I was just looking at http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/001677.html
and thought that I really don’t feel stealing is wrong. I’ve known lots of people who have descramblers or pirate software or say their kid is younger than they really are to get a free meal. So it seems to me that most people don’t think stealing is wrong. What do you think?
I don’t get this. Is this just a pointer to the other thread? Was this a mistake post?
Beeto, one of my teachers once said that “Humans are experts at self-deception.”
I believe that in a plain black-and-white case, most people would claim to be opposed to stealing. The problem is that in your examples, people find it very easy to rationalize and consider the situation to not constitute stealing to begin with.
Examples:
In the software and cable-tv examples, one never actually takes an object out of another’s possession. These examples are extremely easy to rationalize in that manner.
The free child’s meal does involve taking – and keeping – property without paying for it. But given the circumstances, the parents consider their crime to be lying, not stealing. Today’s society considers lying to be a much less serious sin than stealing, bordering on acceptable or even commenable in some circumstances. Thus they rationalize and say that the restaurant is willing to give away free children’s meals, and so I have not really stolen anything.
I don’t condone any of the above, of course. I am just explaining how people can do these things even though they do think that stealing is wrong, in sharp contrast to the conclusions of the OP.
It’s wrong. It’s absolutely wrong. Especially if you are caught…
This is so true.
I once read something in an advice column along the same lines, if you’ll bear with me for a sec:
Someone had written into this particular columnist (I forget who) saying something to the effect that her “friend” says all her relationships turned out badly because all men are pigs. The columnist responded that when things go wrong, people look for someone to blame. There are three possible targets: ourselves, others, and fate. If we choose to blame fate, it means we have to accept the corollary that we don’t have free-will. And since one thinks one can’t possibly be responsible for their situation, they end up blaming others.
And so I think this also applies to most unethical behavior–if we choose not to take responsibility for our actions, we must place the blame on others.
So for software and cable-tv, we look at Ted Turner and the like, and figure they don’t need the money. The rationalization could also be, “If they didn’t want to be so rich, they wouldn’t charge so much for [software/TV] and I’d be able to afford it. Besides they’ll never miss my few bucks anyway.”
It’s the same for the restaurant–the perception is that if you own a business, you must be doing pretty well, even if the truth is often the exact opposite. Once you group yourself with the “have-nots”, it easy to justify taking from the “haves” because they’re obviously exploiting you.
And there’s also a bit of learned behavior that factors into the equation–the “my [parent/brother/second cousin] did it and they’re a good person” syndrome.
Finally, as far as the technology portion goes, there is an increasingly muddy line between right and wrong. While philosophers have written and debaters have debated for thousands of years on murder and theft, it’s only been about 20 years since the popularity of the VCR. Is it legal to tape a movie off TV if I can’t watch it right now? Can I tape it just because I might want to watch it again? Can I tape it because I can’t buy it anywhere? How long can I keep it before it’s no longer “fair use”?
The common person probably doesn’t ever even consider such things unless someone points it out. If it’s commonly done, doesn’t seem to hurt anybody, benefits him, and he won’t get caught, he probably never gives it a second thought.
Well, is Finding wrong?
Check it out… In the apartment I lived in with my wife, we had cable. We hit a stretch where paying other bills became more impportant, so we just let it get turned off. I even unhooked the box and started watching with the antenna on top of the house, which was hooked up in the same slot in the wall that the cable came in from.
Well, the day of the Super Bowl came, and I was getting LOUSY reception. So I went over to the TV and started to mess around with it. I hit a few buttons, and suddenly, I SAW THE ESPN logo. “What the fuck?” I exclaimed. I started messing around some more, and it turned out we were getting cable without the benefit of the cable box, plugged directly into the TV.
Hooking it up to the VCR and using that as the channel changer gave us access to every channel we were paying $30 or so a month for. After returning the box, we waited for the cable to stop. It didn’t. We watched free cable for over a year, and since my (now_ ex-wife still lives there, is still getting it for free for all I know.
Obviously, we didn’t have an illegal box. We never did anything to avoid paying for cable. It just happened…
So, were we wrong to keep watching it? Should we have called them up and said, “You know what, Time-Warner? We’ve been getting free cable without a box here. Youi might want to look into it.”?
I never once had a guilty pang about this happenstance… Anyone think I should have?
Yer pal,
Satan
As in the Simpsons, look at it this way…
If there was a starving family and the father stole some bread to feed hjis starving family would that be wrong?
But what if the family doesn’t like bread?
Getting free cable is well IMHO fine because they made a mistake. Sometimes you get good mistakes sometimes you get bad ones.
if a father stole his cable to let them watch tv would it be wrong?
