Applying Morality

[Alice Amell]

Since many of us here accept UPB as an objective proof of morality, I will apply it to a practical situation that confuses me.

 

1. Taking someone else's property from them without their consent is theft.

 

Feel free to argue any of the points, of course.

 

2. If you leave a wallet on a bench, and someone takes it, then they have committed theft, assuming they did not receive your consent.

 

For me, the first two are pretty straightforward. The next three are my practical questions.

 

3. If you, yes you, found a wallet unattended on a bench with money inside, would you take the wallet amd/or the money?

 

4. If you found a $20 bill on the ground, would you take it?

 

5. What if you found a penny?

 

6. If you said yes to 3,4,5 then you would have committed an immoral act (theft).

 

If you answered yes to 3,4 or 5, you have committed theft. No? And yet most people would answer yes, at least to 4 and 5.

 

I think people are more willing to say yes to 5 because they assume (rightly, I think) that if it were just a penny, the owner would be more likely to consent after the fact, not valuing a penny very much. Implied consent, while I do think exists (it is implied you consent to pay when you eat at a restaurant), is an assumption I'm not sure applies here. If you dropped $20, would you want it back? I would.

 

If 6 is true, then will you change your behavior to align with morality? If you find a $20 bill on the ground, will you refuse it? Will you tell others it is wrong?

 

I'm curious to see where I went wrong, or if I didn't, what you think of this.

[RicardoMata]

In practical terms, in order to consider the taking of another object theft the owner needs to be able to prove that it is, in fact, his item. If you cannot prove that the item is yours then it cannot have any moral value much like an unprovable hypothesis cannot have a truth value.

Thus It's not immoral to take the penny or the $20 bill because the owner cannot prove that the money is his. It is morally neutral.

 

However in the wallet case, If the wallet has some sort of provable element that link the wallet to a person (in the statist paradigm it's the ID but in a stateless societ it could be anything really.) then it is immoral.

[PatrickC]

Simplified in order to violate UPB you would need to use force to gain access to the wallet, penny or $20 dollar bill. If someone simply mislaid these things and a stranger was to find them and keep them they would not be violating UPB.

 

However, the most virtuous act would be to attempt to find the owner. This may or may not be possible depending on the circumstances of course. Hope that helps.

[Alice Amell]

Maybe I dont understand UPB then, but someone misplacing a wallet doesn't mean they relinquish ownership of it, does it? And if I take money I see at a friends house without their consent, is that not theft, because I didn't use force? I would think in both scenarios I did use force, because I dont consider force violence but the use of others' property without their consent or threat of doing so.

[PatrickC]

Maybe I dont understand UPB then, but someone misplacing a wallet doesn't mean they relinquish ownership of it, does it? And if I take money I see at a friends house without their consent, is that not theft, because I didn't use force? I would think in both scenarios I did use force, because I dont consider force violence but the use of others' property without their consent or threat of doing so.

 

Yes, you are conflating the use of force to mean completely accidental occurences.

 

For instance let's say you are taking a long walk through the wilderness and you found a $20 bill. You really wouldn't have much idea of who it belonged too, so as to return it to it's owner would be nigh on impossible. You can't then equate a non action (finding something) to an action as in robbing someone (taking something by force).

[Wuzzums]

An accident is not the initiation of force. If the brakes on my car suddenly stop working and I run over someone I am not a murderer. If I happen to find a wallet somewhere on a bench it's not theft. If I wait around till someone forgets their wallet on a bench and then take the wallet I am a thief.

 

It all boils down to having a choice. I cannot be held responsible for something beyond my control. If there's someone's contact details in said wallet then I'm suddenly faced with a choice, if not then the wallet's all mine.

 

Basically in a free and moral society in order to never lose anything just label everything you own with your info. Wouldn't that be nice.

[shirgall]

An accident is not the initiation of force. If the brakes on my car suddenly stop working and I run over someone I am not a murderer. If I happen to find a wallet somewhere on a bench it's not theft. If I wait around till someone forgets their wallet on a bench and then take the wallet I am a thief.

