since your desk is close to the office supplies closet, it didn’t take long for you to notice that one of your colleagues, jeffery, visits the office supplies quite frequently. you don’t have any solid evidence that he’s stealing, but you can’t figure out why else he’d be making daily trips into the closet. so you decide to confront jeffery and he says, of course i’m taking office supplies home. and yes, i know that technically it’s stealing, but don’t act for a second like you don’t do it either; heck even the boss takes home a ream or two of paper each month. look, you and i both know we don’t get paid much and life sucks around here, this is one of the few perks we get on this crummy job. what ethical perspective is jeffery using to justify his actions?

Jeffery is using a form of rationalization , an ethical perspective where he justifies stealing office supplies by minimizing the harm and appealing to shared behavior and perceived fairness. He argues that since others, including the boss, also take supplies, and because employees are underpaid and life is difficult, taking supplies is a small perk or compensation rather than outright theft. This reflects a common rationalization that the company is large and impersonal, so the theft is victimless or justified by the company's treatment of employees

. In ethical terms, Jeffery is not following strict utilitarianism, which emphasizes actions that benefit the greatest number fairly and avoid harm to others. Instead, he is justifying his actions based on personal and situational factors, claiming a kind of informal social contract or entitlement due to low pay and poor conditions. This is a moral rationalization to preserve his self-image and justify behavior that technically violates company rules

. Thus, Jeffery’s justification aligns with the rationalization component of the "theft triangle" -he recognizes the act as stealing but believes it is acceptable because of his circumstances and the behavior of others around him