The Shopping Trolley Problem, Explained

A viral tweet derived from a 4chan post raises an interesting moral consideration that is worthy of discussion. In the post, the anonymous philosopher poses the following dictum: 

The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test for whether a person is capable of self-governing. 

The reasoning in support of this claim is quite straightforward: 

The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test for whether a person is capable of self-governing. To return the shopping cart is an easy, convenient task and one which we all recognise is the correct, appropriate thing to do. To return a shopping cart is objectively right.

A customer can take a trolley from outside the building at a trolley rank, wheel it in and guide it through the aisles, where they choose the products they wish to purchase and place these into the trolley for convenience. After the shopping has been paid for, the customer can take the trolley to their car to load up their goods. After their purchases are safely in the car, the shopper is presented with a very minor dilemma: 

What should they do with the trolley? 

It isn’t theirs, it belongs to the supermarket, but it was available for them to use for their convenience. One might argue the supermarket has a business interest in ensuring their customers have trolleys and shift the focus of the question to the supermarket itself, but that would be to miss the point of the exercise. 

The issue revolves around the internal moral logic of the scenario from the perspective of the individual, therefore the practical considerations of the supermarket are not relevant.  What is relevant is the question of what kind of person the customer wants to be, in relation to themselves as a component of society and the supermarket as a social institution. 

In the legal sense, we consider supermarkets to be privately-owned, self-governing businesses. We can also consider supermarkets other ways, in this case, in the sense of the supermarket being a form of public institution that impacts practically every person in society. In Western societies, the supermarket has become the ubiquitous form of food distribution and are generally arranged in the same way. 

Due to the way the supermarket operates, and the large number of people who need to use it, there are certain rules that need to be followed in order to ensure that the supermarket functions as expected. One of these rules is that the trolleys belong to the supermarket for the customers to use; if you wish to be a customer, you will likely need a trolley, and so for the common good of all customers, it becomes an obligation for any individual customer to return the trolley they used as they expect there to be a trolley ready for them the next time they go shopping.

If we wish for the social institution that is the supermarket to function to our satisfaction, this is a required behaviour from the overwhelming majority of people who use it. If a large percentage of this customer base did not return their trolleys, the system would break down, and people would be forced to forage the car park for trollies or provide their own, which would surely be an inconvenience best avoided.  

The anonymous philosopher details the boundaries of this social institution: 

There are no situations other than dire emergencies in which a person is not able to return their cart.

Simultaneously, it is not illegal to abandon your shopping cart. Therefore the shopping cart presents itself as the apex example of whether a person will do what is right without being forced to do it.

No one will punish you for not returning the shopping cart, no one will fine you or kill you for not returning the shopping cart, you gain nothing for returning the shopping cart.

It is understood that in an emergency, any deliberations about importance will see the return of a shopping trolley at the very bottom of the list. There is no legal compulsion, no physical harm will coerce one into returning the trolley, and in the immediate course of events, there is no particular benefit to be derived from this small expenditure of energy. 

The question is about a level of trust in society and the kind of social responsibility each person bears to maintain that trust.

You must return the shopping cart out of the goodness of your own heart. You must return the shopping cart because it is the right thing to do. Because it is correct.

In the context of the supermarket as a social institution, upon which all depend, returning the shopping trolley is certainly correct. Someone else volunteered the energy to do the right thing and return the trolley for you to use, it is proper for you to also return the trolley for the next person; it is your contribution to the social institution of which you have just taken advantage, and you now have an obligation to ensure others can do the same. 

Some people replying to the tweet expressed the sentiment that by returning the trolley, you get back the money that you put into it to detach it from the trolley rank. However, the requirement to put in a deposit before using the trolley is a consequence of the (presumably youthful) people who do not return the trolley, and instead steal it. The fact you have to invest money into using a trolley is a product of the moral failure of the small segment of society who do not abide by the informal social contract that is created by the supermarket system. 

This is actually a civilisational question. What kind of civilisation do we wish to be? What kind of thing will people see when they look at us from the outside? The quality of our social institutions determines the quality of our society as a whole. The maintenance of each social institution is the maintenance of society as a whole. 

Do we wish people to see a society in which the supermarkets are orderly and well-managed, where people uphold the expectation not to take advantage without reciprocation, or do we wish to allow our supermarket use to become a predatory free-for-all, where each person is simply out for themself with no consideration for others?  Do we, through our individual actions, wish to contribute to a state of affairs where no-one has any degree of trust in one another? 

Instead of a well-managed social institution, our supermarkets would surely fall into dereliction and the experience of using them would be turned into an unpleasant necessity. Who wishes to live in a society like this? Presumably nobody would choose this as a desirable outcome, so we must all exercise some personal responsibility to ensure this is not the outcome with which we end up.  

If we wish to have a society in which standards matter, then we must each play our role in upholding these standards. One of these standards are our expectations of convenience when we go to the supermarket to get our shopping.  If others have done their part and returned the trolley, we ought to do our part and return it, too.