Why is life unfair that the OP has functioning kidneys and I don’t? Is it morally right if I take one, or both? He might be a rapist thief killer or something. I don’t know him.
If there are a sufficient number of people who don’t buy into that construct, however, you have a breakdown in which it ceases to be an internalized moral prerogative of most people that stealing is wrong. All social constructs, by definition, depend on a critical mass of people buying into the construct as an aspect of reality. If you don’t have that, the social construct crumbles and fades.
This reminds me of a famous fable which I will paraphrase here.
There was a bridge over a river that led into a small village. A stranger arrived in the village one day who was truly in need. He was just passing by for one day. The people of the village were kind and not only fed him but sent him off with provisions for the rest of his journey. There was no need for him to steal because the people were generous.
On another occasion, a different stranger arrived a took up residence under the bridge. Whenever the a villager would walk over the bridge he would yowl out in an annoying way that he was hungry and needed food. The people fed him at first but he never left and the kind people of the village realized the he really didn’t need food. The smart ones stopped feeding the man under the bridge because he was taking advantage of their kindness which is a form of theft.
See what I mean?
Sounds like the OP is advocating some kind of might makes right scenario.
You have the right to try to steal from me, but I’m not gonna make it easy, lets rumble.
Note that Jake seems to have some ideas about morality. Like “it isn’t fair” if some people have stuff he wants.
If there’s no such thing as morality, if it’s all a game we play with each other, how could it be unfair for the rich person to have piles of gold and diamonds and champagne, while poor people starve in a ditch?
Let’s go back to our prehistoric ancestors. These are people, or proto-humans, that live in groups. Not all species do this. There are plenty of species where, if a badger sees another badger, the two badgers will fight each other. They don’t cooperate. But other animals cooperate with each other. Two wolves will cooperate in hunting. Two humans will cooperate as well.
So if you have a group of a dozen or so human beings, how is it that they get along with each other? Why don’t they immediately attack each other?
We humans are obligate social creatures. We have to live with each other. So we have to figure out ways to live with each other that minimize social friction and maximize positive outcomes. What those positive outcomes are, is up to us. We get to decide how to live our lives, what we can’t do is decide the consequences of our decisions.
Yes, we can steal from each other. What difference does it make? None, the planet will keep turning. However, as you noted, if someone tries to steal from you you’ll “protect yourself”. You’ll fight them, because you want your stuff and don’t want them to take it. And you’ll presumably fight other people to take “their” stuff, since you want their stuff, and they don’t want you to take it.
You’ve primarily concentrated, it seems, on just taking stuff that’s lying around. But what happens when you take something, and the person who calls himself the owner of that stuff finds out? And he tracks you down, and beats the crap out of you? Or, a kid has a bicycle, you walk up to him and grab is bike, and if he tries to stop you, you beat the crap out of him? Violence is an inherit function of theft, or of stopping theft, because how else are you supposed to take someone’s stuff or protect your stuff, if you don’t fight over it?
So the answer to “why can’t I just steal?” is that the rest of us will fight you if you try it. And there’s a lot more of us than there are of you. Of course some people really do turn to a life of crime, and some of those people are pretty successful at it. So you have to weigh the risk and the rewards. But if a life of crime were so easy everyone would do it. There are plenty of risks, it can be a lot of work to steal enough to make a comfortable living. How much effort are you willing to put into your life of crime? In many cases you’d be better off working at a minimum wage job.
And of course, you could end up destroying your social network, in jail, in a hospital, or dead, if people find out about your criminal activity. If you were worried about the risks of working on an offshore oil platform, you should also be worried about the risks of sneaking into people’s homes and stealing their stuff. Some people have guns, the cops have guns, and so on. Even stealing a bicycle from a kid has some risks, what if his big brother sees you and beats the crap out of you? And when you steal the bicycle, what next? Sell it? How? To who? You’re going to run an ebay business selling the stuff you steal? Sounds like a lot of work to me.
How do the billy goats figure in?
Stealing is considered wrong because I don’t like it when people take my stuff. This is not hard to figure out. We either live in chaos or come to an agreement about how we will behave. As for most of the rules we form, morality is simply the excuse we provide. We consider it wrong because in our selfish nature we don’t like it.
I disagree with the idea that it’s a selfish nature. There’s a great quote by Penn Jillette on morality, though it was in response to how atheists have morals without belief in a God and why they don’t steal or murder or rape as much as they want. And his response is that he DOES steal and murder and rape as much as he wants, and the amount that he wants to do those things is zero. And, speaking for myself, despite that I’m a theist, I don’t do those things, not because I fear punishment from God, but because I don’t want to; in fact, I’d argue that a theist that only doesn’t do them because of fear of punishment isn’t moral.
In that regard, I think morality goes a lot deeper than just rational self interest. I think it likely started that way, to a certain extent, as we began to create more complex social structures as we settled in it agrarian societies, but it seems even there, we grew up out of closely genetically related groups into larger and larger more diverse groups over time, so our motivation in protecting our genes changed to protecting out in-groups.
