I bet you've been pretty privileged in grand scheme of things, university, regular jobs, maybe the lowest point has been backpacking etc... Parent have at least one car, yawn yawn yawn.. No one is stealing from you, they are stealing from a supermarket. Privileged people always seem to think in black and white, theft is theft never an excuse blah blah, quite often making the cliche mistake of associating morality with legality.. I hope one day you don't need to learn this ain't always correlated..
History has a lot to say on this topic. I don't think it supports the thesis that people should just be allowed to steal because Privilege. Society is much better off with some people helping the poor and law and order being maintained. It's rather a black-and-white view to think we must choose only one or the other.
If you want to feel moral, go feed a poor person today. You'll feel much better. Don't assault the basic pillars of the civil society that is what has left you rich enough to be able to afford that without a second thought for a quick hit on the virtue pipe.
(Preempting one of the lines of attack I can forsee coming here, the crime is also minor and the penalty should be minor correspondingly. I would happily support some sort of very compassionate enforcement; perhaps a sentence of a few days' service at a soup kitchen which will also feed him or something. But there is still an important difference between enforcing the law even in this minor way, and declaring that certain people lack Privilege and therefore, ironically, have the privilege of being above the law, which is the sort of caustic poison that can dissolve civil society entirely.)
> History has a lot to say on this topic. [...] Society is much better off with some people helping the poor and law and order being maintained.
What history has to say is that, at many points, society has failed to provide help for the poor on a volunteer basis, and that said people have died of starvation and/or violated the law to avoid it.
If you expect that the normal order of things is for people to voluntarily donate in order to avoid hunger problems, then you have to admit that law and order will be broken on occasions, because the nominal food-providing mechanism occasionally fails.
I'm going to come back to the concrete on this, though. Do we have any reason to believe Italy is in this situation, though? We're not really arguing a hypothetical here. I readily concede the analysis might get more difficult in Somalia or in a war-torn area, but this is Italy. Is there really no other option for this person other than theft? Because I find that hard to believe.
Who cares about hypotheticals that don't apply to the current situation? Well, philosophers, sure, but it's a completely different question than what we're actually faced with here.
Well we have the judge's ruling in this exact case we are discussing right now as evidence that sometimes people in Italy need to steal food to survive.
I think the reason why people have a hard time understanding what you're saying is because unless you've experienced _systemic_ difficulty in your life it's very hard to differentiate it from _personal_ difficulty. Put in a less rigorous way, if you've never truly had to fight against a system that seems constructed to see you fail it would be hard to understand how this is different from, and much worse than, difficulty that stems from smaller, instantaneous issues that present roadblocks or troubles in your life.
I would agree with this--it's interesting to me that a culture that generally views itself as rational has such blind spots when it comes to systemic failures. I would expect that working with systems full of unintended behaviors, non-continuous outputs that can result in sudden failures, etc. should make that obvious, but apparently it doesn't. (Personally, I have never experienced systemic difficulty in my life--but it's plainly obvious that it exists.)
For the sake of my blood pressure I won't go into the similarly strange attempts to solve what systemic failures (almost always the ones that minorly inconvenience the privileged, isn't that strange?) folks of this mindset do deign to recognize, but...yeah.
I appreciate your desire to assume stupidity before malice but I've come to see the continuation of oppressive systems as intentional :( People profit off of them and so I'm forced to conclude that they're purpetrated intentionally. I'm not trying to say that there's some movie-like evil villain out there cackling to himself but rather that there are many people making money as a direct or related result of the systemic suffering of others and that they turn a blind eye to the sometimes painfully obvious effects of their actions.
I've not been privileged all my life. I have a dislike for fish because of some of things and situations we were in.
It is never, ever ok to steal. Stealing from a supermarket is stealing from a person or people. Just because you cannot name who is affected doesn't mean it isn't people. It is black and white. The morality and legality are in alignment in this regard. This whole "shades of grey" leads to the blackness that destroys people and civilizations.
The whole point of government social programs is to provide for survival. There are organizations that provide and places to go.
Nothing man made is ever black and white. There is no universal physical law of morality.
We can describe two different acts with the same word:
> A guy stole a sandwich from a super market because he was starving
> A guy stole a Ferrari because he always wanted to drive a Ferrari
These two things are not the same.
The temporality of property rights is especially interesting. I hope you do realise that at some point in time there were no humans, and as such no such thing as property rights.
When a human first laid claim on a stretch of land, you could argue that this in itself constituted theft, at this very moment this person deprived every other human being from accessing or cultivating this land. What moral right did this person have to claim this land?
From there, millennia of war and conquest, laws and civilization.
