America Sucks

[puzzl]

> Good point. I'm not going to let my family starve to death
> if I can't afford food. Morality is for people who can't
> figure out what to do unless someone tells them what to do.
> All we need to do is kill everyone who's too stupid to think
> for themselves as well as get along with others, and the
> problem is solved.

<img src=smilies/werd.gif>
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Delightful!</center></P>

[puzzl]

> What if the baker needs to sell bread in order to feed his
> family?
>

you kill his family. Problem solved.
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[Ugly Joe]

> you kill his family. Problem solved.

Actually, you just give your family the bread instead of selling it <img src=smilies/magbiggrin.gif>

But...that only works for a little while.
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[Mr. Saturn]

> > What if your family is starving to death?
> >
> What if the baker needs to sell bread in order to feed his
> family?

What if this hypothetical baker is an employee of Wal-mart?


Or what if it's December, and three people are stuck in a cave until March. One of the people has a secret stash that could feed three people for more than the four months. He refuses to share any of it. Is it ethical to steal it then?
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[SpaceTiger]

> you kill his family. Problem solved.

What if his son comes back from the dead to hunt you and your attempt to chain him underwater in the lake from whence he came fails to quell his bloodlust?
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[Ugly Joe]

> What if this hypothetical baker is an employee of Wal-mart?

Relevance? The baker would be paid by Wal-mart, not by selling bread. This isn't the same question.

> Or what if it's December, and three people are stuck in a
> cave until March. One of the people has a secret stash that
> could feed three people for more than the four months. He
> refuses to share any of it. Is it ethical to steal it then?

I would question how this single person ended up with more than enough bread, and all of the others ended up with nothing. If the one person worked hard to earn all of that bread while the other three people did nothing and thus earned no bread, is it fair to expect the one person to share his bread?
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[CEpeep]

> Or what if it's December, and three people are stuck in a
> cave until March. One of the people has a secret stash that
> could feed three people for more than the four months. He
> refuses to share any of it. Is it ethical to steal it then?

Yes.
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[Mr. Saturn]

> Relevance? The baker would be paid by Wal-mart, not by
> selling bread. This isn't the same question.

Fine, I'll rephrase it. What if your family was starving, and the only grocery store is a Wal-mart?

> I would question how this single person ended up with more
> than enough bread, and all of the others ended up with
> nothing.

Fine. I'll present a similar situation. A miserly rich guy feels a nuclear war is imminent. So he builds his own fallout shelter. Since he is super rich, this thing is huge and is stocked to the brim with all sorts of comestibles. Nuclear war does come, and by chance, he has plenty of time to get into his fallout shelter. As he runs to his shelter, he sees his (rather poor) neighbors and their newborn. Out of his typical character, he tells them to grab whatever food they can and hurry to his shelter. This being their only salvation, they go and scrounge whatever food they can come up with and go inside the shelter. A week passes and the couple and their child run out of food. This miserly fellow refuses to share his utterly massive stocks of food. As an added bonus, the baby is sick and will surely die without medicine the miserly fellow has in ample supply.

Is it ethical to steal the medicine and food then?
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[Reaper man]

> What if his son comes back from the dead to hunt you and
> your attempt to chain him underwater in the lake from whence
> he came fails to quell his bloodlust?

What if I was to stick my cock and balls into <a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM94aorYVS4>this?</a>

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[Ugly Joe]

> Fine, I'll rephrase it. What if your family was starving,
> and the only grocery store is a Wal-mart?

I like how you never answered my initial question <img src=smilies/magbiggrin.gif>

> Fine. I'll present a similar situation.
> yada yada yada.
> Is it ethical to steal the medicine and food then?

No, not at all.

Positing that stealing is always wrong (that is, bluntly and more generally, that ethics are not relative), stealing in this situation is of course wrong. The circumstances don't change anything.

However, we're only human. Ethics should be something that we strive for, but not something that we should be expected to be able to follow in every circumstance.

So would I steal in that situation? Absolutely. It would be going against my code of ethics. I would feel bad for having to do it. But, nobody wants a dead baby. I guess you could call it "the lesser of two evils". Notice that both of them are evil.

edit: pesky prepositions...

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</P><P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by Ugly Joe on 11/20/06 06:52 PM.</FONT></P>