system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Accepting an exchange on my shop vac wasn't ethical.

**Edit:** I added another pretty major chapter to the story at the very end that I also feel is unethical on my part that I would like to include in the discussion.

So, this is a different one, related to consumer ethics. Looking back on what happened, I am pretty sure I didn't act perfectly ethically, though I'm also not too bothered about it. 

Without getting bogged down in the details, I broke a small part on a shop vac a bought a few months ago. There's a plastic nut that screws onto a plastic stud and I over tightened it and snapped off the stud. All my fault. I brought that part into my local Sears Hometown Store to see if I could buy a new part. The employee there suggested that I just bring in the whole vacuum and they'll give me a whole new one. I clarified that I broke it myself, and he confirmed it will be fine, saying something along the lines of "corporate reimburses us for replacements". 

It seems clear this replacement was outside the terms of the warranty, unless you argue that the stud had a material defect that caused it to snap off (edit for delta; people have indeed made that argument well enough to change my view) :

> FOR ONE YEAR from the date of sale this product is warranted against defects in material or workmanship.

>WITH PROOF OF SALE a defective product will be replaced free of charge.

>This warranty does not cover expendable parts that can wear out from normal use within the warranty period. 

What makes this unethical is that I think the local store replacing it for me will be accepting corporate money under false pretenses - I am assuming that they just file a claim for a fulfilled warranty and get reimbursed their cost for the replacement product. So the store will be slightly lying accepting warranty reimbursement for something that isn't technically covered under warranty. 

***EDIT:*** awarded a delta because my conclusion hinges on the assumption that the store had to lie to corporate to get reimbursed. It is entirely possible (though less than likely in my estimation) that corporate fully supports these out-of-warranty replacements and doesn't mind footing the bill at all. [end of edit]

Anyway, I know it's not a big deal and no party was seriously harmed, and Sears may even benefit in the long run by my increased loyalty, but I don't think that changes the ethics of this act in particular. If one of your friends stole your TV and I knowingly accepted it, that would be wrong...even if I later gave you two TVs. 

So, CMV.

***CHAPTER 2***

Okay so the next day when I went back to do the exchange, I brought back the vacuum. And only the vacuum. I intentionally kept the extra accessories that came in the box; the hose, the attachments, the filter, etc. They gave me a new vacuum in retail packaging for the exchange, so I got another hose, filter, attachments, etc. 

That part is more clearly unethical on my part, right? To be clear, I never hid the fact that all I was bringing back was the vac, though I also didn't ask whether they wanted the accessories back either.
gpt
Like all ethical questions, the answer depends on your ethical framework.

Consequentialists might argue that what matters most is how happy the parties involved ended up. By that measure, you did nothing wrong.

Deontologists might stick on the idea that you broke a core rule of honesty.

Virtue ethicists might ask you if what you did reflected good qualities.

And most people will pick and choose between the three, mashed up with some random traditions and whether they like you.

But the bottom line is that you can't definitively answer an ethical question except in the terms of a particular ethical framework. There's a fair amount of overlap in the final output of the big three systems, but ethical uncertainty tends to lie in the places they diverge.

So your ethical question can only be answered to the extent that you commit to a particular framework.