So Why is Stealing Wrong Again?

[Piz0wn0reD!!!!!!]

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I'd jack that bitch in a heartbeat.

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i would also wreck up the place cause hes clearly an idiot.

[Piers]

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What argument, other than it is against the law, makes it wrong for you to steal his money but not wrong for the desperate looters to loot?

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It feels wrong to steal his money but it does not feel wrong for the desperate looters to loot.

David, there is no such thing as right and wrong. Anyone can figure this out, if they think about it.

[Scotch78]

I haven't studied enough sociology, history and psychology to answer your question. However, I have studied enough philosophy to know that the answer will lie in the social sciences rather than any logically consistent ethical theory.

Scott

[nietzreznor]

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Everybody seems to agree that looting a store of a loaf od bread to allow your children to survive, is totally OK. And burglarizing a middle class couple of their one valuable possesion, an engagement ring, so you can make a necklace for your Persian cat, isn't.

But where do you draw the line? Suppose through absolutely no fault of your own, you have to work two jobs to feed your sick wife and kid. Your neighbor inherited a billion dollars recently, hasn't moved yet, takes drugs from morning till night, and keeps 50 hundred dollar bills on his coffeetable in his unlocked home. He staggers out one day and you can walk in and grab that money to more nutritiously feed your family and get better medicine. What argument, other than it is against the law, makes it wrong for you to steal his money but not wrong for the desperate looters to loot?

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Looting the loaf of bread from the store isn't "right" in the sense that it is unconditionally the right thing to do. It is an unfortuante situation in which a person has 2 conflicting moral obligations (not stealing from others and feeding his/her children) and decides that feeding the children is more important. As would most people I think if they were in this situation. This isn't to say then that stealing here is "right"--perhaps this person should turn himself in afterwards. or perhaps it is only OK because the crime (moral crime of stealing) is small. I think we would have to reconsider our actions if we would have to kill an innocent person to let our children live.
In (most) less serious situations though this issue shouldn't even arise.

[scalf]

[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]..actually; stealing is "wrong" because you are interferring with another soul...this is the same reason murder is not acceptable.....soul must allow other soul freedom...

yup

that's the truth..

gl

[img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

Why doesn't the poor man ask his neighbor for help?
Why would he choose to steal before he made an honest request of his neighbor??
Nothing on this Earth 'belongs' to us, everything has been GIVEN to us to use (and ultimately abuse).
Is stealing or looting the only choice?
If you are refering to the people affected by the hurricane, it would be redundant to take anything other than foodstuffs , bodily hydrating liquids and clothing. Why would you think you needed a big screen television with no electricity? What good is jewelry to you if you are starving, you can't barter it for food due to the fact that no one has any food to barter. Also is it really stealing if the goods were actually paid for, even if you weren't the one paying for them? I'm sure the insurance hated this storm the most of anyone.

[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]

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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.

[/ QUOTE ]Humans can live without property rights. You must define "live properly" if you want to make an agument that humans cannot live properly witout property rights.

Very few indiviuals can live at all entirely on their own. I imagine it would be just as easy to argue that live itself comes from the hard work of groups of people. Without collective works we would all be the hunter-gathers of thousands of years ago.

[HDPM]

You are mistaking the benefits of rationally pooling individual effort with the evil of collectivism. My definition of living properly includes not having to slave away for people who believe in collectivism. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]