground. Would it have been wrong for her friend to take that money, seeing as it was lying around without an owner? In my opinion, no, as long as the person who picked it up made every reasonable effort to determine whether it belonged to someone. I guess in a way it is all subjective though, because what is "reasonable" is going to vary depending on who you ask.
 
Sure, it's my responsibility, and I fulfill that responsibility by returning to retrieve them. I'm not counting on someone else to track me down and deliver the lost item. All I want is for people to mind their own business and refrain from taking whatever property is not being actively guarded.

I don't see why the fact that another person lapsed in shis vigilance makes it morally acceptable for you to take advantage of that lapse. As Shai Gar elaborated, society would be pretty messed up if everyone behaved that way. We function with a basic respect for property because we can't afford to spend our time stealing each other's rather than producing our own and trading it consensually. I could go around picking pockets, blaming the owners for leaving them unbuttoned, but instead I recognize a categorical imperative along with most of the rest of society.

Also, keep in mind that the scarf was in a theater, and if nobody came to retrieve it, it would be up to the theater's owner to decide what to do with it. It does not become fair game for any other person who happens to be in that theater at the time. Front lawns are just as easily accessed, but that does not make it moral to walk onto them and take the gardening implements that are left out. Nor is it moral to toss a Salvation Army bucket into the back of your truck when the bellringer leaves for a bathroom break.

ALWAYS wanted to do that.
 
How many years do you get in prison for stealing a scarf like a million?
 
Boo, I always turn things into the lost and found. Even wallets full of money. It makes me a bit sad everyone doesn't. Some things aren't replaceable. I have a scarf that someone knit for me that has immeasurable sentimental value. If I saw some random person wearing it, I'd choke them with it.

You left out the part where you remove the money from the wallet and use the credit card on internet porn
 
Speaking as someone who has a tendency to be very absent-minded at times, always putting things down where I don't mean to leave them, I have a major problem with that sort of logic.

It has nothing at all to do with the fact that I don't care about my belongings. On the contrary, every time I leave/enter a room, I anxiously check my purse to make sure that all of my important items are still inside it. I mean, it's that much of a problem for me, and I really can't help it.

I can understand situations in which there really is no way to figure out who the owner is, but if you don't at least make an attempt to find the owner, I'm thinking you're heartless and, frankly, a bit selfish. Why do you deserve it just because I made a mistake and lost it? If anything, and especially if you aren't planning on handing it in to a manager or something, you should just leave it where you found it.

I think that is the biggest problem with it for me; in that case, you're just benefitting off of someone else's misfortune. I can't understand why that would make anyone happy.
 
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