 

Indeed, there are distinctions in homicide (which vary a GREAT DEAL depending on jurisdiction):

 

  coldly planning and carrying out the death of another: murder in the first degree

  deliberately killing another, unplanned: murder in the second degree

  doing something unsafe that is likely to result in the death of another that does result in a death: manslaughter

  doing something unsafe that is likely to result in the death of another that does not result in a death: reckless endangerment (still a felony)

  deliberately killing another, unplanned, in defense of oneself or the innocent: justifiable homicide (not a crime, requires a positive defense, which switches the burden of proof to the defendant)

  doing something that a reasonable and prudent person would do yet somehow results in the death of another: excusable homicide (not a crime, requires a positive defense which switches the burden of proof to the defendant)

  committing some other other crime which leads to a death: felony murder (the best example of this that shocks people is when you are your buddy rob the liquor store, the liquor store owner shoots and kills your buddy, and you go up for felony murder)

 

Welcome to the moral continuum of murder. It's not a bichromatic enterprise. In the world of plea deals, sometimes people do time for a crime they didn't commit, because they agreed to be downgraded from some other crime which matched exactly, but had a higher penalty.

[Better Future]

If UPB says that it is ok to take a wallet you find as your own then I want no part of it. Who is to say that the person who lost his wallet will not return later to pick it up after realizing he had dropped it? I would call it the theft of lost property.

 

I once lost my wallet. I got a call from the police a day later telling me that a member of the public had handed it in to them. Something that I will forever be grateful for.

[Omegahero09]

If UPB says that it is ok to take a wallet you find as your own then I want no part of it. Who is to say that the person who lost his wallet will not return later to pick it up after realizing he had dropped it? I would call it the theft of lost property.

 

I once lost my wallet. I got a call from the police a day later telling me that a member of the public had handed it in to them. Something that I will forever be grateful for.

 

The wallet would identify the owner of the wallet and it's contents, making the keeping of it theft. It literally has the owner's name on it lol

 

Mislaid things however are a different matter.

 

 

Is it universally preferable to take things which are mislaid?

 

Can a room full of people take things from each other when they mislay their property (assuming it's not marked for return)? I think so. No avenue of return is possible (that guarantees the forgetful person an absolute return of his property) if something is left unmarked.

[neeeel]

 

 

Mislaid things however are a different matter.

 

 

 

 

Why? If property rights are a thing, then they are a thing whether or not you intended to lose something.

[Pepin]

4. If you found a $20 bill on the ground, would you take it?

 

5. What if you found a penny?

 

6. If you said yes to 3,4,5 then you would have committed an immoral act (theft).

 

2. Eh, this is where it gets confusing. Firstly, taking the item does not entail theft, since you may take in order to find the owner. I for instance will usually take it because though I think a good number of people myself would attempt to find the owner. many people will have no intention.

 

The second part has to do with homesteading. Ownership is an active process, it is not forever. This means that once you come into owning something, you do not automatically own it forever. 

 

A good example of this is with houses. If you own a house and abandon it for 30 years, you don't really meet the requirements for ownership. If someone were to move into the house, nobody would have a problem with that. An example from my life is my current jacket. Someone left a jacket at work for about 4 months, and nobody ever used it. I asked around about who it belonged to and if anyone had used it, and nobody came forward. So I took it for myself.

 

In a similar way, leaving a wallet on a bench for long enough time puts it into an unowned state. There is of course no objective criteria for this, but a stipulation I'd have is that it ought to be enough time for someone to realize they lost their wallet and come back and get it. That might be a day. A week would sound a little too excessive.

 

But with that said, a wallet with ID ought to be returned ASAP. If you can't find the owner, or the owner never comes to get it, well you are free to keep it.

 

4. It depends. The outcome of the situation is completely different from the wallet example as there is very little ability to return the bill to the actual owner. I've been in a few situations where it is obvious that someone probably dropped the bill, and in which case I ask them if they dropped it. Where it gets more confusing is in if you don't know, as a large number of people will lie and claim it is theirs, and you have no way at all of checking.

 

I'm saying that it is pretty circumstantial and that you ought to return the bill to the owner if you can, but if you can't find the owner, you don't have to leave the bill on the ground, especially since it'll just be picked up by someone else or blown into woods or anything else. Leaving the bill does not in the least bit mean that the previous will get it back. 

