Morality of theft

If you really want to do something against capitalist madness, don't steal, and, much more important, don't buy.

Unless the following situations arise, which you might not have considered.

Big corporations will close stores in areas where the shop lifting losses are too intense. The bad consequences which ensue are that local people who might be employed there will lose their jobs. Also, if the store is a grocery store, or a pharmacy, and people who could only get food or medicine by walking to the store no longer have a store to which they can walk.

if a person is stealing food to feed his family and he has no other means.. i would not blame him
now on the other side if he is stealing just to steal that would be a different matter. and stealing from the poor is just pure evil and rich people steal from the poor in so many little ways.. just me thought .. mark

If someone is in the situation of having to steal to for their and or their loved ones actual survival, I would agree that it is far more excusable. Stealing is still wrong though, no matter how one tries to spin it.

If you start with utilitarianism you will end up justifying the death of billions.

I believe theft is wrong, be it from the small family store or the large corporation. The large corporation does pay wages to workers, and though they may pay executives and investors immorally high sums, loss of profits are usually taken out on the lowest paid workers first. Responding to immoral action with immoral action does not cancel them out.

Theft to feed a starving family is likewise immoral, but one could claim is justifiable because we prioritize sustaining life above sustaining wealth in our moral judgements. Between the two we took the less bad option. The action is not rendered moral, but we make an exception in our response to the action.

Morality and Law are completely separate entities. Theft is a complex topic because property is a matter of law. The immoral action is in depriving people of things they have come to possess through effort. Property and thus Theft leans into that heavily. But not all taking is immoral.

Example: There is an apple tree in the woods owned by Joe. Joe has no plans to harvest the apples. If I take an apple to eat without Joe's permission I have legally committed Theft. However, morally, I have done no wrong. Joe was not going to use that apple. Joe has not been deprived. If Joe was going to harvest the apples, then I would have deprived him of an apple from the tree he had been taking care of and that would have been immoral.

The morality of Theft is not in the taking, but in the depriving.

People make up all kinds of crazy justifications for their wrong doings

Theft is theft and you can't excuse it just to suit you or vague political theories.

Do they include the property owners?

Morality has its limits. Utilitarianism is one of them.

yeah well one can always find justifications, it is a slippery slope

I think stealing will always have bad consequences for stakeholders, ranging from loss of property to higher prices for consumers. But if the consequences of not stealing exceed these in severity (ie. someone will get sick or die from malnutrition), then of course theft is morally justified.

that's pretty much every concept

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You’ve spent too much time doing whatever led you to this absurd post.

Remember there is always another whose morality of theft will make you wish you hadn't done that.

Stealing is immoral.