I do not understand what all the fuss is about. It appears a nice consise answer is if you are a thief, then keep the ticket. If you are not a thief, then return the ticket.

The same nice answer applies to your company provided computer, credit cards, key to the executive washroom, cell phone etc. Geez!!

ClubChamp: I appreciate your response. I still don't agree, and would be glad to continue via email if you wish.

You are probably right that I couldn't convince students (high school, you mean?) of my argument. I've had difficulty convincing college students of it! But high school students or ANY children are not authoritative voices on morality. That's another mistake we make in this society. Children are not adults, and they tenmd to see things more in terms of black and white. They need to be heard, but not NECESSARILY listened to.

The world is more colorful than that.

Because it's not called doing the EASY thing, it is called doing the RIGHT thing. The history books are littered with tragedies befalling those who stood up for what they believed is right. Have you ever researched the fates of many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence? There were more than just future-Presidents there. Many were farmers who lost their farms and even the lives of their families. Some were merchants who lost their stores. These were men who believed in their cause and suffered NOT for taking up arms, but SIMPLY FOR SIGNING A SHEET OF PAPER.

But the last post is what struck me. With all due respect, BKS, it is the CHILDREN with whom your argument would best resonate. (Please don't think I am trying to be condescending or patronizing!)

My five year-old employs this logic when she knocks over her baby brother (2 in August) to take back a toy that he (wrongfully) took from her.

She doesn't want to be burdened with calling for Mom and Dad to mediate. She doesn't want to negotiate with Patrick. She wants it, and she wants it NOW. Taking by force is the means to this end.

We do not live in a black and white world, but there is a lot less gray out there than people believe, especially those attempting to justify actions they know to be wrong. After all, if they didn't believe it to be wrong, even at some subconcious level, they would not even offer excuses in an attempt to justify.

Case in point:
I left some important documents on the counter and told my oldest (who was sitting there at the time) DON'T TOUCH THESE. My 3 year-old came into kitchen, climbed into a chair and starting coloring on them (!!) When I returned and asked her what she was doing, she smiled and said innocently, "I'm drawing a picture for you, daddy."

She had no clue that what she was doing was wrong. She didn't need to come up with an excuse that there wasn't any more paper in the house, that the documents really weren't THAT important, or that she didn't want to walk all the way into the living room to get another sheet.

But those were the three arguments that my oldest, stuttering and hedging (who HAD been told not to touch the papers) used when I confronted her for coloring a picture on one of the pages.

She knew what she did was wrong, and sought to justify it.

This is a popular argument, used most by the left, seeking to stir up class envy and thus empowering themselves to positions of power themselves.

POWER has nothing to do with it. It is just as wrong for a rich man to steal from a poor many as it is for a poor man to steal from a rich one, despite the impact being felt much more by the less-powerful.

I think that we simply must shrug our shoulders and agree to disagree.


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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

I'll just continue on here until someone says they'd rather conduct this by email. I'm fine either way.

Jon: Just so it's clear, I find your take on this issue perfectly reasonable. I prefer mine (with some real reservations).

You wrote: "It is just as wrong for a rich man to steal from a poor many as it is for a poor man to steal from a rich one, despite the impact being felt much more by the less-powerful."

Answer: It is only "just as wrong" if you think that situation isn't crucial to determining morality. How did the rich person become rich? By stealing from others? If so, there is no REQUIREMENT to (though it is perfectly moral and honorable to) respond to an unjust accumulation of wealth by behaving in accordance with, say, Martin Luther King's ethics rather than Malcolm X's ethics.

I am NOT saying that it is the wealth or poverty of the person that determines the moral situation (some might argue that it does contribute to it), but rather the JUSTNESS or UNJUSTNESS of the being-wealthy or being-poor.

If an employer had behaved justly as an employer, then stealing from him sure as heck looks to be wrong. Most would agree (I do). But if the employer has not bothered to be fair or just, I do not believe an employee must respond according to the morality he/she would when dealing with a friend or loved one. The ACT is determined by the situation. Stealing, in order to BE stealing, requires the theft to be unjust. Being poor and stealing to feed your family is STILL stealing if the food has been taken from a person with a just claim to it. But taking something from someone who has not justly acquired it property is not stealing, whether you're hungry or not.

You do it all the time as a parent, I imagine. If your three-year old takes something that belongs to your older child, you make her give it back. If your older child had previously stolen it from the younger child, you'd make HER give it back.

None of this is to say that it is perfectly OK for ANYONE to take ANYTHING from a person who has acquired property unjustly. Other factors matter, and this is where you lose most people and when the really nasty accusations of moral relativism begin to fly.

The question is: can an employer (or a person, or a country, etc) behave so unjustly in the course of its ordinary actions that ALL of its property can be reasonably deemed to have been acquired unjustly?

Isn't that essentially the history of the fall of the British Empire? And didn't its castoffs (who eventually saw fit to revolt after 150 years of colonial rule) essentially perform the same monstrously unjust acts on the indigenous population found here after our Revolutionary War?

The key is to understand that, even if you accept this, it doesn't permit doing anything to anybody. IT DOESN'T. That is a more difficult argument to make, but no less clear. It's just that you have to be ready to jettison the traditional enlightenment-liberal assumptions about morality.

BTW: even if you do, I promise you can still show that Bill Clinton acted dead wrongly.

Doing the moral thing does not have to mean doing the harder thing. Not always.

Gee Whiz!!!!!!! I did not expect this many responses to my post. I plan to leave the tickets. We are a very high volume user of CO and we were able to get all the non-refundable tickets turned into a corporate credit. Thanks for all the replies.

bks,

No, the students I was referring to are the Cadets at the United States Air Force Academy, about fifteen miles north of Colorado Springs. Their take on honor is ingrained by the quote I posted.

