This is rather old story, but it’s new to me, and of course none of the accounts, including a “48 Hours” episode, explored the ethics issue involved.
Forrest Fenn (August 22, 1930 – September 7, 2020) was a decorated pilot in the United States Air Force. After his retirement he ran the well-known Arrowsmith-Fenn Gallery, later the Fenn Gallery, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It reportedly grossed around $6 million a year. After Fenn was diagnosed with likely terminal cancer in 1988, he began collecting gold coins and other valuable objects that he placed in a small, ornate box. He decided to hide the box in the wilderness, and to launch a treasure hunt. As his health improved and the terminal cancer diagnosis proved to be wrong, Fenn self-published “The Thrill of the Chase: A Memoir” in 2010. Along with various stories about his exploits, the book also revealed that he had hidden a treasure chest containing gold nuggets, rare coins and gems “in the mountains somewhere north of Santa Fe.” Fenn wrote a (really bad) poem in the chapter titled “Gold and More” that he said contained sufficient clues to allow a clever and dedicated treasure hunter to find the box, with the contents estimated to be worth between one and two million dollars.
The box was finally found in Wyoming in 2020, and shortly after that, Fenn died. His treasure hunt, however, had sent over a hundred thousand would-be Indiana Joneses of both sexes and varying skills into the mountains with Fenn’s doggerel in hand as a treasure map. Many became obsessed with the quest. Five men died in separate incidents looking for Fenn’s box, and several others nearly perished. After the first two fatalities, Fenn was implored to call off the hunt, but he showed no indication that he felt that he had any responsibility for the fatalities, saying in response that all outdoor activities come with some risk. He also insisted that the box “was not in a dangerous place.”
You can guess this question by now. Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…
Was Fenn’s treasure hunt ethical, or was it reckless and irresponsible?
I know my answer, and here are three clues to what it is: “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,””Rat Race,” and “attractive nuisance.”
Ethics Alarms 
I scuba dive and knew two people who died pursuing that adventure. In both cases it was due to diver error not because of the activity. For that reason alone I cannot find fault with the continuance of the treasure hunt.
This is nothing more than a risk reward tradeoff. Treasure seekers evaluated the risks, accepted them and either profited or not. Every economic transaction has risk so enticing people with riches to take risks is no different than hiring people for huge sums to work on a fishing boat in the Bering Straight.
This is different than the movie plots above. I know that the treasure was illicitly obtained before the hunt which makes trying to find it and keep it unethical.
The adage that to have enough liberty we must have too much of it applies here as well. Eliminating activities that could result in physical injury is little different than silencing speech because some find it hurtful.
Not to keep you in suspense, I think Fenn was absolutely accountable for those deaths. Greed is a known motivator for people to be foolish, and fame is as well. It was completely predictable that someone, or many someones, would die in that treasure hunt, they did, and after the first couple no one could claim that Fenn didn’t know what his stunt would do.
The reason I cited the two treasure hunt comedies (the hunt isn’t an accident in “Rat Race”) is because in both films many of the greedy hunters are almost killed—in IAMMMMW, all of them are nearly killed. And my point is that Fenn created that risk.
I think the key thing here is this isn’t a natural pursuit of wealth. The wealth was arbitrarily hidden and the transaction not analogous to market transactions.
And while most entertainment can fall into that kind of paradigm – that’s why we see the NFL as unethical – it is both unnatural AND hazardous. If somehow football was some intrinsically necessary thing – the risk would be justifiable. But it isn’t.
Neither is hiding a vast wealth with the goal of getting people to look for it.
Fishing boats – this is a natural market. We need food. But it’s cloudy here in a way that makes it look analogous to the treasure hunt. Both are risky. But the treasure hunt is an arbitrary thing.
And I’m actually inclined to say that if fishing *really* is as risky (or even more risky) as this random treasure hunt maybe it should be on the chopping block? But not for the same reasons as the treasure hunt. Rather – we can get our protein from far less dangerous and far more predictable and productive means such as land based ranching.
But if we declare fishing unethical on the grounds then that it is an *unnecessary* danger because other options exist, it doesn’t inform us about the *unnecessary* danger of the treasure hunt because that option shouldn’t have naturally existed to begin with.
I’m actually inclined to say the treasure hunt isn’t unethical, but I’m undecided given the other arguments posed here.
Death or injury is a foreseeable event in all activities. I cannot say that the risk can be assessed in this hunt as unreasonable. How many people die going to work for a paycheck to make unnecessary products that people want. Is that paycheck evidence of greed? How many lives are claimed on the Capitol beltway annually? Should people stop protesting government because Capitol police might shoot you as a trespasser? Should people stop acting as human guinea pigs in clinical trials? Should we treat all these offers by others who will bear no risks as unethical because a few suffer damage from their own decision making.
Treasure hunters are not always motivated by greed but by the accomplishment of solving a mystery. It is the thrill of the hunt that drives treasure hunters and is little different than the rush climbers feel attacking a sheer rock face like El Capitan. And, what of intrepid explorers who plumb the depths of the seas to find historical treasures such as the Titanic. Should the idiots who recently got killed in their untested submarine stop all underwater search and recovery efforts? I hope not. I suppose you can argue that some moron with a degree would shortcut safety measures and get himself and others killed in the process. Conceivably, every activity in which financial reward exists is a treasure hunt the only difference is the expected probability of serious injury or death associated with that activity. Irrespective of the risks the activities are voluntary.
