Quick Morality Question With Hypotheticals
 

I would have kept it unless I saw the person who dropped it. If I didn't take it someone else would, and chances are slim it'd be the person who lost it.

In Theory

Well, you're (hypothetically) out (hypothetically) free (hypothetical) money. Hypothetically.

I would have kept it, but then I am kind of a greedy asshole.

I mean, it's stealing. Just because someone leaves their shit lying around unsupervised in a public place doesn't make it unowned, unless you subscribe to the laws of a 5 year old playing finders keepers.

On the other hand, like Liz says, the person who dropped it almost certainly isn't going to try to find it, and you might as well snag it while you can.

On the other other hand, that's the completely bullshit excuse of someone trying to justify their actions. Just because a hypothetical someone else is a greedy asshole doesn't mean you should be a quicker greedy asshole.

So, basically, whatever you personally feel like doing. You can revel in your sense of moral superiority, even if you're $20 poorer than you could have been.

I'd have taken it. Really, what're the chances the person who lost it is going to come back anytime soon and reclaim it? If you saw them drop it then sure let them know and hand it back, but otherwise, free money.

It's not like it's in a wallet or anything, which would of course be wrong to take, because they'd usually have id and such in and you could hand it in somewhere for the person to reclaim. But random loose money means the person probably just stuffed it into their pockets or something and then it slipped out, odds are they have no idea it's missing until much later and will never find it again because they have no idea where they lost it in the first place.

Take it and donate $20 to the charity of your choice. (Hypothetical) moral quandary solved!

With the authority of someone who until quite recently was really hurting for money, and whose girlfriend called him up one day shortly after leaving the house and said she was missing €50 from her wallet, and who then went out, traced her way to the train station and found that €50 on the ground, and for whom that made if not the difference between eating and not eating, then at least the difference between eating well and eating extremely basic in a not at all hypothetical way, I'd say you did good.

It's also technically illegal in some countries to 'find' goods and you can actually be jailed.