Co-blogger Bryan Caplan, whose reasoning I virtually always respect, surprised me with his post earlier today. In it, he addressed an earlier comment by Liam:
John’s child is dying from cancer. He cannot afford to fly her to a country offering pioneering treatment. Let’s assume it has a reasonably high chance of saving her life. Can John hack into Bill Gates’ bank account and steal the money he needs?
I take it that Caplan thinks this would be wrong; and yet what could possibly be more demanding than a moral principle which requires you to step back and watch your own child die from cancer? In fact, utilitarianism would probably be less demanding in this case, since you may well increase overall utility by stealing the money.
Bryan answered:
Actually, I don’t think this would be wrong. Like Huemer, I endorse a moderate deontological view that allows rights violations when the benefits vastly exceed the costs.
I was shocked.
If Bryan thinks it’s right to steal from Bill Gates to finance expensive cancer surgery with “a reasonably high chance of saving her life,” then that principle must apply to tens of millions of people who could have their lives saved even more cheaply by being able to get food.
Think of, say, 100 million of the poorest people in India. They could ward off starvation for a year or even two with an extra $1,000. That’s $100 billion, which is enough to wipe out Bill Gates’ net worth, especially after Melinda is done with him.
That seems wrong to me. How few people have to benefit from stealing from Bill Gates to make it right to steal? 10 million? 1 million? 10?
Working backward, it seems wrong to me for even one poor parent in India to steal from Bill Gates.
READER COMMENTS
Eric Larson
Jul 8 2021 at 7:20pm
If we can separate the a government allowing theft from the individual act of the theft itself, then we need not judge the starving person either way. I don’t think a useful theory of ethics for you, Bryan, and I to interact needs to address the morality of the starving person or the cancer parent. The government legitimizing such thefts would be consequential and negative.
I don’t think this revelation makes Bryan a less trustworthy person, because much of his trustworthiness is a result of his reputation and future prospects. For instance, this is the same reason people feel comfortable to take a bet with you.
But, if suddenly you were impoverished by some Deus Ex Machina and list your productive capacity, would a winning bettor be right to make you starve to pay him? In this country, you would not necessarily be starving because of government aid but that just changes who commits the theft for you to eat.
I think any moral judgment must account for the person’s other alternatives. When those alternatives are subjectively unimaginable to me like starvation or watching you child die, I reserve judgment. I don’t think there is a slippery slope on this dimension. You can’t easily go from terminal cancer to “the kid needs braces”.
Eric Larson
Jul 8 2021 at 7:21pm
*Lose* your productive capacity
JFA
Jul 8 2021 at 8:05pm
“Think of, say, 100 million of the poorest people in India. They could ward off starvation for a year or even two with an extra $1,000. That’s $100 billion, which is enough to wipe out Bill Gates’ net worth, especially after Melinda is done with him.”
This would assume that it is *always* okay to steal from Gates, but presumably the calculation changes as his net worth declines.
Also, the kind of reasoning Liam and Bryan are using is similar to that used by Peter Singer, of which there have been several critiques.
David Henderson
Jul 9 2021 at 11:13am
You write:
So then the next question is: “How low must one’s net worth be so that it is no longer allowable for him/her to be stolen from? $1 billion? $100 million? $1 million? $500,000?”
Jens
Jul 10 2021 at 1:43am
You can also turn that around. Imagine there was an intergalactic Bill Gates with a fortune of 100 trillion intergalactic currency units (ICU). The ICU has enormous purchasing power. For example, if a planet is threatened with annihilation by a meteorite, 1 ICU is enough to pay the intergalactic towing company to divert the meteorite. Let’s imagine the earth (or a comparable planet) is acutely threatened by a meteorite. The inhabitants of the planet do not know about it or do not have 1 ICU or are technically not able to do something themselves. A thief wants to help the earth and steals 1 UCI from the intergalactic Bill Gates to save the earth and pay the intergalactic tow company. By the way, you can also twist yourself out in a very interesting way; e.g. by not calling it theft or stealing at all.
robc
Jul 8 2021 at 9:08pm
I am with David, I was stunned by Bryan’s comment.
Michael Stack
Jul 9 2021 at 4:48pm
Stunned, really? Do you think that rules like, ‘do not steal’ are 100% absolute?
If you needed life-saving surgery for your kids and were $0.01 and you had to steal it to get the surgery, would you refuse on principle? I’m pretty dead-set against stealing, but I don’t think these moral principles are inviolable.
Michael Stack
Jul 9 2021 at 4:48pm
Sorry, meant to write, “if you were short by $0.01”
robc
Jul 11 2021 at 8:12am
Yes.
