On ‘thought experiments’

Long Sunday is running a discussion of the following thought experiment:

“Imagine the following: Someone is driving through Pennsylvania and all the lights are out. This person pulls into a gas station to buy some gas and some gum, but here, too, the kind of darkness that points to a power failure. The gas pumps don't work. Hoping to get some gum, the driver walks into the appropriately small mini-mart. It is dark but the door is open. The customer sees that all electricity has been cut. By chance, the guy running the cash register -- the only person working there this late at night -- has fallen dead of a heart attack. He died before he could close the cash register. Many hundreds of dollars do now spill out the cash register. The customer is reasonably convinced that no surveillance cameras are operating. In addition to the gum, it would be riskless to stuff one's pockets with many hundreds of dollars.

Two questions: First, what should the customer do? Second question: What do we predict the customer will do?”

- The questions are being discussed in the context of what would individuals of various philosophical persuasions do in this situation? I.e. How would a Platonist or a Rawlsian act, and how should they act?