If one were motivated strictly out of self-interest, then I would presume that someone in a situation where they were certain they could get away with it, would steal. Certainly, I know people that will steal when they think they’ll get away with it, but I just don’t have that desire. It’s not an urge I have to fight to repress, it just plain isn’t there. And I’d hope that most moral individuals tend to behave morally for it’s own sake, not because of self-interest.
I am saying that we call stealing ‘wrong’ because we don’t like it happening to us, not that we are all selfish and want to be thieves ourselves. Some people steal, it doesn’t matter why, rational people do not want to have their possessions stolen.
ETA: With the exception of rational people who commit insurance fraud.
But I cannot agree with that as a rationale. There’s plenty of things rational people may not want happening to them, but that doesn’t mean it’s “wrong”. For example, taxation is essentially the government taking a piece of my stuff, I sure as hell don’t want them to do that, but most people don’t consider that theft and would consider tax evasion immoral. Or to get away from something controversial like that, I wouldn’t want a girl I’m dating and really into breaking up with me, but that doesn’t make that immoral. In fact, I’d argue that it would be immoral if she didn’t, but wanted to. I don’t think there’s anything inherently rational about not wanting someone to take one’s possessions.
That’s not to say that I don’t think it starts out that way. Certainly in young children the idea of “mine” develops early, and the concept of sharing and other people having property takes time to develop. But I think that by the time most people become adults, morals stop being about how it affects us and starts being about things like social norms, social contract, or even more abstract concepts like universal morality. To that extent, someone who thinks it is wrong because of social contracts may not even particularly care all that much if someone is taken from them, but still thinks it is wrong because of the violation of that social contract. I, personally, believe that stealing is just universally wrong, based on the argument I made a few posts up. But regardless of that, I don’t think it’s reasonable to say it’s wrong because of rational self-interest, at least not as a general rule for everyone.
I think you are reading too much into my use of ‘selfish nature’. I’ll just say it is our nature, whether from base desire or abstract concept. In order to believe in the concept of ownership then we also have to believe that others should not take away our possesions.
It is not wrong to steal. I’m robbing a 7-11 right now.
Because Communism.
In the great bloodstained Darwinian struggle for survival, enemies shorten your life expectancy and reduce your quality of life. Friends lengthen your life expectancy and improve your quality of life.
It is in your interest to make friends, and avoid making enemies.
Thieves make enemies. Therefore, it is in your interest to refrain from stealing.
In the short run, you forgo a quick windfall, but in the long run, you dramatically improve your odds of survival.
You’re right. But in this situation (and maybe realistically) your an old man living on your own and you live in a different state from you family.
I’m stronger and faster and smarter then you.
I’m also a very fast physically fit person in general.
I’ll be taking you widescreen now, gramps.
Can you outrun my 9MM?
Pretty much this. You can’t just assume you’re going to be the only criminal in your community. If you commit crimes and get away with it then you example will encourage other people to commit crimes. And the more crimes that are committed, the more people will decide to join in. Even people who had no initial urge to commit crimes will do so in order to just stay even.
Eventually everyone lives in a community of criminals. Being a successful thief will just make you a target for other thieves - you’ll never come out ahead. And people will begin committing violent crimes preemptively in order to avoid having violent crimes committed against them. There will be no point in making any long term plans because whatever you spend time building up will just be taken away from you. The highest quality of life you’ll be able to achieve will be to hit people before they can hit you, steal whatever you can grab, and consume it as quickly as you can before it’s stolen from you.
Good point. I can’t outrun a bullet. So I should shoot you first before I steal your stuff.
You are correct, morals were not created for the SINGLE individual’s “best interest”, they were created for the collective best interest. With no morals, laws, or rules only the biggest, baddest, most ruthless person will enjoy the best in life, everyone else will yield up their stuff to that person and have a much less pleasant life. At least until the point they realize they outnumber the big, bad person on top, stage a bloody coup, and a new boss claws up to the top of the pile.
Having rules/laws/morals make for much less fighting and destruction. The biggest/baddest/most ruthless people don’t achieve their peak ownership of stuff (and other people) but on average the rest of us probably live better than we would otherwise. It’s not a perfect system, but life isn’t too bad most of the time for most people.
I also wish to point out, before you launch any sort of criminal career, that local laws on self-defense and defense of property vary. For example, I live in a castle law state. Should I catch you creeping through my home in search of valuables I am allowed to commit great violence upon you, even kill you, and it will be entirely legal. As a point, the last person who attempted to force his way into my home was driven off with a shovel and when the cops showed up their comment, as they cuffed Mr. Bad Boy and threw him in the back of a squad car, was that “you should have hit him harder”. Do take into account the risks before proceeding with taking other peoples’ stuff.
If someone ever steals from you, you’ll change your tune.