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It was, I think. Having exhausted every legal avenue, what is the most moral (socially-acceptable/least-harm) illegal option you need to do in order to keep al

It was, I think. Having exhausted every legal avenue, what is the most moral (socially-acceptable/least-harm) illegal option you need to do in order to keep alive? His answer: steal the bare minimum required from places where you will do the least damage to individuals, i.e. large supermarkets where the cost is spread thinly over many people. It sounds like the sort of thing you could model with game theory if you wanted to "prove" it.

nandemo 17y ago
Having exhausted every legal avenue, what is the most moral (socially-acceptable/least-harm) illegal option you need to do in order to keep alive? This is a fair summary of a very twisted argument. He's talking about very poor Brits, and his audience are supposedly the not-so-poor British. Now, UK has an extensive welfare system. How many people come even close to starving to death there? And assuming his audience is composed of mainly middle-class people, why doesn't he simply ask them to donate to the poor? He claims that "the hard reality is that a vicar's salary is not designed to meet the needs of everyone", but somehow it doesn't occur to him that he's not the only one who could donate. How come shoplifting is better than begging? The passages below One might tell them to get a job, but it is at the very best of times extremely difficult for an ex prisoner to find work the likelihood is that, found begging, they will quickly be in trouble with the police, and therefore in breach of their parole. made me suspect this was an elaborate satire. I also wonder if the shoplifting suggestion also applies to poor people without a conviction history.
javert 17y ago
(This comment is a copy of a comment I made in response to a similar reply to my comment...) (1) No argumnet based on religion (that is, faith) can also be based on reason. Most of his sermon is about religion. It revolves around religion. Thus, it cannot be considered (as a whole) to be rational. (2) I think it would be rational to say stealing from a major chain store is less evil than violent crime, and possibly prostitution. But it's not rational to encourage people to steal. As you point out, most of the time, there are more choices than those presented--it's a false dilemma. There may be some cases in which steadling is the best option. However, the theif would certainly have a moral obligation to repay the store when he could, and that is not mentioned here. (Really, we need a basis for both 'rationality' and 'morality' to have this discussion, which can be had, but not in the space of a comment.)

nandemo 17y ago

Having exhausted every legal avenue, what is the most moral (socially-acceptable/least-harm) illegal option you need to do in order to keep alive? This is a fair summary of a very twisted argument. He's talking about very poor Brits, and his audience are supposedly the not-so-poor British. Now, UK has an extensive welfare system. How many people come even close to starving to death there? And assuming his audience is composed of mainly middle-class people, why doesn't he simply ask them to donate to the poor? He claims that "the hard reality is that a vicar's salary is not designed to meet the needs of everyone", but somehow it doesn't occur to him that he's not the only one who could donate. How come shoplifting is better than begging? The passages below One might tell them to get a job, but it is at the very best of times extremely difficult for an ex prisoner to find work the likelihood is that, found begging, they will quickly be in trouble with the police, and therefore in breach of their parole. made me suspect this was an elaborate satire. I also wonder if the shoplifting suggestion also applies to poor people without a conviction history.

javert 17y ago

(This comment is a copy of a comment I made in response to a similar reply to my comment...) (1) No argumnet based on religion (that is, faith) can also be based on reason. Most of his sermon is about religion. It revolves around religion. Thus, it cannot be considered (as a whole) to be rational. (2) I think it would be rational to say stealing from a major chain store is less evil than violent crime, and possibly prostitution. But it's not rational to encourage people to steal. As you point out, most of the time, there are more choices than those presented--it's a false dilemma. There may be some cases in which steadling is the best option. However, the theif would certainly have a moral obligation to repay the store when he could, and that is not mentioned here. (Really, we need a basis for both 'rationality' and 'morality' to have this discussion, which can be had, but not in the space of a comment.)