@philosophyminis: A few years ago, the philosophy-leaning wings of the internet were talking about something first posted on Reddit. It's the closest you can come to a modern morality meme. It's called the shopping cart litmus test. The test is whether somebody returns their shopping cart to the stack once they are finished with it. As the original anonymous poster put it: ‘Returning a shopping cart is an easy, convenient task, and one which we all recognise as correct and appropriate to do. It's not illegal to abandon your shopping cart, and no one will punish you for not returning the shopping cart. You must return the shopping cart because it is the right thing to do, and because it is correct.’ The original poster argued that the shopping cart litmus test can tell you a lot about somebody's moral character, because when you are not being watched, there is no hope of reward or fear of punishment. And how you behave then will reveal a lot about your moral fibre. But as far back as Plato, it was argued that morality just comes down to being watched. It has nothing to do with right or wrong facts, but social conformity and fear. Of course, this has many implications, for example, in religion, where an omniscient God is thought to be watching all the time, but also in the modern 24/7 surveillance state where someone, somewhere might be watching you. So do you always return the shopping cart after you're done? And do you think it can tell us a lot about who somebody is?

Jonny Thomson

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Thursday 26 June 2025 13:30:00 GMT