Ethics vs Loyalty

[color="#cc8899"]Which is more important to you? I came into a situation the other day where I observed a conversation take place in a gaming group wherein one user asked another to take credit for a false bid on an item he was selling on some forum sites. The user agreed, on the condition that he didn't actually have to say anything. I screencapped this conversation and posted it in the user's auction threads as a warning to the bidders, and was kicked from the group for exposing him. After making a rather inflamatory thread regarding this, I found that far more people were angry with me for "snitching" than him for fabricating bids in an auction.

So I ask you, the members of Southperry, which is more important to you: Loyalty to one's friends or a sense of ethics? Would you expose the wrongdoings of a friend, co-worker, neighbor, family member, etc, if they were negatively impacting others? People that know me well know I was in a similar (though much more extreme) situation that resulted in someone getting kicked out of the armed forces, and know where I stand on the issue. Where do you?

-Edit-
No intermediate or undecided answer was posted for a reason. If you don't know where you stand, please explain why in a post. Ofc, feel free to explain why you stand where you do regardless of your answer.[/COLOR]

my vote is with ethics.

friends come and go, and the enemy of today may be the ally of tomorrow, but if one cannot stand to live with ones self, then one has no life to live.
by that its better to stand resolute and alone than to stand hollowed and surrounded. least thats my POV.

I don't know if it will surprise anyone, but my vote is with ethics. If a friend does something so out there that they are worth exposing, something that will hurt other people, they're not the kind of people I would want to be associating with. My loyalty is to the right thing. That isn't saying I haven't had lapses in judgement.

[color="#cc8899"]One more question, but not one I find pollworthy at this time - how quickly does your stance change as the degree of the offense declines? Will you still expose/rat out (w/e your word choice) the person if they are:


Shoplifting candy
Lying to their significant other (non-"permanent" relationship, ie non marriage/equivalent) (minor lie, ie "No I didn't go out drinking tonight")
Lying to their spouse (see above)
Planning to "jump" someone (beat up with a mob of friends, usually with little warning)
Cheating on significant other
Cheating on spouse
Theft of something worth more than $20
Taking drugs while in any uniformed service (Police, Military, etc)
Major theft from friend/family/etc ($50+)[/COLOR]

[color="#cc8899"]One more question, but not one I find pollworthy at this time - how quickly does your stance change as the degree of the offense declines? Will you still expose/rat out (w/e your word choice) the person if they are:


Shoplifting candy loyalty
Lying to their significant other (non-"permanent" relationship, ie non marriage/equivalent) (minor lie, ie "No I didn't go out drinking tonight") loyalty, those things have a habit of coming out themselves
Lying to their spouse (see above) see above
Planning to "jump" someone (beat up with a mob of friends, usually with little warning) ethics
Cheating on significant other ethics
Cheating on spouse ethics
Theft of something worth more than $20 ethics
Taking drugs while in any uniformed service (Police, Military, etc) ethics
Major theft from friend/family/etc ($50+) ethics[/COLOR]

Anonymous tips would usually follow some of those ethics ones.

If your friend stole money from a bank, and you knew about it but didn't witness it, would you report him or keep your mouth shut?

My own morality tells me that it's unethical to betray.

Anonymous tips would usually follow some of those ethics ones.

[color="#cc8899"]Yea, usually the best way to go about it. I stand about the same, especially with regards to organized groups, be they in games or real world. I expect leadership to handle issues of ethics responsibly, and when they do not (especially with non-real world) I have a problem. The issue that I mentioned in this thread regarding a scam actually had the leader of the gaming clan as the false bid, which is absolutely contemptable. I earned myself quite a few angry posts by extending the position of the leader onto the entire group (if the admin of a group is allowing an activity to take place, it becomes the policy of the group by proxy, and I expect the group to stand up to their leadership if they disagree with that. The group did not, and so I accredited the same tolerance for scamming onto them). Anyways, in retrospect, I'm expecting too much from casual gamers to have a structure like that in place.

