Kinda depends on what you think is OK to buy, sell or rent, doesn't it? We don't accept slavery, because we don't think people should be for sale or should ever be owned--though we accept that it is OK to pay for the labor that people can perform in some cases.

So I agree with the premise of your question: in general, we seem to be OK with paying for services. Is sex something that we should (or could permissibly) think of as a kind of service? Notice that such a view of sex is different from the view we take in romantic circumstances. There, we take sex to be a kind of intimacy between two people--a way of relating lovingly to one another. Prostitution, I think it is safe to say, isn't like that. It is more, as you say, like a service. But surely one could reasonably wonder whether thinking of sexual acts as services is the right way to conceive of them.

Now, as with so many ethical questions, we might find that we are led to different sorts of answers if we apply different kinds of ethical insights. Do people have rights with respect to the uses of their bodies? Well, it seems so. So why do the prostitute and john not have the right to do with their bodies as they please, given consent by both parties? Well...maybe the rights of others get engaged here, too--rights of the members of the rest of society to determine what sorts of commerce they will, and what sorts they will not, permit within their communities. So perhaps an individual's right to the uses of his or her body is only a prima facie right that might be defeated if it comes into competition with the political or economic rights of communities to regulate commerce or other aspects of social interaction...?

(I confess I am not all that good at this way of thinking, so I will allow others better at this to chime in here.)

But let's take a different tack. Go back to what I said about sexual acts as services. I'm a virtue theorist in ethics, so the way I take this sort of question is as follows: Would a virtuous person think of sex acts as services? I think not. It seems to me that an admirable human being would neither think of sex acts as services, nor would he or she wish to have others serve them in such a way. This is not at all to say that admirable human beings would abhor sex! It is, rather, to say that they would think of sex acts from a point of view that was other than that of serving or being served. So, from this point of view, there really does seem to be something wrong with prostitution--it functions on the basis of a view of sex that we would not really wish to promote, if we were seeking to encourage virtue, and one that seems to be the product of a faulty view of the value of the activity in question--a value that is not virtuously commodified.

Notice that this is not at all an argument to the effect that prostitution should be outlawed, or that it should be regarded as morally impermissible. Lots of stuff falls short of virtue that we would not outlaw or anathematize. There may even be aspects of certain kinds of sexuality that actually find sex-as-service part of the thrill.

But even so, we can fault such things on the sorts of grounds I have given, and so it seems that there is, from a virtue theoretic point of view, a genuine moral fault in prostitution (from both the prostitute's and the john's points of view) that we would not similarly assign serving as a driver or cleaner. These latter activities seem to be correctly (and thus virtuously) conceived as services. Not so, for sex--even if the idea turns you on!

As far as I can tell from your description, it would not be unethical to report such fraud--indeed, reporting it is likely the right thing to do. Depending on the details, it might even be illegal not to report it. You might want to consult a legal expert to determine your rights and responsibilities in this case. It sounds like you are in a bad company and a bad situation. I wish you the best as you try to make things better.

As Nicholas said in response to the other question, there are questions to be asked about what is appropriate and inappropriate behavior in the workplace. And, while there are companies that prohibit co-workers from dating, most do not, which is simply to say that sexual harassment policies are not in general intended to prohibit all sexual interaction between co-workers, but only such interaction as, first, is unwelcome or unwanted and, second, constitutes a form of harassment.

Even unwelcome sexual attention, by itself, does not constitute harassment, according to the definition promulgated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, but only if:

1. submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual's employment,
2. submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment decisions affecting such individuals, or
3. such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.

The first two conditions are kind of obvious. It is the last condition that can be harder to evaluate, in practice.

Asking someone out on a date, for example, all by itself, certainly would not constitute harassment under this definition. Indeed, as I understand it, merely asking someone out does not constitute an expression of "sexual interest", but of romantic interest, which is different. That said, the line here is blurry, and if the person doing the asking is in a position of authority over the other person, then we are on dangerous ground, since then condition (1) or (2) may be met. And repeatedly asking someone out could constitute harassment, as could asking every woman in the company out, since it is easy to see how condition (3) could be met in such a case.

Telling someone flat out that you'd love to get them in the sack is something else entirely. Most people would not receive such a remark as a compliment, for the simple reason that such a remark, made outside an appropriate sort of context or relationship, does not express any real appreciation for the other person, but only how that person might be used to satisfy one's own selfish desires. People rightly feel "objectified" by such comments and, as a result, self-conscious and otherwise uncomfortable, and that is why making such remarks can easily satisfy condition (3). That said, however, a single such remark probably does not constitute harassment, but a pattern of making such remarks very likely would.

