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Is it immoral to lie, steal, and cheat to survive?

I have thought about this thread a long time.

In my opinion morality is an aid to survival, and so is logic and its use. I dont live to be moral or use logic, I use morals and logic to help me live. If morality and logic should ever prove I have no right to life or live then I choose life and junk morality and logic.
 
If we live in a society, we have mutual obligations, how we live, laws and values, economic conditions, how our society is governed, how those who fall by the wayside are treated....
 
bilby said:
Emily Lake said:
There is no right either way. There is no right to survive, full stop.
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These guys disagree with you:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life...
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Yes, but they were pale, stale and male. The accursed trifecta.
 
Emily Lake said:
none of us is obligated to guarantee survival to any other person.
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Good post, Emily. I will take a little bit of issue with the above (with which I agree in principle) to point out that some of our laws strive to counter it, e.g. “negligent homicide”.

Iin truth, the fact that we have such laws actually reinforces the fact that guarantees of survival are not to be had.
 
There are no guarantees in life, not that you stay healthy, happy, or even be alive tomorrow. Having social conditions where nobody needs to lie, cheat or steal to get along may be possible and would probably help, but still not guarantee that people won't do these things regardless.
 
Emily Lake said:
That said, I also support efforts to provide access to shelter and food for those who have found themselves without. And there are many, many ways for a poor or homeless to access them. There are countless food banks, food drives, church efforts, etc. that are perfectly willing to feed any who come to their door. But they do need to actually go to those places in order to get food.

Unless you're a hermit in the mountains with no access to transportation or communication, there ARE services available. They may require some effort in return, they may require that you show up and fill out some paper work, or help with the cleaning, but they ARE there.
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Read much aynd rand recently?

You could not be wrong.

I challenge you to a day without internet access. Let’s see how you do. Disgusting how privileged people care so little.
 
WAB said:
"All men are created equal" meant, at that time, that all white men were created equal. This did not include black or brown men, or women.

Stuff the forefathers.
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Actually, after reading the book, "Poor White Trash, the 400 year untold History of Classism in America, the truth is that it wasn't all white men that were created equal. It was all elitist white men were created equally. They looked down on poor people, regardless of race. Reading that book make me totally disgusted by our founders. They were even worse than I had thought. They were total assholes who only cared about their own power. Sound familiar?

But, back to the topic. My father said that he and his brothers stole food to survive during the Great Depression, as his mother would abandon her children for weeks at a time. I have no idea what his father did, but he was a mess, from what I remember of him. I don't think there is anything wrong with stealing food to survive. We have more options now but thee is still hunger in the US, especially among children.

As far as lying goes, it's better to lie to someone with Alzheimers disease than to tell them the truth. If for example they ask you when someone who has been dead for years is coming to see them. If you tell them the truth, they will grieve and then forget about it a few minutes later. It's cruel to tell the truth to someone who has dementia and no longer remembers that their spouse or parent has been dead for years. There are other times when lying is better than telling the truth, but that's one that always comes to mind, because I've seen ignorant people tell the truth to people with AD. I thought of one more. If you're a child who has a parent who uses harsh physical punishment and the parent asks if you did something you weren't supposed to do, then it's better to lie than to tell the truth, knowing you're going to get beat up for it by your parent. I think beating a child is far worse than lying to avoid such punishment. So yeah. There are times when lying is morally acceptable imo.

As far as cheating goes, I guess I'd have to know some examples of cheating to survive. Anyone have some?
 
COAS said:
Emily Lake said:
That said, I also support efforts to provide access to shelter and food for those who have found themselves without. And there are many, many ways for a poor or homeless to access them. There are countless food banks, food drives, church efforts, etc. that are perfectly willing to feed any who come to their door. But they do need to actually go to those places in order to get food.

Unless you're a hermit in the mountains with no access to transportation or communication, there ARE services available. They may require some effort in return, they may require that you show up and fill out some paper work, or help with the cleaning, but they ARE there.
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Read much aynd rand recently?

You could not be wrong.

I challenge you to a day without internet access. Let’s see how you do. Disgusting how privileged people care so little.
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What on earth? This has to be one of the strangest out-of-the-blue bits of snideness I've seen in a while.

Why do you think anything I said suggests that I don't care? And what does internet access have to do with any of it?
 