 

5. Pretty much the same case as above. Though I may not tell someone if they dropped a penny and I won't pick it up because both would be wastes of time. Nothing immoral about not acting.

 

6. As I try to indicate, it is a circumstantial problem. 5 is pretty much as 4, but 5 matters much less because of its reduced value. If I told most people that they dropped a penny, they'd probably ask them why I was wasting their time. In the case of something that more people value, like a quarter, it would make sense to say something if you can.

[J. D. Stembal]

Why? If property rights are a thing, then they are a thing whether or not you intended to lose something.

 

If a possession is left out, even unintentionally, it is implied that the owner does not care about it enough to take care of it. A thoughtful person would not misplace an important item, and they would also take measures to prevent it from being stolen. This is why alarm systems, safes, doors, locks and safety deposit boxes exist. Obviously, when parking and locking a vehicle on a street, for example, not many people interpret that as an offering to the general public. However, if a major appliance in left near the curb, it is generally accepted that the owner wants you to take it.

 

Alternatively, if you leave a valuable item in plain view inside your car, you are signalling to people that do not hold property rights in high regard to take it. The same reasoning can be used to apply responsibility to promiscuous men and women who claim to have been raped or assaulted after consorting with many people in compromising situations. The person is being careless with his property, and therefore, promoted the commission of the property crime.

 

To bring it full circle, if you lose your wallet without identifying information, or drop a bill on the street, you have not given anyone the choice to return your possession to you, so it is impossible for you to expect that person to act morally by returning it or not taking it if they wish. I have found money lying on the street before. I have also donated clothing with money in the pocket, accidentally, of course. In both cases, the carelessness involved signals a lapse in judgement over how to best protect property rights.

 

There is reason we have the expression, "Possession is nine-tenths of the law."

[Omegahero09]

Why? If property rights are a thing, then they are a thing whether or not you intended to lose something.

 

If there is nothing on the mislaid item to identify you as the owner, then that's it- you've relinquished your ownership of it whether you like it or not. You no longer possess the item.

 

Think about it, if something is important enough to you that you don't want to lose it- your contact information will be on it, and you would probably have an arrangement with your DRO or your local law enforcement agency to locate the item. I.e. your wallet, your car (gonna lump the car's keys in there too), weapons, medicine, etc. If your name isn't on it, it's probably not important enough to you in the first place to even keep it if you lost it- and if it is, and you lose it anyway? Well that's just careless.

[Better Future]

Is it universally preferable to take things which are mislaid?

 

What if I drop something, realise later and then return to pick it up? Is it universally preferable that no one would have taken what I had misplaced?

[PatrickC]

What if I drop something, realise later and then return to pick it up? Is it universally preferable that no one would have taken what I had misplaced?

 

Unfortunately that moral theory doesn't work under the UPB framework, because you cannot universalise morally the act of picking something up or leaving it behind.

 

This highlights the issue rather well with the difficulty that people often have with UPB. I have some sympathy because it took me a while too. So I don't speak from some lofty hill on the topic.

 

Most of us have been taught morality from a subjective perspective. Often by our parents, teachers or religion. So we can tend to have these personal ethics that we pick up over the years that we can feel very strongly about. Unfortunately when it comes to UPB we often have to discard these preferred moral theories and look for the universal element in them.

 

Having said that, this doesn't mean that our subjective preferences aren't viable or relevant. They can still have a negative outcome for those that break them. But the act of returning a wallet would be considered a 'virtuous' act as opposed to a 'moral' one.

 

I had the misfortune of having this experience recently when I accidently left my Kindle on a shop counter when I was fumbling for change. I remember distinctly leaving it there as I recall making a mental note not to forget to pick it up. It was only when I returned home that I realised that I had indeed left it behind. When I returned the same guy at the counter claimed he hadn't seen my Kindle. I'm fairly certain he was lying partly because of his manner, but also because it had been left in such a place as it would have been unavoidable for him to have noticed it. I no longer shop there as a result of this incident and informed my local friends too who now no longer shop there either. It could be that I am wrong. But even if I was wrong, if I had been the shop keeper I would have at least taken my name and address and said that I will look out for it on their behalf. After all I had been a regular customer there. So I don't feel particularly bothered if my assertion was ever proved to be wrong.