That said, companies have a right and duty to ensure that the workplace is free of intimidation, and they also have an interest in protecting themselves from litigation. So a company might have rules that prohibit the making of such remarks, for example, even though making one such remark might not constitute harassment. Such rules are perfectly understandable, seen from this point of view.

I think you are right, work is a major site of important relationships, and one cannot legislate that only professional relationships will be acceptable there. On the other hand, one can see why it is wrong to pervert a workplace in the name of a personal relationship, so I think the relevant issue is whether any such perversion takes place. Does the workplace become an uncomfortable environment for anyone as a result of personal relationships? This might be inevitable if someone has broken off an affair with a colleague and perhaps commenced another one with someone else in the same workplace. On the other hand, it might be argued that one has to get used to the idea that there may be people at work who are annoying, perhaps just because of who they are, how they dress, how far they have been promoted, and as professionals we need to cope with that and not allow it to distract us from our duties. We also ought not to allow a personal relationship to bias us in favour of particular colleagues as opposed to others.

Having admitted that is something of which we should be aware, we should then move onto considering ways of treating everyone fairly even if we cannot ignore our personal relationships with some of them. We cannot check our character at the door of the workplace and then assume it again when we leave. On the other hand, we should have enough control and self-awareness to make a decent job of operating fairly at work, as in other aspects of our lives.

It is often not precisely what someone did that is significant in the case of the law, but how it is classified. However many people saw him do it, the issue is often what it is that they saw

Right now I am banging away at the keys of my computer, but I could be blackmailing someone, sending a love letter, slandering a politician, or responding to a question for askphilosophers. A thousand people may be watching, and not just my cat, but in criminal law what the court will want to know is what precisely happened, not just the actions of the individuals concerned. So we should hang on to the "allegedly" term at least if the plea is a not guilty one.

I can see some justification for wishing to nuance negative results, by claiming that they might be contradicted by future more positive results and so on, but on the whole it is important that negative results are made available generally. This has nothing to do with the wishes of the participants in the experiments, it seems to me, but their general public duty to help people avoid harm. There are two pragmatic aspects to this which are significant. The public ought to realize that results go in a variety of directions and should try to be sophisticated in working out what those results mean. Secondly, companies that are frank about negative results will gain more respect than if they do not, and so might themselves benefit anyway.

I don't think the dilemma you sketch is really about the meaning of loyalty. You might be loyal to the organization's purpose (as you understand it) or you might be loyal to your current fellow members. The question really is which more deserves your loyalty. There is no general answer, but here are a few reflections that you may find helpful.

One important factor is whether the purpose of the organization has independent importance. Suppose the organization is the Silly Hat Society. It's purpose is for members to come together for fun monthly meetings wearing silly hats. Over the years, the hat part recedes into the background, many show up with uncreative headgear and some even without anything -- but members still enjoy one another's company and are having a good time. In this case, it would be a little silly to place loyalty to the organization's purpose above loyalty to its members: silly to berate members to live up to the purpose of the organization and so on. Here it does not really matter that members gradually abandon the original purpose of the Society or revise this purpose.

By contrast, suppose your organization works against torture and solicits funds from the public for this purpose. In this case, if many of your fellow workers spend a lot of the organization's money on expensive education trips, wasting funds that could be spend on effective anti-torture initiatives, your loyalties clearly should lie with the organization's purpose rather than it's present members.

Even if the organization's purpose is important, you may owe some loyalty to its present members. This is true when there are good-faith disagreements about what the purpose is, precisely, or about what it demands under given conditions. Thus suppose that you work for an organization devoted to the realization of human rights. Most of your colleagues want the organization to launch a major initiative in behalf of a human right that you find unimportant or even questionable. You try to convince them, but fail. The majority decides to go ahead with the initiative. If you believe that your colleagues are genuinely convinced of the merits of the initiative, then -- rather than resign -- you might well defer to their judgment and support the initiative. One reason here might be that you come to have some doubt about your own judgment when you find it unshared, upon reflection, by many others you respect. Another reason might be your appreciation that the organization will be effective only if it concentrates its efforts, that it can concentrate its efforts only if its members collaborate according to a common plan, and that such collaboration according to a common plan will work only with a shared willingness to accept majority decisions.

Perhaps the most important application of the question you pose is to a special class of organizations: states. Most of your fellow citizens probably believe that the purpose of the state is to secure and increase its wealth, power, and territory. Others will think that the justice of the state's internal institutional arrangements is also of great importance. And some will hold that the state's purpose also includes or requires a just foreign policy that deals fairly with weaker states and foreigners and also aims for greater justice in international institutional arrangements. Those who recognize all three purposes will have a quite different understanding of patriotism than those who recognize only the first. In this sort of context, "loyal opposition" makes sense: a sustained effort to convince one's compatriots coupled with a disposition to defer to their judgment at least by respecting the law. But if the gap becomes too large, then one may want to place loyalty to one's country true purpose (as one understands it upon reflection) above loyalty to its present people -- one may, for example, leave one's country when the fascists come to power or even join a resistance movement aiming to overthrow the fascist regime.

