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Civic honesty around the globe

(science.sciencemag.org)
209 points ojosilva | 1 comments | 20 Jun 19 19:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.217s | source
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kazinator ◴[20 Jun 19 20:21 UTC] No.20236932[source]▶
Returning a wallet is just "honesty", not "civic honesty".

"Civic honesty" is, oh, finding five dollars and declaring it as income on your next tax return.

civic: "of or relating to a citizen, a city, citizenship, or community affairs" (merriam-webster).

replies(2): >>20237246 #>>20237395 #
johnfactorial ◴[20 Jun 19 21:06 UTC] No.20237395[source]▶
The study was specifically careful to make the wallet appear to have been lost by a member of the local community. Returning the wallet is an act of civic honesty as it relates to helping someone who is essentially a member of the same community, someone arguably bound by the same social contract as the person given the "lost" wallet.
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1. kazinator ◴[20 Jun 19 21:13 UTC] No.20237442[source]▶
Interesting. Last time I returned a lost wallet, it was to New Jersey (I'm on Canada's West coast, where this was found). People will return wallets from outside of their community. It seems odd to restrict them that way and then ascribe the motivation to some "civic" reasoning.