Moral Perseverance

Well, I'm about 1/4 of the way through the first draft of my short story, its going along just fine and I'm enjoying it. It'll still be awhile before I'm ready to post it here though. So, I figured I'll discuss something new today.

Every night, in my attempts to lose weight, I like to go for a 3 mile walk. This is great for me as an aspiring writer as it gives me a chance to think and come up with ideas for what to write about, it also just allows me to come up with some strange ideas and questions to ponder. The short story that I'm working on is actually based on one of these ideas that I think we've all thought about at certain points in our lives.

I consider myself a decently moral person, I don't go around sleeping with any woman I can, I've never stolen anything and I hate hurting people. So not to toot my own horn, but I'm pretty sure I'm a good person. Yet, I can't help but wonder if I really am moral on the inside, or if its just situational morality. I mean, perhaps the only reason I'm "moral" is because its the easy route. Maybe I don't steal because from a cost-benefit analysis I'm more scared of getting in trouble than whatever the potential stolen item is worth to me. Maybe I don't sleep around because I'm not attractive enough to pick up tons of women. I can tell you that to an extent these are true, I don't want to get arrested and I'm not very good with women. I actually admit that the only reason I follow laws are out of a fear of consequence, but this is due to me being an anarchist. I don't acknowledge state laws as having any authority over me, they have force and that is it. So the question of whether or not I'm a moral person is difficult.

I think that the only way to tell if someone is moral is to put them in a situation that truly tests their morals. If you tell someone, "There's a thousand dollars sitting in that open register, and nobody will ever know if you take it," will they take it? Yes, we have those guys that give a cashier money back if they give them the wrong change, but that's nothing, 10 or 15 dollars. What if we put them in a situation where they could truly gain a lot from going against their morals, without suffering any consequences? I like to think that I would rise above the temptation and not do it, but if the reward is great enough I can't deny that I might give in.