BTW, "Doing the moral thing does not have to mean doing the harder thing. Not always" is quite true. But even when it is harder, it makes it easier to look at yourself in the mirror after you have done it.

bks--

Wow I disagree wholeheartedly with your situational ethics. You seem to say that stealing from someone who is a thief themself is ok. So does this make it ok for me to hold up a bank robber as he is leaving the bank with its cash and use it for my own purposes? Does this further mean that if someone killed my wife it would be ok for me to kill them? I think these actions would make be as guilty as any person who commited this crime, and I know the law would uphold these standards.

Justifying immoral actions doesn't change anything...a thief is a thief is a thief

[This message has been edited by The Mile Dog (edited 06-11-2000).]

Wow! Let's take it easy on Brian, please! Remember he is NOT the thief, but rather the philosopher!

In fairness doc, I think people are attacking Brian's argument, not Brian. And in debate, that is fair game.

Personally, I think Brian's argument is a bit of a red herring. That is not to say that the moral issue is not important--indeed it is. One's ability to look at oneself in the mirror each day truly is important.

However, I think the moral question is subsumed in this case by legal definitism.

I do not deny that morality can successfully challenge an unjust law. No amount of legal determinism can condemn those who disobey repressive or abusive law.

But theft is an act which is malum in se, that is to say, it is wrong, in and of itself. Regardless of the conduct of the person who is deprived of the property, I don't believe that the law against theft can ever be characterized as unjust--especially where the law provides for remedies against the wrongful acts of the other party.

Perhaps the punishment for theft can be described as unjust in some cases, but at root that's a different question.

AC*SE: This is a familiar impasse to reach. We're operating from different first premises. Does that have to be the last word? Not necessarily. I think I understand your original premise here:

You believe that certain acts, theft being one of them, in and of themselves, are wrong. Similarly, you believe that laws pertaining to the wrongnes of those acts cannot therefore be judged unjust.

You don't say it, but I would argue that for you to believe the above, you must also believe one or both of the following things:

1) Human beings are, invariantly, a specific kind of creature, ones whom are deserving of certain behaviors and undeserving of others, regardless of their own behavior. For instance, some believe that, since human beings are rational creatures, and that rationality is inseparable from their essence as a creature, it is immoral or unjust to treat them merely as a means to an end. Lying to them, or taking their property from them are forms of treating as a means to and end;

2) The moral realm is independent of the material world. Right and wrong are not culturally generated, amended, and reproduced--that is, true morality is not influenced or CAPABLE of influence by culture or situation. It does not emerge from human practice. It is what it is, what it has always been, and it is invariant across time and culture. On this view, actions either meet its criteria or fail to meet it.

I reject both of those notions. Further, I reject that there are "acts" like theft that can be described as such without making reference to a particular set of values (i.e. what constitutes property). Whatever values one uses are hardly necessary or universal. Even if they WERE universal, that wouldn't prove they are necessary.

And no, I can't prove I'm right about my basic premise. Can you?

Nor can I, of course.

However, I believe that my argument has one fundamental advantage over yours. The context of this dicussion places it firmly within a North American frame of reference. And here we do have commonly--though I grant, not universally--held sets of values as they involve concepts of ownership and property.

It bears noting that the potentially aggrieved party in this case is a creation of statute--a corporation is a legal person, but not a natural person.

I suggest that it follows that interference with that person's rights (again, a legal creation) can be understood only within the cultural context in which that person was created. You cannot speak meaningfully of a corporation's property rights in a cultural context where neither corporations nor property nor rights exist. But they do exist here, and further, they cannot be discounted merely because they are something less than universal.

In fact, I do not agree with your second premise. And I am ambivalent about the first. But the fact situation here places the issue squarely within a US cultural, ethical and legal milleu. Accordingly, I think that in this instance, the legal issue trumps any moral dilemma,

That is not to say that I would take the same position were the context different. But I think it is merely academic to consider issues such as these divorced from their contexts.

(Fine, call me a pragmatist. I may be plodding, but I'm happy!)

[This message has been edited by AC*SE (edited 06-14-2000).]

"...I can't prove I'm right about my basic premise. Can you?"

And therein lies the problem. Proofs are for Mathematics- and the rigors of science.

Philosophy asks questions... and produces discussions, sometmes intellectual, sometimes heated...

It does NOT provide answers!

Hmmm I think that I am the only Christian on here, since those reasonings were never mentioned. Being of faith, I am definitly starting with a different premise (one our founding fathers would agree with actually). I believe it was mentioned that one can believe that certain things are held to be right and wrong no matter what society may believe. I actually agree with that. Many people would call me "small minded" or not able to think for myself, but I disagree.

I believe there are certain truths in the world that were created or layed out by our Creator. I also believe that situational ethics is man's way of justifying "wrong" acts. If you steal food from a rich man that you believe got his riches immorally, then you believe you are less wrong than if you stole from a moral or just person? I do not agree. I believe your act in itself is wrong no matter what the other person did.

If you can justify your acts based on a scale of wrongness, then you are embracing anarchy. Since one person's judgement on wrongness is going to be based on his character and basic beliefs. I know my character is flawed since I would be willing to justify things that offer a personal gain to me over things that do not. But luckily for me I have my beliefs to guide me from doing wrong or "sinning".

Just another opinion in the topic.

Do the right thing - if you have to ask what it is then you've already taken the wrong path.


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"Take it easy and have a nice day!"