A homeless man steals a slice of bread to survive...

[Mozart]

is it morally right or wrong? Would the homeless man not continue to steal after he has received satisfaction from the bread? Wouldn't he like to maybe try something tastier? Who decides what is moral and what isn't?


** 1 more question, did morality come from civilization?

[Gurn Blanston]

is it morally right or wrong? Would the homeless man not continue to steal after he has received satisfaction from the bread? Wouldn't he like to maybe try something tastier? Who decides what is moral and what isn't?

Not me. Didn't Victor Hugo write a Broadway musical about this? Not homeless, but otherwise poor? I guess Quasimodo decides what happens to Jean Valjean.

[mahlertitan]

what up? did Mozart read Les Mis or something?

[Gurn Blanston]

what up? did Mozart read Les Mis or something?

All great thoughts have been thought before. Sort of depressing, but true.

[hornteacher]

My theory is that the rich invented morality to keep the poor from killing them.

[mahlertitan]

My theory is people naturally invented morality to keep themselves safe, sort of like a universal pact:
hey, you don't do this to me, i won't do this to you

[PSmith08]

Morality is socially constructed, just like most things. It is also mutable over time, as we can plainly see from a brief study of Victorian mores and then a flip to MTV. I daresay Queen Victoria would swoon if she were subjected to "My Super Sweet 16," or - horror of horrors - "Next."

[Josquin des Prez]

It is also mutable over time, as we can plainly see from a brief study of Victorian mores and then a flip to MTV.

I think the Victorians were right. Nothing mutable about considering shit like MTV to be HIGHLY immoral from whichever angle you want to look at it. It's not that our moral compass has changed during the years, we simply no longer have one...

[Mozart]

what up? did Mozart read Les Mis or something?

Mozart doesn't read literature   

All great thoughts have been thought before. Sort of depressing, but true. Smiley

Yes but they can be added to little bits at a time.

[Mozart]

I think the Victorians were right. Nothing mutable about considering shit like MTV to be HIGHLY immoral from whichever angle you want to look at it. It's not that our moral compass has changed during the years, we simply no longer have one...

Please define morality and also who decides where my moral compass is supposed to point? My mother told me that it was rude to point, but she didn't know what it was like being a 13 year old boy.

[BachQ]

is it morally right or wrong?

It's morally (and legally) wrong, but morally (and, perhaps legally) justified under the proper set of circumstances.

[DetUudslukkelige]

I think it's morally wrong to some degree, but it would be more morally wrong for the other to try to stop him from or get him in trouble for trying to do what he has to do in order to live. Ideally, he would be able to just ask and the other person would be kind enough to give it to him, I think. But that doesn't always happen.

[M forever]

Morality is, among other things, based on compassion which is not a social construct, but one of our most basic instincts. We are, after all, a group animal, and group values are inborn in us as in other higher primates. Otherwise, we couldn't survive.
There are many socially constructed layers of morality on top of that which however aren't really morality, just ways to keep societies under control. Which at first appears to be the same, but there are major differences, as most of these rules actually are highly "immoral". There is no true morality without these basic values, so a society which lets weak people starve is not a moral society, whatever else they do. That has absolutely nothing to do with all the "moral" rules they pretend to follow. That's just for show, social pressure mechanisms.

[PSmith08]

I think the Victorians were right. Nothing mutable about considering shit like MTV to be HIGHLY immoral from whichever angle you want to look at it. It's not that our moral compass has changed during the years, we simply no longer have one...

Why is it "HIGHLY" immoral? What makes it so, a priori? The fact that it's, largely, in poor taste?

[Drasko]

Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral.

                                --- Berthold Brecht 'Die Dreigroschenoper'

[Scriptavolant]

My theory is that the rich invented morality to keep the poor from killing them.

Quite appropriate. As some scholar has pointed out, if you want to you can go back and read which was the true foundation of the Constitution in Madison, that is "protecting the minority of the opulents against the majority". Each so called moral institution is a tool to prevent such power - such opulence - from being dethroned or challenged, and each form of modern morality is founded upon the deliberate will for hypocrisy.

[Mark]

Theft is theft, irrespective of circumstances.

But it would be a heartless person indeed who'd report the theft in this case, or take punitive action against the thief.

[Harry]

Well you have not been in the circumstance Mark, of having no food.
I had  to steal as a little child, for my parents abandoned me, and left me to my own devices.
I did not learn how to beg, so I stole my food.
I have absolutely no scrupples about that, nor do I think it morally wrong to steal food when hungry.

[Mark]

Well you have not been in the circumstance Mark, of having no food.

On the contrary, sir. There were times in the mid-80s when my family had little or no money, and we regular ate nothing for a couple of days (usually, at weekends). It meant we were too weak with hunger to attend school on Mondays. Very sad, much like your own unfortunate tale. Nonetheless, I stand by my original post (which is not to say I'd not steal food if my circumstances demanded it).

[mahlertitan]

Well you have not been in the circumstance Mark, of having no food.
I had  to steal as a little child, for my parents abandoned me, and left me to my own devices.
I did not learn how to beg, so I stole my food.
I have absolutely no scrupples about that, nor do I think it morally wrong to steal food when hungry.

why can't you beg for it?