"One say a fifth grader gets sent home from school for taking another student’s pencil. When he gets home, his father says why in the world would you take another student’s pencil?
We don’t steal in this family. Your mother and I have taught you better values than that. We expect more from you than that. From now on, if you need a pencil, just tell me. I’ll bring them home from the office!
This story is told by Dan Ariely, an Israeli, and a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University who wrote a book with an evocative title: The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves.
Ariely argues that there is a creative tension within everyone of us. On the one hand, we want to be decent, honest human beings. We want to be mensches. That’s the father who wants to teach his child not to steal [= Yetzer Tov].
On the other hand, it is human nature to want more, which can lead us to get close to the line or to cross the line [= Yetzer Hara] When we cross the line, we rationalize our decisions [called in the mussar sfarim "מורה היתר"] in order to justify them. That’s the father taking pencils home from work.
This creative tension between who we want to be and who we sometimes are plays itself out in interesting ways. For example, Ariely has studied how often diners at a restaurant eat their meal and try to slink off without paying. His answer is almost never. He has talked to many restaurant owners, and they report slinking without paying does not happen.
At the same time, however, many people illegally download intellectual property. Ariely points out that his own books have been illegally downloaded thousands of times. People who would not steal a restaurant meal would and do steal intellectual property on-line. How can that be?
What is the difference between these two cases? The answer is people. In the restaurant case, there are people around. The maître de. The waiter. The chefs. Fellow diners. In the downloading case, there are no other people around. It is just you and your computer. Yes, there are people who are affected by illegal downloads, the owners of that intellectual property. But because you cannot see them, it is easier to rationalize it away."