In Switzerland, where I'm from, patrician families still hold vast estates, dating back to feudal times. They legally own all of this but what about the morality of it? These estates were acquired centuries ago.
By modern standards, the morality of it back then was clearly not given, because the wealth was amassed on the back of a populace in servitude. Add to this, that this has an impact on society today, by extension these inherited properties are limiting today's generations to express themselves.
> When a human first laid claim on a stretch of land, you could argue that this in itself constituted theft, at this very moment this person deprived every other human being from accessing or cultivating this land. What moral right did this person have to claim this land?
In many countries, including Switzerland, there are of course specific laws that recognizes that property rights does not extend to full monopoly rights on land use.
I'm from Norway, and the Nordic countries in particular have very extensive exemptions to private property rights that recognises that there are certain rights to land use, as a limited and fundamental resource, that are held in common irrespective of property rights.
Sweden has this baked into the constitution. Norway until the late 50's I think did not have a law mentioning this right as it was considered so fundamental that it was long considered unnecessary to codify and courts would apply the principles anyway (this may not sound unusual from a common law perspective, but Norwegian law is a codified system of the Scandinavian model that evolved from Germanic law with Napoleonic influences, not at all a common law system) - the way you don't specifically cover the right to freely breathe the air.
In Norway (and it's much the same in Sweden and Finland), this e.g. means that outside of urban settlements you don't need to ask permission to walk through a privately owned forest, or across a field, for example (though you may not walk across cultivated fields other than when frozen). Even if fenced in. Nor is the land owner entitled to stop you or erect barriers to prevent you access (that does not mean barriers are illegal if they have reasonable purposes, such as e.g. keep wild animals out, but there'd be expected to be gates etc. allowing access). You can pick berries or mushrooms etc. for your own consumption but not hunt without permission. You can camp. There are limits, but they are in line with what you would expect of considerate campers. It is also generally considered rude to e.g. camp right outside someone's garden without introducing yourself and asking, even if on land you may technically have right to camp on. There is a general zone of 100m along the shoreline that it is not normally permtted to build on, even if part of your property (though exemptions are granted, with the caveat that it is still not permitted to prevent access or usage of the immediate shoreline no matter how close you've been permitted to build).
This is considered so ingrained in our culture that it is (or at least was when I was a kid) taught repeatedly in primary school.
Fencing off or otherwise trying to restrict access to "utmark" ("outlying land"), even if it is your own property, is not just legally restricted but considered reprehensible and morally indefensible to the point where it regularly causes major outrage if someone is trying to push the limits (or e.g. if particularly extensive exemptions are given to build near the shore).
It was such a shock to move to England for me and see parks that closed at night (actually closed, with gates, and padlocks, as opposed to mostly symbolic "closing" of main gates you can just walk around which is the most I'm used to), and fences all over the place. How anyone can feel free in places where your ability to move about are so limited is beyond me...
I still get this deep instinctual feeling that it's wrong when I e.g. walk along the Thames path and encounter gates that gets locked at certain times, or when I come across park squares with fences all around.
I don't think people who have only ever lived in places where they encounter this regularly even understands how liberating it feels not to be locked in like that...
> This whole "shades of grey" leads to the blackness that destroys people and civilizations.
I'd argue that seeing the world in black and white is what destroys people and civilisations rather more.
Many of the worst abuses of history have come from black and white thinking (people with black skin are not people, jews are not people, people without my political beliefs are not people).
> Many of the worst abuses of history have come from black and white thinking (people with black skin are not people, jews are not people, people without my political beliefs are not people).
That's a crap argument, and has nothing to do with morality that's base racism and can be just as easily phrased as some shades of grey. I'm getting sick of people twisting what people say into some racial thing when we are talking about concepts and morals.
Every time someone says "the end justifies the means" or "well, its really not that bad" or "I'm not cheating as much as them" makes the world becomes a worse place. Keeping your morals and doing the right thing benefit everyone.
Society does it all the time, that's why no murder and stealing are pretty much the first laws people make. Trying not to cause pain does not make the world a worse place.
Every society has a law like "no murder -- except sometimes, when you can".
And a law like "no stealing -- except sometimes, when you can".
And sometimes trying not to cause pain does make the world a worse place. Would you have police officers try their hardest to avoid causing pain? Criminals feel quite a bit of pain when they are incarcerated.
Nothing in the world is ever so simple as you suggest.
It's really not black and white at all. Stealing addresses the immediate present concerns. Government programs address the systematic problems and may not be able to help in time. This is somewhat like telling someone to wait til the next presidential election to vote to solve the problems they are having today. Makes sense when it's not you, but until then you have needs.
Go to a church, community center, government building, or food kitchen - there are places to go. Causing more ill in the world and pain to others is not an answer.
