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No, that's an example of stealing an object. Stealing an object is fundamentally not the same as telling someone something, even if it's something you didn't wa

No, that's an example of stealing an object. Stealing an object is fundamentally not the same as telling someone something, even if it's something you didn't want them to say. This is why your example induces an obvious ethical reaction, whereas the original example induces a much more complicated one. The better example is, you found out where her long-lost cousin lived, some guy eavesdropped, and HE told her where said cousin lived, and she jumped into HIS arms and drove off into the sunset. You are not now without an object that you formerly owned; you just planned to exploit a scarcity of information that no longer exists, and you're mad about it. You also feel cheated because you were the one that did all the work to find her cousin, and he got all the benefit. That doesn't make it the same as stealing a car. But in this case, the information was actually of little value, but because there was a scarcity of information in the first place, the FBI would have been none the wiser. The ethics of spreading information are complicated. Oversimplifying them by comparing them to the ethics of stealing physical objects is wrong and bad.

gphilip 16y ago
"The better example is, you found out where her long-lost cousin lived, some guy eavesdropped, and HE told her where said cousin lived, and she jumped into HIS arms and drove off into the sunset. You are not now without an object that you formerly owned; you just planned to exploit a scarcity of information that no longer exists, and you're mad about it. You also feel cheated because you were the one that did all the work to find her cousin, and he got all the benefit. That doesn't make it the same as stealing a car." There's Something About Mary
gphilip 16y ago
"The better example is, you found out where her long-lost cousin lived, some guy eavesdropped, and HE told her where said cousin lived, and she jumped into HIS arms and drove off into the sunset. You are not now without an object that you formerly owned; you just planned to exploit a scarcity of information that no longer exists, and you're mad about it. You also feel cheated because you were the one that did all the work to find her cousin, and he got all the benefit. That doesn't make it the same as stealing a car." There's Something About Mary

gphilip 16y ago

"The better example is, you found out where her long-lost cousin lived, some guy eavesdropped, and HE told her where said cousin lived, and she jumped into HIS arms and drove off into the sunset. You are not now without an object that you formerly owned; you just planned to exploit a scarcity of information that no longer exists, and you're mad about it. You also feel cheated because you were the one that did all the work to find her cousin, and he got all the benefit. That doesn't make it the same as stealing a car." There's Something About Mary

gphilip 16y ago