Rhetorical

[Trebor]

Ok, so Swim was habving a mushroom trip abnd was asking rhetorical questions such as "Is it wrong to steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family?" and "WHat is the sound of one hand claping?"

For the second question, it answered wittily "Don't bother me and do it to find out."

For the first however, it was a lot more interesting. It spoke of how it depends on moral beliefs and if it's becuase you can't get a job or wont.

SO my qustion is this: is it moral to steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family?

Reputation Comments on this post:

good questio and you SWIY needs some rep

[Forthesevenlakes]

Depends whose morality you use. By the categorical imperative of Immanual Kant, you'd be ideally treating other humans as ends in themselves, rather than as means to an end. By stealing the loaf of bread, the baker of the loaf would be simply a means to your end of feeding your family. So, by Kant's definition, it would be immoral. Kant (and many other people) might argue that it would be better for the person to get a job or perform a good deed in exchange for the bread if he was unable to afford it at the time.

Other philosophies could justify the morality of stealing the bread, however. One example would be Nietzsche. In one book, Beyond Good and Evil, he states an aphorism that "what is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil." Clearly, the man stealing the loaf of bread is doing so out of love for his family, so he can not be judged by conventional morals (whatever the police might say, heh). In that action, the man would be acting, perhaps not morally, but beyond morals altogether. Nietzsche generally viewed exceeding boundaries and setting ones own morals and truths as something to aspire to, so while he may not call the theft "moral", he may view it as a good thing if it sustains a person's loved ones.

There are many directions this argument could go, but I present just two. I'd love to see what other members have to say about this though! What is the answer you decided on, Trebor?

As a last parting shot...what kind of family could actually survive on a loaf of bread for a substantial amount of time? And if one is already going for the bread, why not steal a whole meal? It'd be much more effective for one's purposes here, whether or not its moral.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Excellent post

[Riconoen {UGC}]

It isn't wrong and smack your fingers against your palm and then you'll find out.

[Nagognog2]

I'll go slap Victor Hugo and steal his bread.

[VincentVan]

Who gives a crap about what´s "moral" ?

[Forthesevenlakes]

Most of society, VV!

perhaps not you or i, but many people spend alot of time thinking about what is moral, and how they can fit into conventional morality! We have the luxury of interacting with a biased sample who often transcend these boundaries and can ignore problems that the average person would lose sleep over...but we must always remember we are in the minority here! so while my good friend SWIM agrees that he gives naught a crap for "morality", he doesnt always speak that piece. because he DOES give a crap for his job, social standing, etc.

[VincentVan]

The adjective "moral" and the noun "morality" give me the creeps.
You should always be suspicious of anyone claiming to act in the name or for the sake of morality, as few concepts have ever been more relative and changeable than that of moral. It changes not only from people to people, country to country and time to time, but specially from individual to individual , and even the very same individual will have different ideas of what´s moral and what it is´nt, at different periods of his life.
So when anyone pretends to know what´s moral and what´s immoral he is either deluding himself (i.e. he is a dangerous ignorant) or, more often, he is trying to delude you (i. e. he is a dangerous liar); sometimes he can be both .
The bottom line is that since nobody can claim a monopoly on morality you should not worry about what´s moral , worry instead about what is just, or rightful, or honest, or you´ll be liable to be judged a moralist ,and in my opinion no insult can be worse than that.

I´m not saying that a just society should be immoral, but I´m absolutely convinced that it should be AMORAL; so that its judgement on what´s just and rightful and what it is´nt will be based on clear laws deriving from a shared social contract and not from methaphisical and philosophical concepts that for their own nature are continually evolving and never shared by more than a few individuals.

VV

Reputation Comments on this post:

Nice post VV

[Trebor]

It's interesting that only one of the replys came back with an answer. Forthesevevlakes, my answer is that no, it's not, but that probably has something to do with my philosophy of "Live for the moment." If I was in that position I'd go rob the fucking baker blind.

So, when Swim read these answers, he had to say that they all make excellent points, particularly VincentVan's post above me. Yes, those who do claim to know what is moral are a danger to themselves or others.

And keeping with the theme of this site, Friedrich Nietzcshe was an advocate of Hashish and cocaine as a means of self-liberation.