Atheists: Is stealing wrong? If so, explain why.

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As an atheist I think stealing is wrong because people have IMO the right to have posessions and property. It's a matter of having respect for people. I don't want people to steal from me, so why should I do that exact thing to them? What you don't want yourself to happen, don't do that to another. It's as simple as that.

Furthermore, stealing causes anger and disruption. So when you do this, you cause harm to yourself, tohers and maybe society. When stealing and other crimes wouldn't be wrong, you'd have some kind of an anarchy.

All well and good. But you haven't explained why you respect people. "Because you should" is not an explanation.
I have respect for people because I believe they are children of God. That's respect grounded in logic, rather than in a feeling.



I'm not sure if by stealing I cause harm to myself -- that is, if I'm thinking atheistically, as in: there being no spiritual dimension to my actions, and only the material world exists. On the contrary, I would do myself quite a great service through theft, materially, because I'd be making and proving myself fitter to survive than the less-aware person I stole from.
Stealing causes harm to others? Definitely, at the beginning. But if it forces them to adapt to a higher level of awareness, one could argue that it's doing them a favor by increasing their survival skills, albeit through forced necessity -- which is the usual way to aquire survival skills anyway. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all, so you could argue that stealing breeds general human progress as a trickle-down effect: The positive reaction against stealing amounts to more than the theft itself, thus a "small wrongness" is eventually outweighed by the "large rightness" it caused. Our society already steals as a whole, in both legal and non-legal ways. (For example, if you're in debt and delinquent in the debt, you're a thief, and can be sued. There was once even "debtors' prison", where they simply threw you in jail until you paid off your money debt.)


Well, there are already many legal types of stealing, and, if anything, we have a too-powerful government, not anarchy.

Last edited by Ragtime on 07 Jan 2009, 3:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

From what I get from Cocodrile's post, if I'm correct, it's a matter of action and reaction, if you harm someone, that someone would harm you back, or to put it in this way, you harm someone you make a new enemy, you help someone and you might make a new friend, of course is not something as simple as that, but that could be a principle, so to speak, and I could add, empathy/sympathy to it as well. "I understand what if feels so I won't do it to anyone else", but then, I suppose not many would find this that argumentative, considering it wouldn't always work like that.

In Immanuel Kant's book Perpetual Peace, he says something like respecting and recognizing the right of others as a mean for perpetual peace.


I believe that argument would be flawed, if it's made by someone who steals, if he turns out the victim at a given time, then that person would not adhere to that argument in his case, most likely, and it seems more like an excuse for such behaviour in that case.

I haven't heard anyone making an argument for stealing being benefitial to humanity as a whole, that would be a big stretch if someone does, and it should consider other factors such as order and the repercusions of humanity to live by that.

Although I can get that some could argue that being Robin Hood to be a good thing rather than bad.


You're right here, there is also the issue about what is actually stealing and what is not, something that not everyone would agree on this.

Really??? Is the underwear you have on jointly owned?

ruveyn

Sand said that the *concept* was communal, not the individual possesions. In other words, the idea that 'individuals can have personal property' is communal and has benefits to the group as a whole.

property was communal, however it has been abstracted. by abstracted i mean that property has turned into something that is alienated from it's original form, which is communal, it has done this transformation simultaneously to work. abstracted labor.

also theft as we know it is only possible through this alienation of work and of commodities. when you alienate work from community and also alienate commodities from communities.

so theft only is capable under capitalism.

if there was no capitalism then you would walk into the shop and take what you want.

Sure, there'd just be a problem due to a lack of shops.


In any case, to get to twoshots question a few pages back on how God helps deal with morality, well, the main issue with a deity is that such a being can do a few things:

1) The deity does not have to actually literally be the source of morality, but rather can function as an epistemic middle agent, an ideal observer if it were. Thus, even if deity itself has an unknown process, the reliability of the deity's testimony can provide a service. Without this deity though, the grounding for conclusions, even those similar to those given by the deity, lacks evidence.

2) Divine beings are usually assumed to have powers beyond human conception, as can be argued from Isaiah 55:9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.", a text in both the Jewish and Christian religious tradition. This can suggest that such a deity can provide moral power.

3) A religious basis, usually also includes a notion of teleology, allowing for an ethical view that encompasses more elements of a human being, and thus could be argued as more solid, as the religious link to teleology makes both elements more robust and links the intuitions to both together, where as other theories tend to seem more detached from everything else and perhaps reality itself.

4) A spiritual relation to morality opens up an additional means of knowing morality, traditional knowledge about the nature of existence tend to be either empirical, or rational, but spirituality allows for intuition by establishing a connection between intuitions and an underlying reality, and thus ethical intuitionism. It can be argued that this intuition isn't unlimited and needs grounding in holy scriptures or some other, however, a Christian for example, will base their actions to some extent on what they consider the guidance of the holy spirit for pursuing this truth. It could be argued that ethical intuitionism has some of the problems of intuition, however, it does not have the same problems as other epistemic theories, such as the failure of rationalism to attach morality to the actual human reason.

Hopefully those arguments do *something*.

In any case, I think that ethical nihilism or skepticism are the easiest ethical theories to accept, and if one were to accept an ethical theory, it would seem that it should simply be the weak link in a much stronger package.

It's against the law.

Is that justification enough?

Well, it depends on the nature of the discussion, giving the PPR forum, in which arguments have to have a logical background to make it enough as a valid justification and to go through analytical processes in debates.

But in the end, I could say, yes, in practice the law is justification enough, as the law is a moral imposition, people have to adhere to it, wether they agree with it or not, although in a democracy, supposedly, the majority would agree, that I suppose could be debatable, nevertheless, once a certain law has passed, everyone is obliged to adhere to it.

Actually, I'd disagree with your acceptance of PhR33kY's statement on the grounds you give.

I agree, PhR33kY's statement is acceptable, but only if you take into account that laws usually involve punishments for disobedience and thus work from the standpoint of egoism. The problem mostly then being our views of egoism given that.

well, I actually do take into account that laws involve punishments for disobedience, hence my "wether they agree with it or not" remark. And yeah, I could agree that egoism has something to do with following a law for the reason of preventing punishment.

I think I misinterpreted your statements, sorry, greenblue.

thats my point