[HDPM]

There are a lot of holes in your scenario. First, anybody who takes something in an emergency must be willing to pay restitution for it later. If because of your bad planning you steal some food and clothes to survive, fine, but you must be willing, at the time you take it, to pay for it later. If you think you have some absolute right to it you are an immoral thief. I think human life takes precedence over other considerations in an emergency, but for reasons I discuss later human life requires freedom from theft to survive in a proper sense. So you can't just steal without acknowledging the obligation to pay restitution regardless of circumstance. Even if you later can't pay it back, it makes a difference to me whether you believe in the moral obligation to pay it back or think you are entitled to the property without compensation.

The desperate guy working hard is a thief if he steals from the rich playboy. Too bad his life sucks. He should ask for help, but if no help is forthcoming he has no right to steal.

Reasons. Morality is a system to allow people to live as human beings should live. Many disagree on what that means. However, morality must support survival of the human way of life. Humans can't live properly without property rights. This is because all property, and life itself, comes from the hard work and dedication of individuals. Nobody has a right to force another person to work for him. Theft does this because in effect you are forcing another human being to work for you without remuneration. That is morally wrong. It takes longer to fully set forth the basis for this, so David will have to be satisfied with my shorthand post. But the essence of it is to have a system where people have individual rights and are protected from savage behavior. Theft is taking people's labor by force which limits their ability to survive. The thief has no claim to others' property because of his own inadequacy.

I didn't read all the posts, so if anyone agreed previously, good for you. Because we are right. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]