The first question was: ‘I’ve never shoplifted in my life,
but was that because of some genuinely held ethical principle, or because I was
afraid of being caught?’ If it was the latter, does it mean I should respect
the shoplifter for being braver than me?
In fact, it was probably a combination of the two, so then I
have to ask myself where the ‘ethical principle’ came from. Was it simply conditioned
by a commercially dominated culture, or was it an inherent belief that’s it’s
wrong to take something that isn’t mine? At this point it begins to get
complicated, because it raises issues such as:
How does one resolve the semantics of right and wrong?
How valid is the concept of personal ownership?
Who owns the goods on the shelves of a floated company
anyway? Nobody. They’re just listed on the stock inventory of a heartless commercial
machine. So is that the same as stealing from a person?
How does shoplifting relate to the fact that one of Britain’s
most revered institutions, the British
Museum, is loaded to the gunwhales
with stolen goods?
And so on...
Which is why I spent an hour thinking about it, and not
coming to any definite conclusion because it really is more complicated than
you’d think once you start delving deeply.
2 comments:
I think there's also the issue of how much the person doing the shoplifting is in need. Is it a necessity or a thrill.
Hard to come to a definitive conclusion when wandering in the realm of morals. Why do we have them, who sets them? Different cultures, different morals.
I was reading an old book about a boy who ran away with the Gypsies. Whilst they had a strong moral code within their own society, to take from outsiders was acceptable.
Quite. A reason to be circumspect with the judging, then.
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