That’s about the same as I remember it from when I read it in an encyclopedia when I was 11-ish. Good times.
Bah! Who needs childhood friends when you’ve got Kohlberg? 
Not to mention an encyclopedia set, right?
They’re still telling this story? Let me guess, somebody’s taking freshman theology or Introductory Ethics?
It brings to mind a passage in Michael Crichton’s “Jurassic Park.” Someone looks at all the money that Hammond has invested in DNA research, supercomputers and lab equipment, just to create a dinosaur theme park, and wonders “Why couldn’t all that money and brainpower have been invested in finding a cure for cancer or AIDS?”
Hammond says, essentially, “That’s a good question. Here’s why: suppose I spent all this money on cancer research, came up with a miraculous cancer-curing drug, and advertised that I’d give it out for ten thousand dollars a shot. Would people be grateful to me? Would they thank me for curing a dreaded disease? NO! They’d despise me! They’d call me a heartless son of a bitch who was extorting money from desperately sick people. Before long, the government would step in and force me to sell at a much lower price. Because the reality is, the more people NEED something, the more they feel entitled to it, and the LESS they’re willing to pay for it.”
On the other hand, Hammond reasoned, nobody NEEDS to visit a dinosaur theme park! And so, he could charge people ten grand, twenty grand, or fifty grand to visit his theme park, and they’d GLADLY pay it.
NO! Discoveries should not be the property of individuals. That’s stealing from all of us. Everything gets discovered eventually, so being first is not that deserving. Give him a medal and put his face on the label, but sell it at cost plus 10%
I’m certainly glad that–in theory–laws are made, administered, and adjudicated by dispassionate third parties. We’ve crawled out of the state of nature long ago and in doing so realized that on an individual level, emotional states and predicaments cause all sorts of outcomes that would eventually lead back towards the state of nature.
The OP could have told several other fairy tales about poor Heinz being “trapped” by an ethical dilemma that has severe personal consequences. As noted upthread, every Freshman ethics or theology course typically opens with one. Not that they are not interesting, but they tend to be used as maudlinly as their premises. But no, we don’t let the victim’s family sit on a jury because we long ago realized that when our monkeysphere is involved, justice isn’t as applicable as when society at large is involved.
My memory is foggy, but I think Satre was able to produce a set of ethical scenarios to illustrate some of the meta-points of subjective relativism without straying too far into melodrama. Wasn’t there Pierre or someone whose mother was sick but the Free French needed his help? Sorry, but this thread now has me thinking of French fries and Heinz catchup.
Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m a free market type and Mr. Heinz is clearly acting ethically.
Sometimes it’s more ethical to break a rule than to keep it. I think we should have laws against speeding, but would it be wrong for you to speed while bringing a dying relative to the hospital? I think stealing is wrong, but if my kid was starving I’d steal food to feed her.
We have to enforce the rule of law, but at the same time, morally one must accept that the law is general, not specific. The law is usually correct in assessing the moral rightness of actions; 99.9% of the time the law is broken, the action taken was morally wrong. But not always. There are times the law has to bend to reason and necessity. This has nothing to do with one’s position on economic policy; it’s just the war morals and ethics work. Some priorities trump others.
I realize you’ll probably pretend you never read this, but it had to be said.
Why would I do that?
Frankly, if you hold that it’s allowable for the guy to steal to save his wife’s life, then you aren’t a “libertarian/free market fundamentalist type”. Because one of the distinguishing features of such people is that they put profit, the free market and property rights above EVERYTHING else. Thus the term “fundamentalist”.
Then why do we not make specific exceptions for thefts of need even though we differentiate between self-defense and pre-meditated murder?