Kantian meditation

[timelets]

Or suppose some one
recommends you a man
as steward,
as a man to whom
you can blindly trust
all your affairs;
and, in order to inspire you
with confidence,
extols him as a prudent man
who thoroughly understands
his own interest,
and is so indefatigably active
that he lets slip no opportunity
of advancing it;

...while as to the means
(which, of course, derive all their value
from the end),
he is not particular,
and is ready to use
other people’s money
for the purpose
as if it were his own,
provided only he knows
that he can do so safely,
and without discovery;

you would either believe that the recommender was mocking you, or that he had lost his senses.

--- Immanuel Kant “The Critique of Practical Reason.”