When you steal from someone

Posted by admin on May 20th, 2011 filed in General

Very simple. When you steal from someone, you do 2 things: firstly you deprive them of their property without their consent, and secondly you impose a cost upon them by depriving them of their property without compensation.

As you can see, there is no need to consider morality at all. If you take something from someone because they GAVE it to you, or if they consent, or if you PAID them for it AND they consented, then can it be considered stealing? The reason why we punish people for stealing is precisely because they violate other people’s consent, and impose a cost upon them. Criminalising theft has nothing to do with morality, but more with preventing people from imposing costs upon each other.

And as for your scenario with jean valjean vs M$, I can’t see how is there a connection. Jean Valjean would have been guilty of theft under the law, but then there is a defence of necessity available to him (rarely used and rarely successful, but then again, who can use necessity as a defence for stealing bread when bread is so cheap?) as he was trying to get food for a sick baby. Microsoft, if anything, is guilty of breaches of antitrust issues, which is really a matter of economic policy rather than anything moral.

I disagree with you that justice is instinctive. People do lots of nasty shit by instinct. I’m sure homophobes and religious fundamentalists bomb and kill people because they truly subjectively believe that they are doing justice. Maybe you might want to ask them for their views?

I can tell you now you can give me any scenario and I can give you logical framework using my model of harm and consent as the basis of lawmaking. There is no need to involve morality, which varies and differs according to cultures, traditions and religion. To use morality as a basis of lawmaking is to invite disaster and to impose the values of those who are most conservative upon the rest who are not.