There is a presumption of loss in your statement. Here's my proof by contradiction that it's not black and white: If stealing from me was the only offense (not scaring my family, or taking some security from us), I couldn't care less. There is no pain, there is no loss, it's material. I'm totally sincere in this, too.
The problem with peddling guilt is that not everyone subscribes to it. I pay taxes, and I expect the needy and the poor and the sick and the hungry to be taken care of. If anyone should feel guilty, it should be the government leaders and the people that don't hold them accountable for the duties there are tasked with performing.
I think stealing is wrong, no matter the situation and desperation. However, I also believe that the supermarket (or whoever was stolen-from) has the right to compassion for this individual. And if you ask me, I believe people are generally good, and most would forgive the transgression without hesitation.
The supermarket owner does have that right, and likely would if asked discretely. People are generally good and would probably forgive. Many do. That's why it is so important to donate to food shelters (don't forget toys for children - feed the body and mind).
People are generally good. But some people aren't. Incidentally, those are the people who tend to accumulate wealth and power.
There are certainly people in this world who would sit on top a mountain of food that will spoil if not eaten a foot away from a starving dying man and tell him he's not allowed to have any because they'd like to watch him suffer.
>There are certainly people in this world who would sit on top a mountain of food that will spoil if not eaten a foot away from a starving dying man and tell him he's not allowed to have any because they'd like to watch him suffer
Hell, there are people in this thread who would apparently play the role of the foodpile guy because of their intensely, sincerely held moral conviction!
It's your job to make sure the needy and poor and sick and hungry are taken care of. The government is you, what it does is your responsibility. Paying taxes, shrugging your shoulders, and saying "not my problem anymore" is not an option from a moral standpoint. If it is ineffective, it's on you and all of us to make sure it works properly.
That you expect them to be taken care of does not help those who are starving. Consider legal decisions like this an incentive to push for a government that actually does this.
> I think stealing is wrong, no matter the situation and desperation.
So you put property rights above the life of someone else?
Personally I find such an attitude incredibly offensive.
Why are you so obsessed with his personal life? Are you hoping you can neatly fit his life experiences into a box you call 'privilege' and then dismiss everything he has to say without argument? That sort of behavior is mostly frowned upon around here.
If you think that identifying privilege is to dismiss an argument, rather than to demonstrate its limitations--well, I would suggest some reflection about what is leading you to that assumption, 'cause that's not what vidarh is doing. It's not rhetorical, but rather functional--an understanding of sociological privilege is effectively a requirement to have a meaningful conversation about any of this. That, not "oh, you're privileged so I will dismiss it", is the point of asking these questions and why they matter: to demonstrate the shades of gray and the limits of perception that are necessary to have this conversation without ending up swamped in reductive pointlessness.
Nuance always matters. Context always matters. You won't derive meaning without them. (And if you aren't trying to derive meaning from something, if you're just aiming for the reptile-brain blood rush of Airing That Opinion--frankly, there are easier methods to replicate that that don't involve bothering other people.)
And while I am emphatically not accusing you of anything in your post, my experience has led me to the rule of thumb that the fear of such a rhetorical dismissal, as you expressed, stems from a desire to dismiss out of hand something challenging. It is in almost every case I can think of a do-unto-others-before-they-do-unto-you defense (even when, as is generally the case, nobody's doing unto you in the first place), so I'd personally think pretty hard before being too holy about it and telling vidarh what's frowned upon here.
That assumption comes from experience, by which I mean in my experience almost every single time I have seen the word 'privilege' used it is used as a weapon to turn a discussion from a thoughtful, respectful one to hateful screaming about the personal lives of others, and to tell people that their opinion is irrelevant because their life experiences don't match the currently approved life experiences (some collection of socioeconomic disadvantage, minority ethnic background, female, LGBT). I don't really happen to meet the textbook definition of 'privilege', though I think that's pretty irrelevant here.
Do you really think it's important whether this particular poster is 'privileged'? If it came out that she were actually a poor trans orphan who grew up starving and had a severe physical disability, would it change the discussion? What if he were a 22 year old tech bro with a rich dad who chugs beer and red bull and harasses women in his spare time? Are the points he made less correct now? If you think so, you should reconsider how you evaluate arguments, discussions, perhaps words themselves. Does it matter for any real purpose of the discussion other than to help you condescendingly armchair-psychoanalyze him (as you have with me) and tell him that his background is why he believes what he believes, and that he just doesn't really understand and never can?
