@glacial Not a financial transaction, no. I’m using “debt” and “cost” in their larger sense: as obligation. I’m saying that the cup lying there represents a debt unpaid. Isn’t that how it looks to someone seeing it lying there? Someone failed to assume the whole cost (in terms of obligation) of that cup of coffee.
Would you say that anyone passing by that cup is ethically obliged to pick it up and dispose of it? Most people here seem to think that just passing it by is an ethically neutral act. If I pick it up at all, it’s because I subscribe to the values you describe, and want to make my town a cleaner, tidier place. The people who’ve walked right by it may kind of want that too, but not enough to take any action.
If I move the cup, have I worsened the situation? Maybe. Or I may have made it somewhat better. That’s hard to know. Maybe I conceal it better when I put it down. What if I’d never picked it up at all, but had nudged it up under a bush so that it wouldn’t be in open view? Is that materially different from picking it up and carrying it 45 minutes, then putting it under a bush? Isn’t carting the cup off to a landfill just a way of transferring the problem to a less conspicuous spot?
I absolutely agree, by the way, that the best solution is to make sure it ends up in a trash can. I’ve carried lots of other people’s trash very long distances, and can’t recall ever having put any back down. But this simple problem seems to open lots of interesting questions that aren’t easily disposed of.