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STEALING FROM THE QUEEN?
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Hi,
There's a lot to say on the issue of drugs, and people have raised so many questions it's hard to know where to begin. However...one comment that did make me laugh, was the claim by Louis, that, 'unless you or someone close to you is dying you should not steal'.
This is surely ridiculous, if by stealing you simply mean taking what by law belongs to somebody else. You could argue from a Kantian perspective that certain acts are always wrong regardless of consequences e.g stealing, masturbation etc, but this is not the posistion he seems to be adopting since he acknowledges that certain circumstances make theft acceptable, principally starvation. If that is the case aren't there a whole range of cases then where stealing is justified, but where no one is starving?
To use an example from my own experience: there aren't many tennis courts where I live BUT there is a very expensive [and snobbish] private club which isn't used most of the time. So me and my friend have been going onto the courts when no one's there and playing. Since I was never going to pay for the courts anyway no one is losing out from my theft, and I'm gaining enjoyment, it is quite literally a victimless crime, and as such justified stealing.
That's a stupid example, but my point is that you judge whether an act of stealing is wrong on the particular details of the situation, and on the relative needs and deserts in question. e.g What if I need money to get an independent film produced and I steal a few thousand pounds from a millionaire businessman who would barely notice. He doesn't NEED the money, it will just sit in his bank account, whereas I could do something INTERESTING with it, nor does he really deserve that much money, so, providing the theft is committed painlessly, where is the crime?
You could cite a whole range of further cases where stealing is justified but where no one is starving. e.g what if someone stole from the queen to get money for an eye operation? They wouldn't die without the operation, just go blind, but surely it's better that they have eyesight than that queeny has an extra few thousand in her already hyper-obese bank account no?
In short then, stealing can be morally justified even when no one is starving.
David.
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