I've often thought about just this issue, even as I (without fail) always pick out the milk from the back row! But I cannot see what could be wrong with doing this -- unless the store sets out a customer policy forbidding it, the store has allowed it (even if it would prefer we take the milk in front) -- so we're not wronging the store in any way, which, in effect, has to accept the possibility of spoiled milk as one of the costs of doing business -- which it then, no doubt, passes on to the customer .... The deeper question here would be a kind of prisoner dilemma: if every customer agreed to take the milk from the front, thus reducing spoilage, the overall cost of milk might well go down, which would be good for everyone -- but if only *I* take it from the front then I increase my personal risk of spoilage without getting any benefit .... :-)

best, ap

Great case! It is difficult to say (or say clearly) that the practice is unethical for, after all, the competition could offer a similar scheme. Any number of practices seem ethically permissible that would give the shop an edge, e.g. the opportunistic shop owner might offer customers who buy four sandwiches a flower or give $2.50 to charity, and so on. But there is some kind of exploitation insofar as the shop is taking advantage of costumers not knowing the past practice (and so not realizing that they are not getting an advantage over other competitors), plus the shop might have to spend more money to expand the size of the shop insofar as their customers start getting larger and larger from eating all those bloody sandwiches! Apart from perhaps placing customers at some health risk from consuming massive numbers of sandwiches, it does not appear (to me) to involve immoral or unethical action.

There is a difference here between what you are legally entitled to claim and the loss you have actually incurred. You believe that it is permissible to claim the former, larger amount. Your wife believes that you should claim no more than the latter, smaller amount.

Suppose the difference would only affect the other policy holders through an adjustment of their future premiums. Would you then have an obligation to ask for less as your wife suggests? I think this depends on the prevailing habits and practices among those who would benefit: how are they disposed to act in a case like yours? In the urban world of the East Coast I am familiar with, nearly all those buying insurance would claim no less than they are legally entitled to claim. If this is the prevailing attitude and disposition among the policy holders in your insurance as well, then it is factored into the prices of policies. So you have all along been paying premiums priced to cover people claiming what they are legally entitled to rather than merely their actual cost. And it would therefore not be unfair to the other policy holders if you, too, were to submit the larger claim. Suppose, conversely, that the customers of your insurance all think the way your wife is thinking: they find it sleazy to claim more than one's actual cost and then refrain from doing so. If the premiums you have paid over the years reflect this attitude and disposition on the part of other policy holders, then it would be unfair to them to claim more.

Your decision may not merely affect other policy holders, but also the insurance company or rather its owners/shareholders. Some of the money you might fail to claim would presumably end up as extra cash that this insurance company might reinvest or pay out as dividend to shareholders. In this relationship between you and the company the same question arises: would the company be "decent" or "sleazy" if your roles were reversed? Suppose you made some silly mistake on a claim form and suppose the insurance company is legally within its rights to deny your claim on this basis (you cannot re-file, perhaps, because the filing deadline has since passed). Would your company be generous and let you correct the mistake and then pay your claim? I don't know about your insurance company, but my sense is that most insurance companies would typically insist on their legal rights and deny your claim in such a case (perhaps pointing out that they have a priority obligation to the firm's owners, the shareholders). Assuing that this holds for your company as well, then again it would not be unfair for you, too, to insist on your legal rights with regard to your claims. The legal contract you have with this firm is then a kind of bet between competent adults. What matters here are the legal terms of the bet, and not the actual costs incurred. You can make a bet with a rich friend that you will pay her $100 and, if a tornado strikes your town, she will pay you $20,000. It would not be wrong to collect this amount even if the tornado that strikes your town causes zero damage to your own property. You can think of the insurance cover you bought along the same lines. The company understood that your roof might sustain damage near the end of its natural life and that, if it then paid you "full replacement value", you would benefit from the damage. The company -- certainly a competent party -- nonetheless wrote the policy in this way and charged you appropriate premiums to cover the anticipated extra expense. So why not let the company make good on the promise to which it chose to commit itself in writing?

The only good reason I can see for resolving the question in the way your wife advocates presupposes that your failure fully to claim what you are legally entitled to would benefit other policy holders who are disposed to act in the same manner. If (as seems highly likely to me) this is not your actual situation, it would seem morally permissible for you to claim the full amount.