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From: josh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Hard case #1
Message-ID: <695@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 19-Feb-85 02:30:28 EST
Article-I.D.: topaz.695
Posted: Tue Feb 19 02:30:28 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 21-Feb-85 05:20:22 EST
References: <257@cmu-cs-k.ARPA>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 23

>The hard case referred to in the subject is this.  Does a starving (or sick)
>person without financial resources have the right to steal the food (or
>medicine) that will sustain his or her life?  
>Tim Maroney, Carnegie-Mellon University Computation Center

Yes.  The operative word here is steal.  If I am really so bad off that
I must steal to live, then I steal.  If I am caught, I still deserve
a reasonable punishment for stealing;  but I'm still alive--ahead of the
game.  

I had better be damn sure that I don't do something in the process of
stealing that is "worth my life"; threaten someone with deadly force,
for example.  I would then have no moral grounds whatsoever (I don't
believe you have a right to kill (innocent people) to survive).

No system of morals can be correct if it requires someone to be merely
a means for someone else's ends.  Thus we cannot allow the starving 
thief to live off people without reprisal (as in a Socialist system).
Neither can we do the reverse--we cannot kill the thief merely for
stealing.  The punishment must fit the crime.  Thus if you are in 
a need more desperate than the punishment, justice is still served.

--JoSH