Would I steal a penny to save my daughter? If I was tapped out from begging and borrowing…yes. It wouldn’t be the first or last moral absolute I have violated. I would also plead guilty if prosecuted. I do assume the penalty for penny theft is pretty miniscule.
Michael Stack
Jul 16 2021 at 4:47pm
I respect the consistent application of principle, but in my view these rules evolved because it is advantageous for us to follow them.
However, it isn’t *always* advantageous, and so I’m willing to relax the rules in certain circumstances.
Jerry Brown
Jul 9 2021 at 1:09am
I agree with Bryan. Maybe not for the same reasons. Property rights are a human construct that hopefully benefit us all in general. But there are always going to be certain instances where property rights are not the most important priority. Where do you draw the line? Or is there no line in your view? Bryan Caplan seems to say there is a line somewhere- and I agree with him.
Vivian Darkbloom
Jul 9 2021 at 12:07pm
I wonder if John’s last name was Valjean.
The proper means of addressing these issues is to consider mitigating factors at the sentencing stage and not to signal upfront that it’s ok to steal. Courts by and large already consider those mitigating factors.
eric larson
Jul 9 2021 at 1:30pm
Exactly.
Jens
Jul 9 2021 at 3:21pm
Nah. That’s too vague. I don’t think Caplan was interested in legal details. And different legal systems solve this differently. But there are approaches to these problems.
I only know German criminal law and can spell it out there. There are various criminal offenses. § 242 / Diebstahl StGB (penal code) defines theft as the removal of a movable item with the intention of appropriating it (this means, for example, that removal with the intention of returning it is not theft in the sense of German criminal law, but that is not the point).
If someone takes away an item with the intention of appropriating it, then he has fulfilled the “objective elements” (just a name) of theft. This is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to make this theft punishable.
The act must also be unlawful and the perpetrator must be culpable.
One possibility that makes the act lawful – even though there are the objective elements of a criminal offense – is self-defense (§ 32 StGB / Notwehr – if one fulfills the objective elements of a criminal offense because it is used to ward off an unlawful attack).
However, German criminal law also knows the justifying state of emergency (§ 34 StGB / rechtfertigender Notstand) – which intervenes when a danger to a particularly important legal interest that cannot be averted in any other way can only be averted by encroaching on another, less important legal interest (probably of another person).
That was the level of illegality. But there is also the level of guilt/culpability. There is no culpability, for example, when the perpetrator is mentally ill. But there is also, for example, the excusing state of emergency (Section 35 StGB / entschuldigender Notstand). It takes effect if a certain danger (to life, body or freedom) to relatives or close people that cannot be averted in any other way can be averted by a criminal offense.
(The distinction between justifying and excusing state of emergency seems a little pointless, because in both cases it ultimately leads to the perpetrator being acquitted. But the distinction between justified and excused acts plays an important role in questions of complicity, aiding and abetting, and instigation, because there can be no complicity, aiding and abetting and incitement to justified acts. For acts that are excused for the perpetrator (only), those forms of participation are possible).
Then, of course, it also happens that the perpetrator has simply made himself liable to prosecution (he has fulfilled the objective criteria of a criminal offense, there are no grounds for justification and there are no grounds for excuse). In this case, of course, the specific circumstances of the offense and the person of the offender (age, social background, repeat offender, severity of the offense) play a role in determining the sentence, i.e. the amount of the sentence.
Of course, you can do it completely differently. But there are viable options and paths. And mind you: An act justified by self-defense or justifying emergency is not a criminal offense in the legal system described. That’s not about mitigation in front of the court. It’s a justified act. In fact, if you prevent self-defense, you make yourself liable to prosecution.
Michael Stack
Jul 9 2021 at 4:24pm
I think our evolved morality doesn’t always deal very well with weird cases like this.
“Don’t Steal” is a pretty well-defined rule but I’ll bet any one of us can come up with theoretical exceptions (e.g., “my daughter is dying of a gunshot wound and the only way to get her to the hospital is by stealing somebody’s car”).
At the same time, if we ask ourselves what the world would look like if EVERYONE acted that way, we see it would be a disaster. Fortunately people don’t find them in these types of situations very often!
I’m not sure how to reconcile both perspectives.
anonymous
Jul 9 2021 at 10:14pm
In reality if some reasonable amount of money would save your child’s live, you could easily raise it on GoFundMe or some place like that, so there is no reason you should have to steal it from anyone. If it’s a situation like “you need 10 cents in the next 10 minutes to save 1,000 lives!” I think that can be justified on the basis that the person would have been fine with it if you had the time and ability to explain. It doesn’t make sense that if there is a really compelling reason that you need the money, no one will give it to you willingly.