"Right to Survive" is non-sensical. Either you are alive and have rights, or dead and have none. Those questioning the morality of lying, cheating and stealing to survive are academics. Those actually doing it don't care about the morality of their choices.

aa
 
Alcoholic Actuary said:
"Right to Survive" is non-sensical. Either you are alive and have rights, or dead and have none. Those questioning the morality of lying, cheating and stealing to survive are academics. Those actually doing it don't care about the morality of their choices.

aa
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Some of them might care - I'm sure some who are breaking laws in order to stay alive feel bad about it. But to your point, that's unlikely to be their highest priority at the time.
 
Tigers! said:
Elixir said:
bilby said:
Emily Lake said:
There is no right either way. There is no right to survive, full stop.
Click to expand...
These guys disagree with you:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life...
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You have a right to life, but it ends when you die.
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When does my right to life begin?
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See that four letter word right there? LIFE
By definition, you have that right when you are alive.

And to save me saying so later, unborn babies are already alive.
 
Lion IRC said:
See that four letter word right there? LIFE
By definition, you have that right when you are alive.

And to save me saying so later, unborn babies are already alive.
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So are malignant melanomas.

Human - check.

Alive - check.

If your simple argument, that simply demonstrates that a fetus has a right to life, is exactly as compelling when used to simply determine that a cancerous tumour also has a right to life, then your simple argument is too simple to be useful.

Simpletons are the bane of humanity.

Simpletons who outsource their morals to churches are the vilest manifestation of that.
 
Lion IRC said:
Tigers! said:
Elixir said:
bilby said:
Emily Lake said:
There is no right either way. There is no right to survive, full stop.
Click to expand...
These guys disagree with you:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
You have a right to life, but it ends when you die.
Click to expand...
When does my right to life begin?
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You don’t have a “right to life”?
If you do, you should maybe question when it began (past tense). To that, ask yourself - what is the first thing you remember? I bet you don’t remember being a zygote.
Lion IRC said:

See that four letter word right there? LIFE
By definition, you have that right when you are alive.
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“You” were alive billions of years ago, because “life only comes from life” according to superstition.

And to save me saying so later, unborn babies are already alive.
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You can say whatever you like. But you can’t resolve your dilemma.

Is a sperm alive? Is an un fertilized ovum alive? Is my fingernail alive? Should I be allowed to cut my fingernails? How about removing a wart?
Y’all keep your stupid “life only comes from life” mantra going, without ever thinking it through.
There is nothing any more sacred about a four-cell blastocyst than any other nearly invisible blob of organic slime.

bilby said:
Simpletons are the bane of humanity.
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QFT
 
As is usual with complex moral questions, the answer is: it depends.

Let's use some hypothetical humans:
1) Barely able to make enough to feed themselves, can't afford even a small apartment.
2) Working at minimum wage, barely makes enough to pay bills and buy basic groceries.
3) Middle class, does ok, even makes enough to get a modest vacation every few years.
4) Well off and above, so wealthy they work basically because they want to, or to expand their fortune even more.

1 stealing from 1 or 2 is basically unethical. This just creates a cycle of viciousness and lawlessness that will likely never end.
1 or 2 stealing from 3 is probably the most common crime, and probably the most tragic for lots of reasons we can dig into later.
1 or 2 stealing from 4. Meh, if they aren't taking more than they need to survive, 4 probably wouldn't even notice.
 
Worldtraveller said:
1 or 2 stealing from 4. Meh, if they aren't taking more than they need to survive, 4 probably wouldn't even notice.
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That's my first impulse, but rich people are still people, and someone else invading their space is going to evoke the same emotional reaction that it would in anyone else. So maybe it's not "meh" for them (assuming the notice).
At the other extreme, stealing food from someone who is barely able to feed themself might be "moral" if the the theft saves their baby (or even themself) from an immediate threat of dying of starvation.
I really despise how people feel a need to define things as good or bad. I mean, we DO have to have laws I suppose, but outside of that framework, an individual's acts can only be fairly judged within their context.
</$.02>
 
Rational isn't synonymous with moral. It's rational for a person on the verge of starvation to do whatever the hell they can to stay alive. That doesn't make it moral to do so.

Lots of people do immoral things for very rational reasons; lots of people do moral things for irrational reasons. On the flip side... lots of people do irrational things for moral reasons too.
 
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