Hypothetical moral question.

[th3w01f]

Here’s a question presented to me by my wife this evening and I know how I feel about it but I’m curious about how others feel.

Here’s the situation. A couple is paying for their child to take a “class”; now this class isn’t cheap and runs about $100 a month for their child to attend. The father feels this would also be a valuable class for him to attend but sadly they can’t afford it at the moment.

His solution is to ask the wife’s parents to pay for the child’s class and instead use the money to pay for the himself.

Now this is just splitting hairs but it seems to me the honest thing to do is to tell the grandparents that they will be paying for the child’s class and not the fathers and then use their own money to pay for the father’s classes. The whole way it was presented just seems kind of underhanded to me, especially since the adult price (that the grandparents will be paying) is higher than the kids price.

I don’t know, it just makes me feel kind of dirty but maybe that’s because I have a Larue bumper sticker and not an Obama one. J

[th3w01f]

Ok, I guess that was pretty specific and I apologize if the other party is on this site.... although I doubt it with all the left wing bumper stickers.

[stevelkinevil]

seems like intentional and flagrant deception, and as such unacceptable.

[Monky]

If you're not honest, it could bite you in the ass when you ACTUALLY have a NEED and not a WANT.

[Bang][Bang][Bang][Bang]

[T-Giv]

^ Second that.

[Irving]

You explained it one way that seemed more honest, then the last sentence you switched.

So are you saying it'd be okay the way you explained it, but they are doing it the other way?

[th3w01f]

You explained it one way that seemed more honest, then the last sentence you switched.

So are you saying it'd be okay the way you explained it, but they are doing it the other way?

I didn't mean to switch. I meant it's kind of splitting hairs to say can you pay $100 for this and then take the money and use it else ware while you're still paying the original $100. In this case I think it's more like asking for $140 while you're paying the original $100 so may not be splitting hairs.

Even if the amounts were identical I still would have approached it differently with the grandparents. If i bought my kids something for $100 and then decided I wanted the same thing but didn't have the $$$, I wouldn't ask the grandparents to buy the original $100 item for the kids so I could buy my own.

[Fmedges]

I hate asking for money so I would just not attend instead of asking for anything. Lying or deceiving people is shitty, especially to people who would be kind enough to give you money for anything.

[Irving]

I hate asking for money so I would just not attend instead of asking for anything. Lying or deceiving people is shitty, especially to people who would be kind enough to give you money for anything.

This is my stance by the way.

[sniper7]

Im sure if they REALLY wanted to afford it, they could. Tv cell phones internet etc could be put off until the class was done.

[Dr_Fwd]

Im sure if they REALLY wanted to afford it, they could. Tv cell phones internet etc could be put off until the class was done.

Exactly.

[fairrpe86]

Im sure if they REALLY wanted to afford it, they could. Tv cell phones internet etc could be put off until the class was done.

I agree 100%!!

[Pancho Villa]

Just be honest about the whole situation.

I have learned over time that deception or even a very small misrepresentation is simply dishonesty and it will fuck you over sooner rather than later.

[Whistler]

What would the Lone Ranger do?

As a grandparent I'll give my grandkids whatever they want within reason but the Son-in-law is a grown man and I'd be pissed to be deceived like that. Grow some hair and ask me if it's that important.

[cstone]

Lots of good answers here. I knew there was a reason I like hanging out here [Coffee]

I see this as an issue of Integrity. Here is a brief article if you are so inclined: http://christinelivingston.com/2011/12/integrity/

IMO, she does a nice job of explaining why your integrity is about you.

Be safe.

[TheBelly]

Deception, in any shape or form will come back to bite you.

What you do in darkness will always eventually come to light. That is something that you cannot get around.

[UncleDave]

Only you can take your integrity away from yourself. Once you compromise your principles once it gets easier the next time. For some reason most today don't understand that there are no small deceptions our compromises to ethics.

[Pancho Villa]

Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud—that an attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality, where you become a pawn of their blindness, a slave of their non-thinking and their evasions, while their intelligence, their rationality, their perceptiveness become the enemies you have to dread and flee—that you do not care to live as a dependent, least of all a dependent on the stupidity of others, or as a fool whose source of values is the fools he succeeds in fooling—that honesty is not a social duty, not a sacrifice for the sake of others, but the most profoundly selfish virtue man can practice: his refusal to sacrifice the reality of his own existence to the deluded consciousness of others.

- Ayn Rand, For The New Intellectual

[CO Hugh]

Im sure if they REALLY wanted to afford it, they could. Tv cell phones internet etc could be put off until the class was done.

I completely agree. Plus what kind of father seeks handouts from others. There was a time when asking for handouts would have been shameful; you would only have done it if you were starving, not for a class.

If the class is that important the children can attend on Dad's dime, and dad doesn't go.

Set a good example for the children of an independent freeman; not a slavish serf!

[bigshane]

We often provide our children with tools and experiences that we ourselves might benefit from, but the money goes toward bettering them while we still have the chance to. It's called parenting.

[CapLock]

I ain't askin nobody for nothin, If can't get it on my own.

oh god that song makes me laugh my ass off. Hillbilly as shit but a solid statement none the less.