The "shopping trolley test" – a simple but profound ethical litmus test that Israel fails catastrophically

The true measure of moral character is not how one behaves under scrutiny, but what one does when no one is watching. As Plato warned in The Republic, “The measure of a man is what he does when no one is watching.” This principle underpins the so-called “shopping trolley test”,  a deceptively simple test of conscience: will you return the trolley when no one will reward or punish you for doing so? Israel fails this test spectacularly. With over 50,000 civilians dead in Gaza, entire neighbourhoods levelled, and a decades-long apartheid system documented by Amnesty International as “a cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity,” Israel’s actions reveal not simply moral failure, but the total abandonment of ethical restraint. And unlike the shopping trolley, this test is not theoretical. It leaves real children starving. It buries real families beneath rubble.

Plato’s parable of the Ring of Gyges, in which a man becomes invisible and thus unaccountable, resonates sharply. Glaucon observes that “no man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked.” Israel, shielded by unwavering American support, functions under such a cloak, dropping bombs on hospitals, using starvation as a weapon of war, and blocking aid with impunity, all while knowing that little more than diplomatic hand-wringing will follow.

Even by the cold calculus of political theory, the moral rot is evident. In Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant insists that moral worth lies only in actions done from duty, not from fear of punishment or pursuit of gain. Israel’s behaviour in Gaza, where every move is calculated, not to protect civilians, but to project dominance, shows a complete severing from duty. What remains is raw power masquerading as security. As Machiavelli wrote in The Prince, “It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.” This is no longer military response; it is the theatre of terror, delivered with deliberate intent.

When Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant states there are “no uninvolved civilians” in Gaza, and when figures like Golda Meir insist “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people,” the world is hearing, plainly, the ideological engine behind mass killing: dehumanisation. This is not an isolated failure of policy, it is systemic moral collapse. Former UN special rapporteur Michael Lynk has called it “a textbook case of genocide unfolding in real time.” The intentional erasure of Palestinian life, culture, and history mirrors the darkest chapters of the 20th century. South African apartheid had its defenders. So did the architects of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. So, now, does Israel.

And still, the world watches.

Western governments issue statements of “deep concern” while continuing to arm Israel. UN experts warn of legal breaches, yet weapons flow uninterrupted. The International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants, and the very nations that once claimed to champion international justice respond with outrage, not at the crimes, but at the possibility of accountability. Mainstream media sanitises the horror with euphemisms: war crimes become “clashes,” sieges become “operations.” It’s not just cowardice; it’s complicity.

Hannah Arendt, reflecting on Nazi atrocities, wrote of “the banality of evil”, the terrifying normalisation of cruelty carried out without hatred or even passion, simply because it has become systematised. What we see in Gaza now, from AI-generated bombing target lists to the destruction of every university, to the deliberate denial of food and medicine, is the machinery of annihilation, running on autopilot. It is not rage. It is policy.

Israel has not merely failed to uphold moral principles; it has obliterated them. This is not defence, it is domination without limit. A state that bombs hospitals, starves civilians, demolishes homes, and brands an entire population as combatants has not lost its way; it has chosen it. The “shopping cart test”, the act of doing right when no one is watching, has long been failed. But Israel’s atrocities are not committed in the dark. They unfold in the full glare of global media, with the endorsement or silence of powerful allies. This is moral collapse, not hidden but televised.

And if the world continues to allow it, with no sanctions, no embargoes, no prosecutions, then the test is not just Israel’s. It is ours. If we let genocide proceed unpunished because of geopolitics, alliances, or fear, then we too abandon any claim to moral standing. The question is no longer whether Israel has a conscience. It is whether the rest of us do.

I suspect that were Plato to witness this modern enactment of the Ring of Gyges, he would see not just an invisible man freed from consequence, but a state wielding unaccountable power with methodical cruelty, proof that justice, when severed from visibility and restraint, quickly dissolves into tyranny. Kant, faced with a policy of deliberate devastation devoid of duty, would recognise the total abdication of the moral law he held sacred: the replacement of ethical imperatives with cold calculation. And if Michael D’Costa, the mind behind the shopping trolley test, were to observe Israel not through abstract theory but with literal shopping carts, he would likely see them discarded, overturned, weaponised, or blocked behind barricades, symbols not of neglect, but of active disdain for shared responsibility. In such a scenario, the test would no longer be about idle inaction; it would be about the conscious sabotage of communal ethics. Faced with this, even he might conclude that the trolley test, once a quiet measure of individual decency, has become a global indictment one we are all now failing.