In college, my roommates and myself would split the bills evenly (eg: one took the power bill, another would take phone, etc).
Anyhow, I got stuck with the cable and the water bill. Before moving in, I called the cable company to have service installed at the address we were moving into. By doing it in advance, I had hoped that the service would be installed by the time we actually got the keys to the apt.
I get a phone call the day we move in. It was the cable company telling me that they were busy and couldn’t get a man there to hook up the cable for another two days. I said fine, as I probably would have no need since I would be in the process of unpacking anyway.
But when we hooked up the TV, we had cable. I called the next day to have the hook-up cancelled. I figured, ‘Cool, the landlord already had it taken care of!’.
In a few weeks, I got a letter from the cable company, asking how I was enjoying the service, along with a refund check for the installation fee (which I never paid, because the cable guy never showed the first time around). I cashed the check. Yes, that makes me a thief, and perhaps immoral, but it was stupidity and errors on the side of the cable provider, along with the fact that I was a starving college student that made me do it. I look back on it now and have a tinge of regret, but I think I will survive.
“Penises don’t belong in the mouth, girls and boys. You’ve got the wrong hole there. Just like you wouldn’t shove pizza up your nose.”
-From the Brother Jed flyer-
BTW, I never did recieve a cable bill for the entire year. I guess with my phone call, they figured I cancelled the service permanently.
Geez, looking at it like that, I really do feel like a thief. 
“Penises don’t belong in the mouth, girls and boys. You’ve got the wrong hole there. Just like you wouldn’t shove pizza up your nose.”
-From the Brother Jed flyer-
Stealing is only illegal if you get caught
Since ownership is a legally-imposed abstraction, I would argue that theft is only wrong if somebody is injured thereby. If theft injures nobody (e.g. me bumming xeroxes at work, someone stealing cable) theft is unobjectionable.
- Stealing cable
- Pirating software/music
- Lying about age to get a discount
- Stretching 15 minute break into a half hour
- Stealing a co-worker’s wallet.
Number 5 doesn’t seem to fit, does it? I have done or would do all of the above without feeling very bad about it except the last one, even if I was 100% sure I wouldn’t be caught. What’s the difference? I think the major difference isn’t the fact that what is being stolen isn’t tangible, or that the first four parties won’t be significantly harmed.
Here’s the reason I see: The first four situations often or usually involve someone using me as a means of profitability. I’m not a person, I’m an exploitable resource. I think people feel that if they’re being treated as a mere means, they are not responsible to treat the other party as an individual either.
I’m not saying this view isn’t problematic, or justifies the first four actions. After all, they’re all presumably done with my voluntary, informed consent. But think about this: how many people would buy a bootleg copy of an album that your rockstar neighbor recorded? Or sneak into the theater that your old high school english teacher now runs? When there’s a personal connection, I think the “old” morality seems more relevant.
One became great by expecting the possible, another by expecting the eternal, but he who expected the impossible became greater than all. -Kierkegaard
Of the five examples given, I would say that there is no emotional content to the first 4 and there is to the last one, thus the easy ablility to justify the first four. That is the only difference.
They are all the same, they all cost someone something.
???
Try stealing from me.
You will get hurt and therefore you will admit that it was wrong.
Something like that, Freedom. I would say, ask yourself “Is stealing from me wrong?” If you answer yes, then stealing is wrong. If you say, I don’t really mind if someone takes it, then the someone isn’t stealing from you. If you do mind, then they are stealing from you, which you think is wrong.
My point.
Would it be wrong to steal from me? Depends. I’m rather poor, so if you stole something from me that I needed (my computer, the contents of my bank account, a textbook), it would injure me a great deal and would be wrong.
If someone stole $5 from Bill Gates, I have difficulty imagining that he would be hurt thereby and I therefore have difficulty imagining how it would be wrong.
Who gets to determine whether the theft hurts or not, the stealer or the victim? I would think the victim.
It makes me nervous to hair-split, but I do it anyway.
Going out and hooking up cable to my house without paying for it would be stealing. However, if it comes into my house because the previous owner canceled but the field reps couldn’t be bothered to come out and disconnect it, tough cookies - it’s mine.
Once I was not charged for some brushes at an art store because the trainee clerk simply missed them. It was her first day. I went back and paid for them. Another time I was charged too little for some styrofoam Easter eggs because the clerk was too busy talking to her boyfriend on the phone to pay attention to her job. She was charging me for the little bitty ones but the ones I was buying were several sizes larger. I tried to tell her but she wouldn’t even look at me as she rang up my stuff. So the heck with it - I underpaid and didn’t feel bad about it.