One unethical act often opens the floodgates to many, in in unexpected, and unexpectable ways. An ethics alarm failure triggers another, then another. But who would expect that an extramarital affair would cause a passenger plane to have to make an emergency landing, for example?
All the moe reason to keep those alarms in working order.
The distaff side of a couple on the way to a vacation in Bali on a Qatar Airways flight apparently had reason to be suspicious of her husband, so when he fell asleep, she oh-so-carefully manipulated his snoozing thumb to unlock his smartphone with its print, and did some snooping.
Ah HA! The bastard had been cheating on her!
So calmly, maturely, she began screaming and beating on her dastardly spouse so violently that the pilot had to divert the flight and land.
Cascade re-cap:
- Triggering unethical act: Marital infidelity.
1 to 10 Betrayal of Trust Scale score, with 1 being a forgivable lie and 10 being treason, I rate this an 8.
- Secondary unethical act: Appropriating the body of another while he is incapacitated, and doing so to invade his privacy. (No credit for discovering above triggering unethical act.. That’s consequentialism: the result of an act cannot retroactively justify the act.)
Betrayal of Trust Scale score: 6
- Culminating unethical act: Physical violence on a plane endangering innocent passengers, forcing the plane to land, inconveniencing many.
I don’t have a scale for that.
But it was the most unethical of all.
What a fun couple!
Ethics Alarms 
Geeze, what a couple of idiots.
So what score do they get for doing it on a metal tube 30,000′ in the air?
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Maybe a better choice for her would have been to quietly simmer until they departed from the aircraft and then knee him in the cojones.
“One unethical act often opens the floodgates to many, in in unexpected, and unexpectable ways.”
The primary story moving force of Fawlty Towers.
Also PG Wodehouse and Seinfeld.
*she oh-so-carefully manipulated his snoozing thumb to unlock his smartphone with its print, and did some snooping*
This situation, and all others like it, is why, when I’m teaching a class about smart phones to new users, I always highlight that turning on the print unlock function of your phone is just laziness and stupidity. It is trivial to compel someone to provide a fingerprint, allowing access to everything personal and professional they might keep on their device. And you create that vulnerability all so you could save what, a second and a half typing off typing in a pass code?
My employer mandates a pass phrase with numbers and punctuation. Moving between the alphabetic keyboard and the numeric / punctuation one makes it rediculously long so fingerprint is enabled.
I do use another finger. That way, a compelled thumbprint won’t unlock the phone. Of course, being a company phone, they can unlock it for law enforcement if they are more competent than San Bernardino County.
See, this is why you use 6 digit pins instead of fingerprints.
…maybe I’m getting the wrong lesson from this.
What a lovely couple; their child was in tow and the woman was liquored up.
I’m thinking the keepers of the Mile High Club will not be designating a new category…
The couple are evidently Iranian. Wouldn’t that mean the guy was entitled to a minimum of at least four wives? What’s her beef?