A post prompted by the thread in "General Discussion" a while ago, Acceptable Law Breaking (and other morality questions).
There are people who reckon themselves bound to behave with the most strict and meticulous honesty, even in matters which most would consider absurdly trivial -- a Christian angle on this, for example Luke 16:10 -- "He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much". While reckoning myself on the strongly-honest side of things, I don't take such matters to the most ultimate extreme -- but feel that such an approach is admirable, even if a little mad; and enjoy occasionally musing on the theme.
Was lately pondering thus, the issue of supermarket trolleys and the standard £1 coin deposit used with them. There are tokens the size and shape of a pound coin, which are of essentially no value, but can be used for supermarket trolley access, saving for the shopper an extra pound coin which they can spend on wares from the supermarket. Or -- the same principle -- occasionally one gets in one's change, a pound coin from elsewhere in the Commonwealth: the size and shape of a standard UK one, but not spendable in Britain; or there are coins from altogether other nations, of the approximate right size and shape to do the job. (I had lately, for some while, a Gibraltar pound which I had un-realisedly got in change, and I used that for supermarket trolleys, in lieu of a "real" pound coin.)
It occurred to me to wonder whether this is a thing which an exponent of 100% total strict honesty ought to eschew, as an act of defrauding the supermarket of "real" money. On taking thought, I concluded that there is fundamentally no element of dishonesty here: because the £1 coin deposit and the locking / unlocking device, are not involved in actually purchasing anything from the supermarket. The £1 deposit's function, is to discourage people from taking a trolley away from the supermarket and ultimately not bringing it back, but doing with it ... whatever they might choose to do. If you want to thus take a trolley away, nothing is actually stopping you: it just means that you will be "out" a pound -- if you're prepared to be thus "out" a pound, you don't return the trolley, and will very probably not get into trouble for it. Each party can be seen to both lose and win: you're out a pound, but you get the trolley to do whatever you will with; the supermarket is out a trolley, but they've got hundreds of them anyway.
Tokens, or non-UK coins, can be seen still to partake of the "deterrent" factor which a standard £1 has. So far as I'm aware, the tokens are not very common -- they're not widely on sale, and are basically items sometimes handed out as "favours"; I had one which I unexpectedly received in that way, from a banking outfit. And in the nature of things, you probably can't rely on there coming into your hands very often, a non-UK coin which can impersonate a UK £1 coin. So if you take away and never return, a trolley which you've accessed with a token or a non-UK coin: you're inconvenienced by so doing -- not by forfeiting a pound which you could otherwise spend, but by forfeiting a useful item which will probably be difficult to replace. The only way I see in which such a practice could amount to cheating the supermarket, is a situation by which someone produced -- on a large scale -- pound-coin-size-and-shape tokens, and sold them for significantly less than a pound each: thus potentially encouraging "trolley-liberators" to do that stunt often, because it would be at less cost to them in cash or bother, than is seen as obtaining in the standard situation.
Highly-strictly-honest people would of course not deliberately make off with a trolley; so, and because of the above, I see no problem with their using a token or a non-UK coin to release a trolley -- doing so would not even offer a significantly higher level of temptation to do wrong, than using a standard £1 coin would. (A very-highly-honest individual who suffered from a personal quirk by which making off with supermarket trolleys was anyway, an ever-present besetting temptation to them -- would no doubt be acutely aware of this, and would put in place for themself whatever preventive measures they found appropriate.)
Would be interested in anyone's thoughts on this matter, and on whether my reasoning above, is valid -- I realise that folks' thoughts are likely to include the sentiment that I ought to get out more / have too much time on my hands !