Jens
Jul 10 2021 at 1:44am
Indeed, the question of the role of ceteris paribus in such moral thought experiments is very interesting. Or also the question of what role the duties of others play.
Joel Pollen
Jul 12 2021 at 11:16am
This is an important and overlooked point. I think we can all agree that if there is a feasible alternative solution to the problem that doesn’t involve stealing, then stealing would be wrong. In the contrived hypotheticals on which this discussion is based, it’s a given that there are no alternatives, but that’s not the way it plays out in reality. Charitable organizations, friends’ generosity, strangers moved by your impassioned pleas, your own ingenuity in solving the problem without the resources you imagine you need, or some combination of these are likely to offer a feasible solution to the problem.
I suspect that very few people who actually steal for supposedly good causes can honestly say that they exhausted every possible alternative before turning to theft. It’s much easier to steal from Bill Gates and justify it to yourself than to actually put in the work of appealing to his generosity. So I think that while “it’s always wrong to steal no matter what” may not be literally true, it’s a better approximation of moral reality than “it’s OK to steal if it’s for a good cause and you feel like you have to.”
Michael Sandifer
Jul 12 2021 at 8:29am
What seems insane to me is your moral inflexibility here David. I’m rather shocked by your absolutism. I didn’t think of you as ideological, until now.
Caplan isn’t ideological, which is why his sense of morality recognizes gray areas, in this case, represented by the diminishing marginal value of wealth. Ceteris paribas, indivifuaas stealing from the extraordinarily wealthy to save lives makes moral sense. However, of too many steal too much from the rich, at some point the costs could exceed any gain, at least from a utilitarian perspective.
David Henderson
Jul 12 2021 at 7:41pm
Ok, I’ll bite.
Check out my answer to JFA and the question I asked him. What would your answer to my question be?
Michael Sandifer
Jul 15 2021 at 12:58am
The answer to your question can be simple, or complex, depending on how broadly you want to consider it. If we take a guy, perhaps who isn’t even rich, and who isn’t Bill Gates, and hasn’t dedicated his life to very large philanthropic projects, then it might moral sense to take every dime he has to save a child. It might even make sense to kill him in the process. Given that he’s older than the child, and stealing from him requires killing him, it might very well make moral sense.
That said, I don’t think the law should allow stealing from or killing people. There’s a difference between what is moral for an individual to do, and what is moral to make legal. Making theft and murder illegal, even when morally justified, gives such options a break-the-glass threshold.
Nor am I saying that I would steal from Bill Gates, or anyone else under any circumstances, much less kill someone. I agree with Scott Sumner, that, while I aspire to utilitarianism, human nature sometimes makes it difficult, if not impossible, to be 100% morally consistent within that perspective.
Mark Young
Jul 12 2021 at 11:50am
I agree with Caplan, but with a caveat that he might also accept — and which, I hope, most others here would accept as well.
Caplan says that the rights violation is OK if the benefit greatly exceeds the cost. I take that to mean that it’s not morally wrong to (for example) break into a cabin if you are lost in the woods in a blizzard. Saving your own life is a greater benefit than the cost to the cabin owner. (I hope you all agree with that.)
But the moral calculus does not end with you breaking into the cabin. Once the emergency has passed you are morally obliged to make good the damage you’ve done. You must reimburse the cabin owner for the breakage and for any other consequential damages (say if the cabin becomes water damaged when a sudden thaw lets meltwater in thru the window you broke). It’d be nice if you went beyond that (maybe treat them to a meal at their fave restaurant), but reimburse the damages for sure.
So long as Caplan agrees with that, then I’m with him. The person who stole the money from Bill Gates is required to repay the amount along with any consequential damages (the $15.00 bank charge for a bounced cheque, say). Each of the 100 million starving Indians would have to pay Bill back as soon as they can, along with extra money to cover any damages the temporary loss of funds caused him.
(Again, assuming that each stole from Bill for a very good reason (“benefits vastly exceed the costs”) and there was no alternative that wasn’t equally as bad.)
David Henderson
Jul 12 2021 at 7:41pm
I agree with that.
Michael Sandifer
Jul 15 2021 at 2:05pm
That sounds reasonable.
David S
Jul 22 2021 at 8:18pm
The biggest problem is determining “if the benefit greatly exceeds the cost”. In my opinion, people should not be allowed to make that determination for themselves. If they need to in the heat of the moment, fine, but after the fact there should be a trial to determine “if the benefit greatly exceeds the cost”.
Comments are closed.