Mel Fisher lost a son searching for the Spanish Galleon the Atocha. Despite the loss he kept searching an ultimately found the lost treasure ship. If greed were at play it was from the state of Florida that claimed ownership without incurring any financial or physical risk . Fisher could have liquidated all the gold but instead created a museum in Key West where the treasure can be seen and touched by visitors. We all benefit from these activities.
What Chris writes are my thoughts exactly, just much better fleshed out and explained than I would have managed. Good comment.
So—if an associate or advisor to Fenn had said,”You know, you’re making people search in the wilderness for this. If it’s hidden as well as you say, many people will search for it, and that means they will place themselves in harm’s way. I estimate, based on computer simulations, chance and what we know about the dangers involved, approximately one person will die for every 50,000 treks into the wild. On the other hand, you could hide the box just as effectively in an urban area, and the chance of death would be much smaller, even negligible” would you still argue that it was ethical for him to set up the hunt? Let’s say two people died along with the first 100,000 hunters, and the aide said, “See? My calculations seem to be coming true. Are you sure you want to continue with this?”
Or let’s say twice as many people died in the first ten years after he hid the box. Then would he have an obligation to stop the hunt? 20 people? 50?
This is, essentially, the NFL argument in a slightly different context.
To a lesser extent, it is the argument for going to college to be a physician or any other activity where the monetary reward is much higher than the cost of getting it.
zoomie
There is plenty of data to assess the danger of high impact physical collisions resulting in CTE. I don’t see the comparison unless there is adequate data available to assess the risk of looking for a box somewhere in the country. In this case, there is no immediate likelihood that evaluating clues to locate this treasure will result in physical harm unless the clues point people in the direction of the treasure in which a known significant danger exists.
I’m sorry–I meant that this is essentially a risk-benefit reward issue, with people assessing risk of injury/death as they see fit. As for lack of knowledge, treasure hunters presumably factor in the lack of perfect knowledge about the risks they are likely to meet as part of their assessment. NFL players, scuba divers, sky divers and other risk takers assess the risk-benefit differently, but it is still adults consenting to undertake dangerous activities. In short, I agree with you regarding the ethics issue.
Lost treasure picks at some primal human desire buried deep in the psyche. Other books and films Jack doesn’t cite like Treasure Island, National Treasure, and events like the D. B. Cooper airplane robbery mystery.
I don’t think that the deaths of people seeking the treasure is sufficient justification for calling the contest unethical. Just before reading this post I read of a Colorado family that ran off to the wilderness in response to some online speech: https://www.axios.com/local/denver/2024/03/21/colorado-deaths-off-the-grid-rebecca-talon-vance
Certainly the clues are speech. Planting the treasure is beyond plain speech, but not really a public nuisance if it only got tens of thousands out to a wide geographic area over a period of decades. Really all speech exists to compel or elicit some kind of response, and this response is very similar to the writings of John Muir.
I see this contest as approaching the certainly unethical institution of gambling. Gambling also triggers greed endorphins of the brain, but the deprivation of those addicted to gambling is directly benefiting the casino. There’s no transfer of deprivation to Fenn by people seeking the treasure, and the recreational benefits are much greater to the seekers than watching the dials spin on a one-armed bandit.
I’m voting not unethical, but with a degree of ick. Rat Race has a higher unethical factor because the treasure sponsors were exploiting seekers for their own amusement. IAMMMMW involved stolen goods, law enforcement entrapping citizens to do the recovery, and also the chief planning to abscond with it.
I’ll have to go with Chris & Co. on this one. Unless the treasure was a hoax, was booby-trapped, or made dangerous to locate (none of that seems to be the case) there’s no undue hazard created by setting up the adventure. People take risks all the time, even on more mundane endeavors, and are generally considered to be responsible for deciding if the risk/reward involved is acceptable to them. If a store has a sale, is it at fault for accidents that occur when people are drawn out and brave the known dangers of driving on public roads?
Activities in wilderness, or even semi-wilderness areas are known to carry certain risks, yet folks flock to them, often with their children. Sometimes the government even encourages it (national parks, anyone?), and people are injured or die.
When I was 14, I participated in a 150 mile Boy Scout canoe trip on the Minnesota-Canada border. We carried no life jackets (it was the 1960’s), and had only two adults with us. There were wildlife, including bears, rainstorms on the water, significant rapids, and almost no other humans anywhere near, nor any means of swiftly contacting anyone or obtaining additional supplies. We knew this going in, and had trained for and prepared to accept the conditions.
Years later, my son and I did a 10 day backpacking trek with a similar group (I was then one of the two adults) in the high plains of New Mexico, …in the summer. Again, we were prepared, but usually at least half a day from outside assistance, and with no phone service or other means of contact. We had to guard against attracting bears and other wildlife. Another group we encountered on our trail had seen a cougar pacing them for part of the day.
The son, one daughter, and I are scuba certified.
Point is, life doesn’t have to be a choice between being a daredevil, or cowering at your computer while wearing a mask and anguishing over the idea of leaving the house and seeing someone sneeze.
If anything, Fenn should be celebrated for resisting the further wussification of America. It wasn’t his fault some couldn’t properly handle the challenge.