I am at a loss as to how to categorize this strange story, as Mallory’s outburst above suggests.
Thieves broke into the opulent home of celebrated Bollywood film director M. Manikandan, escaping with gold, silver and cash. A few days later, however, someone left a small plastic bag outside the mansion’s gates. It was carefully fastened shut, and contained an object wrapped in a white handkerchief. Upon unwrapping it, the director discovered a medal he had won in 2021 for one of his acclaimed films. Accompanying the prestigious award was a handwritten note from the burglars (in Tamil, one of India’s many regional languages). “Sir, please forgive us,” the note read. “Your hard work belongs to you alone.”
I’m sure the director was happy to have his medal back, but what is that? A futile attempt at ethical thievery? (Wasn’t everything taken the director’s “alone”?) The number of rationalizations the episode could stand for is staggering. Among them: #22, “There are worse things,” for now the burglars can argue their crime had mitigating features. #3A Pollyanna’s Mantra, or “Every cloud has a silver lining.” Some bizarre variation on #13A The Road To Hell, or “I didn’t mean any harm!,” as in “We don’t want to take anything you’d miss too much.” #21. Ethics Accounting, or “I made up for that,” as if by giving back the medal, everything is square. #21A. The Criminal’s Redemption, or “It’s just a small part of what I am!”: “See, we’re not all bad!” (And now I’m wondering it that’s a separate rationalization…). #38. The Miscreant’s Mulligan or “Give him/her/them/me a break!” #60. The Ironic Rationalization, or “It’s the right thing to do”: No, the right thing to do would be to return everything that was stolen, not just a single item. #65. Irrelevant Civility or “But I was nice about it!”
I’m sure there are more: those were the first ones that leapt to mind.
The ethics bottom line is that it’s impossible to be an ethical burglar, just as its impossible to be an ethical rapist, who tries to make his victim as comfortable as possible.
Ethics Alarms 
”I am at a loss as to how to categorize this strange story, as Mallory’s outburst above suggests.”
what does WordPress say?
one thought, beyond all the rationalizations: they returned an item they could not sell without exposing themselves.
does that make me a cynic?
-Jut
No, but it makes me an idiot, because I didn’t think of that. But it’s a valid explanation for Mallory.
probably does not make you an idiot. (PROBABLY!)
knowing what else was taken would lend credence to or discredit my hypothesis.
for all we know, there are other identifiable items. But, we don’t know (and even the burglars may not know).
In other words: what we know is consistent with both my cynical view and your Pseudo-Ethical explanation. There is no way to decide, based upon what we know, which is the better explanation.
-Jut
thinking about it a tad more, if they were worried about something they could not sell, they could have just trashed it.
but, this item personalized the offense and (perhaps) national pride interfered with the crook’s baser instincts.
I mean, if I were so inclined to burglarize Mary Lou Retton (did I just date myself?), I might return any medals accidentally stolen back to her out of a level of respect that exceeded the the level that allowed the burglary to begin with.
Now, that raises a new issue: did they know who they were robbing? Maybe, they only realized after the fact that they had burglarized a national treasure. Of course they would return an award. But, who needs cash and gold: that’s all fungible anyway. He can just replace the money and gold with new money and gold.
-Jut
Unless he ends up like Rob Reiner, hitting a dead end in a career that was stellar and suddenly bomb after bomb after bomb.
Reminds me of a story of Fred Rogers’ VW Beetle returning to the PBS studios where it has disappeared earlier, right after the local news broke the story.
a similar note was left apologizing for not knowing who the vision was at the time of theft.
Combined with the “ethical shoplifter” of the other day, one can only assume theaves operate on similar rationalizations in place that every person not Fred Rogers had it coming or something.