 

However, I cannot claim he violated UPB, because it was my act of leaving the Kindle on his counter that precipitated the events. Even insurance companies wont consider lost items as stolen items, because of the obvious problems of people deliberately leaving items in a public place as a means to making a claim for a new item.

[Better Future]

I cannot claim he violated UPB, because it was my act of leaving the Kindle on his counter that precipitated the events.

 

Thanks for the explanation.

 

So UPB only covers interpersonal events?

 

Moral behaviour is interpersonal and virtuous behaviour is more indirect? Taking a misplaced kindle is not covered under UPB because it is not interpersonal.

 

Under UPB the guy at the counter taking your misplaced kindle (if he did) is not doing anything immoral. But his actions would become immoral when you go and ask if he had seen it and he lies?

[PatrickC]

Under UPB the guy at the counter taking your misplaced kindle (if he did) is not doing anything immoral. But his actions would become immoral when you go and ask if he had seen it and he lies?

 

Well lying per se isn't considered as violating UPB either. As we have notable exceptions, such as the classic axe murderer asking you where your wife is hiding. They would still be considered as a lacking in virtue and integrity, with all the consequential sanctions that might come with that, if they were ever to be found out or considered suspicious enough.

 

Fraud would be considered a violation of UPB because you are lying to acquire something from a person directly as a result of your lie.

 

To get a better idea of these parts of UPB I would check out the section on Aesthetically Preferrable Actions (APA). Hope that helps.

[Omegahero09]

What if I drop something, realise later and then return to pick it up? Is it universally preferable that no one would have taken what I had misplaced?

 

You know, I want to say no. And only because at that point over time the environs would be littered with mislaid things.

 

Again, unless the object has signage on it to identify ownership, then it's up for grabs. Same answer to neeeel. How are you as the finder of a mislaid object able to identify that it was mislaid? You could make an assumption that it was mislaid, but you aren't actually able to know if it was or not.

 

 

Personally, if I mislay something I take responsibility for the loss of the object. If I lose my keys and never find them again then well, that's my fault. You are responsible for your property, even if you lose it.

[Better Future]

Thanks guys. These morality calculations are interesting. I think I get the idea. I will read the book.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

The scenarios are ambiguous and so I don't think there's any objective answer. How can I answer whether it's okay to take the £20 note if I don't know where it's been dropped and under what circumstances? Is it likely the not will be destroyed or taken by someone else if I don't take it. Is it likely the person who dropped will never come back for it? Is not taking the note likely to mean it will be destroyed? Am I willing to pay the person back if they find out and ask? 

[square4]

Who owns the ground where you loose your wallet? I suppose in AnCap, there would be few unowned places. The owners of a place could set rules for the handling of lost items (after all, they can deny access to their property to anyone who disagrees). Hopefully they would set reasonable rules, and there would be market pressure to do so. But in principle, an owner could set the rule that anyone may appropriate wallets left on the ground (maybe it is a communist commune). Personally, I would think if someone wants to set such a rule on his property, he should at least clearly communicate it, so it is possible to avoid it.

[WasatchMan]

Maybe I dont understand UPB then, but someone misplacing a wallet doesn't mean they relinquish ownership of it, does it? And if I take money I see at a friends house without their consent, is that not theft, because I didn't use force? I would think in both scenarios I did use force, because I dont consider force violence but the use of others' property without their consent or threat of doing so.

 

UPB has a foundation strongly built on the law of non-contradiction, which has been a fundamental axiom of ethics for millennia. 

 

The law of non-contradiction would say that if you would not like people to take your wallet if misplaced, than you should be against taking other peoples wallets if they misplaced it. 

 

Ethics is, somewhat unfortunately, reliant on empathy, and therefore empathy is a requirement for the practical implementation of morality.  This is why we must raise more empathetic people, for the practical implementation of philosophy.

[Guest Gee]

In my neck of the woods theft is defined as....

 

Theft:

The dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving them of said property.

 

Therefor the act of taking the wallet does not in and of itself consitute theft as itent to deprive may not exist.

 

Say I take the wallet and hand it to the local police station to be claimed, no theft has been commited though I have taken the wallet, the same goes for money.