What to do when your jerk friends wreck your housemate’s bike?
Write the Ethicist! BTW, if you’re not an advice-column loving freak like myself, the Ethicist is written once a week by Randy Cohen for the New York Times. Unsurprisingly, he answers ethical questions. Here’s the second question today:
I rent a house with seven other college students who gave me permission to host a party. After the party, we learned that a housemate’s borrowed bike, left in a downstairs hallway, had been vandalized, presumably by a party guest. Given that no one will confess to the crime, am I responsible for the repairs? KAVITA VINEKAR, PHILADELPHIA
And then take it to Bike Church!
Update: Vinekar and a housemate took the bike to the nonprofit Neighborhood Bike Works, which provides tools and instructions for bicycle repair. The burden of buying a part and fixing the bike was shared by some of the housemates and the bike’s owner.
Yay, Neighborhood Bike Works, silly national advice column shoutout! What’s the ethical thing to do? Well, let’s just say that if it was followed by my college housemates, I would soon be receiving a half-liter of codeine cough syrup in the mail with a letter saying “Sorry about that one time I invited all the freshmen over.”
Click through the link to read Cohen’s advice!
Little known fact: Indians, such as Kavita Vinekar, are born without a moral compass. We the extra brain capacity is commonly used for math. Now you know!
reply: