Would it be wrong to become a Modern Day Robin Hood and steal from the rich to give to the poor?

[Jayson1]

Eh, I'm fine with breaking laws if I feel they are either unjust, or warrant breaking. For example, the old "would you rescue a drowning man from a lake if there was a sign that said 'No Swimming'" scenario. Of course I would break that law without a second thought. Same for any situation where I feel if I don't, then someone will be harmed. Granted, that makes it up to me to define necessity, and that my definition may not be agreed upon by law enforcement, but then I often disagree with law enforcement anyway. Being anti-authoritarian has that kind of effect.

I never heard of that "No Swimming" example before. God my interest in dark humor makes me imagine a terrible scenario were a guy is drowning and someone says something like "Sorry Dude. Can't help you, just look at the sign. I am going to the authority though to report you for breaking the law. You know you shouldn't be in their. Look at the sign!"

Jason

 

[Roundabout]

In "The City on the Edge of Forever", Kirk said to Spock "we'll steal from the rich and give back to the poor later", as he was about to swipe some clothes that was hanging on some fire escape. Do you remember that scene?

So I guess Captain Kirk would endorse your proposition.

 

[Amaris]

I never heard of that "No Swimming" example before. God my interest in dark humor makes me imagine a terrible scenario were a guy is drowning and someone says something like "Sorry Dude. Can't help you, just look at the sign. I am going to the authority though to report you for breaking the law. You know you shouldn't be in their. Look at the sign!"

Jason

Yep. Essentially, I feel that my ethics and morality supersede any law, if I feel that law is either unjust, or inflexible so as to prevent me from saving or protecting another living being.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

Yep. Essentially, I feel that my ethics and morality supersede any law, if I feel that law is either unjust, or inflexible so as to prevent me from saving or protecting another living being.

Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative comes to mind.

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."

You disagree with the law, so you act according to what you think the law should be.

 

[Jayson1]

Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative comes to mind.

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."

You disagree with the law, so you act according to what you think the law should be.

What if the law though is beyond the scope of being stopped by one person? What if you thought Trump was breaking the law and someone got in their head they were going to try and citizen arrest him? Don't people have to sort of accept some injustiice?. Even if you do something like protest your sort of accepting that some injustice is going to have to be allowed in the present until the protest creates any positive change. It's kind of dark to think about but it seems in theory almost anything you do in life that isn't about fighting injustice is sort of kind of allowing it to happen. You take even one break to watch a tv show it means their is a injustice happening at that moment and your not doing something to stop it during that time your watching your show thus your kind of accepting it. Thinking about the world problems so strongly I think would drive any person crazy if they realized all the terrible things happening in this very moment while your not doing something this very moment to stop it.

Jason

 

[Kai "the spy"]

What if the law though is beyond the scope of being stopped by one person? What if you thought Trump was breaking the law and someone got in their head they were going to try and citizen arrest him? Don't people have to sort of accept some injustiice?. Even if you do something like protest your sort of accepting that some injustice is going to have to be allowed in the present until the protest creates any positive change. It's kind of dark to think about but it seems in theory almost anything you do in life that isn't about fighting injustice is sort of kind of allowing it to happen. You take even one break to watch a tv show it means their is a injustice happening at that moment and your not doing something to stop it during that time your watching your show thus your kind of accepting it. Thinking about the world problems so strongly I think would drive any person crazy if they realized all the terrible things happening in this very moment while your not doing something this very moment to stop it.

Jason

I think you're misreading the categorical imperative. To stick with the drowning person scenario, if you think the universal law should be to help such a person, then you should help that person.* If you think it should be okay to protest something and thereby causing a relatively minor inconvenience to other people, then you can protest. But by willing it to be universal law, you thereby also have to accept to being inconvenienced by other people's protest.

And of course, you can't always be active. One needs rest, that's not a matter of accepting injustice. That's just accepting one's own limits.

*I'm no legal expert, but might the law of rendering assistance during an emergency not overrule the law of "not swimming"? Like when there's a fire in somebody's appartment and you're breaking and entering to help someone out of there.