ANYWAYS. I have twice before "ratted out" people in a group that have been what I considered a significant problem, and have no trouble doing so again if the situation should come up.[/COLOR]

If your friend stole money from a bank, and you knew about it but didn't witness it, would you report him or keep your mouth shut?

My own morality tells me that it's unethical to betray.

[color="#cc8899"]You're betraying FAR more people by not reporting the friend. Those people put their faith in the bank, and by proxy, anyone in the situation to help the bank when they have information about a crime.

1 friend rightfully gets punished for committing a crime, or, depending on the scale of the robbery, countless people see increased loan costs, lowered returns on savings, and the bank may collapse and go out of business. Your responsibility as a friend is to help them where possible. Your responsibility as a HUMAN BEING is to help the masses where possible. So, by your morality, I'm ratting the S.O.B. out.

Let's take it one step further: say you are trying for a major loan for college from the bank. Bank just lost $100,000 from the robbery. Now that $10,000 loan you wanted is far less likely to be granted, and if it is, you're going to be paying a lot more in interest than you were previously planning. Now your "friend" has betrayed you without provocation on your part. [/COLOR]

It depends how deep the friendship runs, but I'm pretty sure that the friend would be caught eventually. I just don't want to be the one to blame for such betrayal. If I were to report him, I'd report anonymously and I wouldn't testify in court, unlike you, who blatantly ratted out that trade and shoved it in the guy's face.

And I disagree with your responsibility as a human being thing. Help the masses? What is this, Darwin's theory of evolution, survival of the species?

It depends how deep the friendship runs, but I'm pretty sure that the friend would be caught eventually. I just don't want to be the one to blame for such betrayal. If I were to report him, I'd report anonymously and I wouldn't testify in court, unlike you, who blatantly ratted out that trade and shoved it in the guy's face.

And I disagree with your responsibility as a human being thing. Help the masses? What is this, Darwin's theory of evolution, survival of the species?

Human beings survived BECAUSE we support each other. Tribes, cities, civilizations, empires, we are built on the group, the community, not the individual, even with capitalism and democracy, the group is still a dominant factor in our lives. And yes, I was a bit rude and harsh regarding the person in question, but he'd also been antagonizing me for quite a while. I also did not "shove it in his face." I posted a screenshot of the conversation, said "I wouldn't trust his c/o" and left. I never even said a word to him about it until he brought it up. It was not until after I was kicked from the clan for ratting him out that I made the drama thread.

It also survived because people have compassion and the capacity for forgiveness.

It also survived because people have compassion and the capacity for forgiveness.

You cannot forgive a crime if the culprit is not known.

I would say ethics, but I would have handled the situation differently from you.

If you know someone is doing something wrong, approach him about it and tell him you think it's wrong and why. If he refuses to listen, bring another person and have both of you tell him it's wrong. If he refuses to listen again, then expose him. At least give the guy a chance to admit his fault and change his ways before causing a public backlash against him.

I would say ethics, but I would have handled the situation differently from you.

If you know someone is doing something wrong, approach him about it and tell him you think it's wrong and why. If he refuses to listen, bring another person and have both of you tell him it's wrong. If he refuses to listen again, then expose him. At least give the guy a chance to admit his fault and change his ways before causing a public backlash against him.

And I admit I handled it wrongly. I should have addressed the situation with him first. I still would have either exposed him or made him expose himself, but agreed, the way I handled it was wrong. I admitted that in the drama thread as well. I let the fact that he had been harassing me get to me enough to jump into action without talking to him first.

I never understood the whole "snitches get stitches" thing. It was perfectly fine in Elementary school where everyone would rat on the other person to look cool, but as soon as i hit middle school "WHY Dah F**K You go and do that for, hoe?". Was the same in High School. The mentality has travelled into the minds of the community members as well, and as a result, many crimes go unreported.

When it concerns something of vital importance (i.e. info on a murder/robbery), i'd go for the "snitching" Why? Becuase if you can help someone find the person responsible for a serious crime, that should be payment enough.
When concerns of stupidity and non-importance, I'll ignore it because most of the time, those type of people won't react maturely to the situation.

As per your situation, i probably would have ignored it as random jibber-jabber.