The beauty of discussions online (and there are plenty of drawbacks as well of course) is that you can express yourself, state an opinion, have a thoughtful discussion with others without people hating or dismissing you for who you are; only what you say. That's why most forums don't have a "real names policy". That's why most forums don't have a 'privilege-meter' next to usernames that uses a sophisticated algorithm to measure how many disadvantages a person has been through, spitting out a final number that tells us how seriously to take her posts. This kind of unsolicited digging into a person's personal life is generally frowned upon in any online discussion forum.
> That you believe this makes it absolutely impossible for me to think you're not in a privileged position.
Believe what you want, but I sure as hell didn't grow up in a privileged position.
> Great when you know where to go, and they work as they should. They are not perfect. And people are not perfect. Especially not when starving.
Churches will give food, its part of many faiths. Stealing is wrong, and brings misery to others. People will help others, but taking is never right because of the chain of pain you unleash in the world. Whose privileged when you can decide to take from others?
> Believe what you want, but I sure as hell didn't grow up in a privileged position.
I think the disconnect there is that we appear to have very different ideas of what is required to be privileged.
Have you ever starved? (And going hungry is not starvation).
> Churches will give food, its part of many faiths.
Again, have you ever starved, and tried to think clearly enough to find someone willing to give you food?
> People will help others, but taking is never right because of the chain of pain you unleash in the world.
If the choices is theft of necessities or starvation, I would always consider theft morally acceptable, because the pain involved is magnitudes apart from the pain caused by petty theft.
Going hungry and starvation are two vastly different things, both physiologically and mentally.
> There was choices made by this person before they hit starve.
And these choices were insufficient to save him. So now what? Do you want him to starve to death because he was unable to fix things? Are property rights for a few euros worth that much to you compared to the well-being of a fellow human?
> Why is visiting a church or other organization unacceptable to you?
If you think that is what I said, you did not understand what I wrote.
> If you think that is what I said, you did not understand what I wrote.
I cannot think otherwise because you seem to say that stealing is still the only means of survival. I offered what this person could do instead of stealing. Stealing is still not the only solution.
> I cannot think otherwise because you seem to say that stealing is still the only means of survival. I offered what this person could do instead of stealing. Stealing is still not the only solution.
My point, which you still do not seem to understand, is that someone who is starving is not in a frame of mind where you can expect them to be able to calmly and logically go through the available options, weigh them, find the most moral one, and execute on it.
Hence why I asked if you have ever experienced starvation rather than just hunger.
To me the above ranks with the (admittedly apocryphal) "let them eat cake". Technically, yes, he "could" have done many things.
> No one is stealing from you, they are stealing from a supermarket
Yes, well they're stealing from someone, aren't they? But of course, it's ok if someone steals from the heartless grocery store owner, isn't it? I feel as if you would have a different opinion if anybody was allowed to walk into your house without your permission and ransack your fridge (and anything else they felt that they "need").
The moral problem with theft isn't that it is illegal. The problem is that one person expended their own personal resources to create the good. The person has spent their own time, money, and/or intelligence to create some good that now has value. The thief, who has expended zero effort to create nothing, takes the fruit of the producer's labor for no work, on the basis of his "need". What kind of society does this produce, where you can take things from others solely on your basis of need?
You seem to be making the cliche mistake of associating morality with need. I hope one day you don't need to learn this isn't always correlated...
In my youth I would have starved unless we did not have a bag of potatos from our friends who lived on the countryside for our help during the harvest. We did not have a car.
Am I not privileged enough to have an opinion that theft, as such, should not be tolerated?
I still think that we should collectively help people who are in risk of starvation.
Discursive ad hominem, yawn. Discuss the implications of theft being okay if you are hungry, not the background of the person who suggested they disagree with that notion.
What kind of environment do you partake in discourse in that this kind of condescending contribution is acceptable? It sounds like you're taking your cues from the Comic Guy from The Simpsons. "Tu quoque? yawn".
The "yawn" is a bit flippant, but I don't see why it's condescending, he's absolutely correct. Your comic book guy reference seems to suggest that you think he's using big words to sound smart or something, but it seems like a pretty cogent response to a post that completely skips over the substance of the topic at hand and parades around unqualified assumptions about the poster as an argument.
It was a direct response to the "yawn, yawn, yawn" in the parent. If someone is going to behave like a asshole, they don't deserve much better as a response IMO. Life is too short.
Other than the fact that the parent post is all discursive ad hominem (as pointed out in another reply), its also extremely presumptive and grounded in rather false premises. Often, people that have been through hard times have the most black and white view of what is morally right in such times, and cling to them quite strongly as an important part of their identity, often one which helped psychologically in getting through hard times.
Black and white thinking can, sure, be a result of privilege, but it can also be a product of its absence. Aside from being fallacious to attack a speaker for your presumption of what in their background might be the motivation for their ideas rather than addressing the ideas themselves, you'll also quite often be wrong on that presumption.
