Do ethicists steal more books? (2009) [pdf]

I checked several math books out of the library over the summer, and they were sitting on my desk when the library emailed me saying they were 'missing', and I was being charged to replace them. I took them back to the library and they aren't missing anymore. Using the methods of this paper, in the interim period while they were declared missing but before I took them back, they were considered 'stolen', even though my account was charged a standard book replacement fee which was well above the cost to replace each book.

So 'missing' is quite often the same as 'extra overdue'. (in most university libraries you end up paying to replace any book you don't return anyway, so I doubt any ethicist would consider it stealing, but that isn't relevant to my point)

If ethicists just check out a lot of books, and they need them for longer than other people use other books, or else ethics books are in short supply so people often request them (so that they can't be renewed and end up being overdue and thus missing more quickly than other books), you would recreate this same data while all of the ethics books could still make their way back to the library in the end.

Here is another possibility: Students check out books from the library so they can avoid buying that books for a class. This would seem to be more common in philosophy than in other subjects because philosophy (or english literature say) tends to require original texts while other subjects have dedicated textbooks, and dedicated textbooks aren't generally held by libraries. If a student takes out a book but it is then put on hold by a professor, it generally is either recalled to the library or can't be renewed. The student just holds the book until the end of the semester, but it is marked missing by the time it is returned at the end of the semester since the hold accelerated the date it was due. Since the data was collected between "October 17 and December 13, 2006,", it is unclear what the data would look like if you did the sampling between say June and August.

I wonder why it isn't "Do librarians lose more ethics books?" After all, we don't know if it's ethicists stealing the books, or punk kids stealing the books, or books getting disproportionately misplaced, or library assistants misfiling the books because they can't spell Nietzsche.

Maybe the works of John Stuart Mill (off the charts in terms of missing) are tastiest to vermin.

I don't think ethicists get paid on par with physicians or attorneys, and ethicists-in-training are likely disproportionately poor as a church mouse. An antique calculus text would not be in use in a modern college setting but ethics still likely uses the original editions. They can have their $250 copy of an ethics text back when the term is over. Or maybe I'll just hold on to it, since it looks so nice on the shelf, and why take the risk of getting busted returning it?

Finally, the fact they're disproportionately missing to overdue suggests that some are being stolen then resold to ethicists, who perhaps are too ethical to borrow a book without returning it but not too ethical to buy a stolen version of same.

Interesting. Maybe they feel less shame about stealing a book with a narrow scope and with few potential readers, when the book is very useful to them.

In my work experience are law students the most thievish patrons at academic libraries. A sentiment I have heard echoed by several colleagues.

Modern day ethicists employed at universities do not, generally speaking, found their beliefs within a traditional religious framework. They do not believe in an afterlife and punishment by an all-knowing God. Therefore, as long as they are not caught, it is of no import to them if they break the ethical systems that they analyse, because they, much more than Marx's 'masses', know that the ethical systems they study have neither foundations in reality nor a means of enforcement. To them, we are evolved apes who, by a process of physical and psychological evolution, have developed a culture of imaginary rights and wrongs that say you should not, e.g. steal. However, they believe that they will derive some positive benefit by stealing and so simply do so knowing, in their minds, that there is no authentic reason not to.

Maybe the ethicists are just more absent-minded? Missing books doesn't necessarily mean dishonest borrowers.

Ethicists should overall should have the super power to commit no crime because of their amazing ability to justify all of their actions through complex logical arguments. This a boon to society as the ability to justify anything allows you to do anything and remain ethical, or maybe the entire field is useless.

It's only stealing if you refuse to pay the appropriate overdue fees. If you return the book and pay the fees then it's called "supporting the library."

I support the library a lot.

Ethicists know what they're doing. Stealing books obviously can't be such a big deal.