Harvard Professor Eugene Soltes, author of the 2016 book, “Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal,” shared that the main challenge faced by most of the notorious white-collar criminals he interviewed, including Bernard Madoff and Dennis Kozlowski who have previously been mentioned in this text, is one we all face as humans: We’re not hardwired to detect harm that we’re doing when the harm is distant. It’s not enough to know the difference between right and wrong. One actually has to feel that one’s actions are harmful to avoid going forward. So take something like insider trading. You don’t see the victims. It’s actually impossible in many instances to identify who those victims are. So it’s not surprising that if you engage in insider trading, there’s not going to be any internal alarm screaming out that you’re engaging in some extraordinarily heinous crime.71 As a result, Professor Soltes remarked that he was not worried that the executives would steal five dollars from his wallet. “They’re socialized. They wouldn’t do that.” They might, however, inflict a much greater harm taking far more from his retirement or investment accounts. 

Question

Would you feel more guilty about stealing money, even a small amount, out of a classmate’s backpack than you would taking far more out of the pocket of a jacket hanging in the coat room of a large conference hotel? Why or why not?