 

[Jayson1]

I think you're misreading the categorical imperative. To stick with the drowning person scenario, if you think the universal law should be to help such a person, then you should help that person.* If you think it should be okay to protest something and thereby causing a relatively minor inconvenience to other people, then you can protest. But by willing it to be universal law, you thereby also have to accept to being inconvenienced by other people's protest.

And of course, you can't always be active. One needs rest, that's not a matter of accepting injustice. That's just accepting one's own limits.

*I'm no legal expert, but might the law of rendering assistance during an emergency not overrule the law of "not swimming"? Like when there's a fire in somebody's appartment and you're breaking and entering to help someone out of there.

I wonder what would happen if you broke into a house to save someone from a fire but what if you were wrong and their was no fire? Maybe you smelled something and made the wrong conclusion but what if the person in the apartment was naked and thus you invaded their privacy and also lets say you break down the door but don't have money to replace it or more likely you break something in the apartment that is really expensive and you still have the lack of money issue. What if the person who lives in the apartment also doesn't have the money to replace it.

Is their something wrong in trying to help someone yet your not qualified and you end up making the situation, worst?

Jason

 

[Amaris]

Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative comes to mind.

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."

You disagree with the law, so you act according to what you think the law should be.

Somewhat, though from what little I understand of Kant's Categorical Imperative, I also have to believe it is my duty, an obligation that must be fulfilled whether I like it or not, and that by doing so, only then am I doing the moral thing. While I do believe that there are duties I must engage in should they arise (for example, if I heard a scream come from a dark alleyway, I would feel it my moral imperative to immediately rush to aid), I do it because it's something I want to do, because I feel I can help when I do it. It isn't for selfish reasons, but Kant might not agree with that assessment.

 

[thestrangequark]

I'm drunk and angry so blah blah deep philosophical analysis blah blah blah. I say fucking do it. Because when I see these rich penthouse Wall Street fuckers strolling on by the starving homeless vet or desperate homeless kid I wish I had the skill to knick their wallets and spill the cash on those street people.
The moral fabric of our society is a joke so yes, @Jayson1 , we should all be Robin Hood.

 

[Spot261]

In many countries much of the above is covered by various iterations of what are colloquially termed "good samaritan laws", the broad strokes idea being that if you act in good faith believing someone to be in peril then various other aspects of the law need not be applied.

A common instance is a person delivering CPR and accidentally breaking ribs. One reading of the law is that the person could sue for the injuries sustained, if not press charges of assault. In most countries, however, there are some degree of protections afforded the rescuer.

 

[Marynator]

I feel there is a difference between acting in an emergency to save someone's life and willfully committing a crime to correct a perceived injustice.

The latter is far too subjective and can easily lead to even worse crimes. A person may start out altruistic, but there is no guarantee they will stay that way. They might even be trying to do good always, but simply lack the wisdom (as probably 100% of the population does) to always do what is really right. While the legal system will of course make errors from time to time, I do believe that the error rate will be much lower than self-proclaimed heroes.

 

[Amaris]

I feel there is a difference between acting in an emergency to save someone's life and willfully committing a crime to correct a perceived injustice.

The latter is far too subjective and can easily lead to even worse crimes. A person may start out altruistic, but there is no guarantee they will stay that way. They might even be trying to do good always, but simply lack the wisdom (as probably 100% of the population does) to always do what is really right. While the legal system will of course make errors from time to time, I do believe that the error rate will be much lower than self-proclaimed heroes.

The legal system makes a great many errors, especially towards minorities, and the poor in particular. It is designed to protect the wealthy, and keep the population in check should they decide to fight back against said wealthy. More so, the so-called justice system rarely compensates those it accuses falsely, imprisons, or murders. Those who act in its accordance are often protected by the simple notion that legality is equivalent to morality, and they are thusly protected from backlash when the system engages in grievous error or outright corruption. I'd rather a thousand guilty go free than one innocent be locked up. The justice system, on the other hand, has no such qualms about how it treats the innocent because under our system no one is innocent.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

how much he has stolen or screwed people over

I'm not sure what you're rolling your eyes at, since for those who don't choose to be willfully ignorant about it, it's long been well established fact and upheld in court in multiple cases that the Trump Organization's business model is largely built on fraud, deceit, unethical hiring and business practices, leaving others to foot the bill, tax evasion, stiffing small businesses and contractors, cheating charities, making deals with the mob, shady offshore accounts, sexual harassment, racist housing policies, declaring bankruptcy multiple times as a business strategy to get out of paying his debts, debt relief and concealment from shady Russian banks and oligarchs in tit-for-tat arrangements, etc. etc. etc.

It's something which his corrupt and racist father taught to him and he taught to his corrupt and racist sons and son-in-law, something he got away with because the wealthy, powerful, and connected are held to a vastly different standard in this country than us normal folks if we do anything wrong or get into debt trouble, and something which he has carried with him into the White House because decades of getting away with it in the private sector has taught him he will likely get away with it in the public sector too.

I mean, seriously, you haven't even heard of the $25 million "Trump University" settlement? Or is defrauding people okay? What about stealing money from children's cancer charities and withholding money from veterans charities that other people donated to but he took credit for despite contributing none of his own money? Is it okay for Mr. Champion of the Small Business Owner to hire small family-owned contractors for work on your casinos and hotels and then not pay them, repeatedly and gleefully (he flat out admits he does it)? What about keeping the remainder of the taxpayer funds for his inaugural events? And he's been screwing Puerto Rico out of billions of dollars in debt he left for them to pay on his golf course there long before he screwed them during the recent hurricane. Is it okay to not pay your own pollsters during the election or your own lawyer who footed the bill for Stormy Daniels' hush money?

Trump wraps himself up in corruption like it's a warm blanket.

Here's just a small sample to read up on (I'll be happy to supply more, because there's A LOT):

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/donald-trump-scandals/474726/
https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...p-exploited-charity-for-personal-gain/499535/
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-inauguration-money-still-missing-783934
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/eric...money-businesses-associates/story?id=47878610
https://newrepublic.com/article/143...ses-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...hide-part-of-a-kazakh-bank-s-missing-billions
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...b-bankrupt-coco-beach-golf-club-a7970201.html
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/02/trump-university-lawsuit-settlement-upheld.html
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...bills-republican-president-laswuits/85297274/
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/10/donald-trump-pollster-unpaid
https://www.npr.org/2017/01/11/509168365/trump-d-c-hotel-contractors-say-theyre-owed-millions
https://www.motherjones.com/politic...ld-dumped-his-huge-casino-debts-other-people/

 

[Australis]

It's not the Govt that should be robbed, it's the Big End of Town, who make money off the backs of those they think of as beneath them. The family that owns WalMart and Trump would be first on my list. Just fgo into the accounts of the WalMart family and redistribute 90% of their wealth among their lowest paid workforce, the ones that rely on foodstamps. Simple.

 

[Refuge]

So what is the question? Is it wrong to do something wrong (steal).

Answer - yes.

 

[thestrangequark]

So what is the question? Is it wrong to do something wrong (steal).

Answer - yes.

lol. Black and white morality is one of the most immoral of human inventions.

 

[Gov Kodos]

lol. Black and white morality is one of the most immoral of human inventions.

That and Hostess Sno Balls.

 

[Refuge]

Yeah grey morality is better. Fuck no.

 

[thestrangequark]

Yeah grey morality is better. Fuck no.

lol what fairy land do you live in where morality isn't grey?

A child is dying of thirst and the only water supplier ain't negotiating. Which is more moral, stealing water to save the child or not stealing it and letting the child die because stealing is "wrong"? And yeah, that's a made up scenario, but that doesn't mean shit like that doesn't happen every day.

 

[Leviathan]

I say it IS WRONG.

You sir, do not go far enough. These folks are on the right track:

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