Notes Toward a Heuristic of Express Lane Ethics
Over at Vox, Andrew Prokop summarizes a new poll about Americans' ethical views. Here's one result:
The US public is staunchly opposed to the apparently widespread problem of supermarket express lane abuse, with a clear majority saying they think multiple pieces of the same fruit should count as multiple items. Strangely, though, 20 percent of respondents apparently think there should be different rules for different shoppers.
OK, that is strange. Why should there be different rules for different shoppers? Is the idea here that we should bend the rules for the elderly or the infirm? Or for pregnant women? Or what?
As for fruit, it depends, doesn't it? Surely a bunch of bananas still counts as one item? Or tomatoes on the vine? (Which I love because I adore the aroma of the vine.) How about two bunches of bananas? Does it make a difference if stuff is in a bag? Five apples in a plastic bag gets weighed as one item, whereas five apples rolling around in your basket have to be placed on the scale individually before the whole bunch of them gets weighed. Does that matter? Help me out here, hive mind.