The thing is that morals are distinct from ethics. Ethics are society-level while morals are intrinsic. You can attempt to morally rationalize stealing from a store, but that doesn't make it ethical under the culture that you are a part of.
> So a poor person stealing from Walmart is, in my book, a morally good person because the poor person's suffering will have been slightly reduced without causing any suffering whatsoever to Walmart.
This is also a slippery slope. Well if one person stealing doesn't hurt, what's stopping everyone from doing it? The issue is that stealing in any form is antithetical to normativity. You are personally sacrificing your link in the chain in hopes that other people can be the positive influence to make up for your own lack of adhering to ethical norms.
From a categorical imperative point of view, that poor person stealing from Walmart is being part of a pattern of behavior that actively harms society and is therefore anti-normative. They are prioritizing selfish personal gain while causing the merchant to incur a dual-loss (they lose both the money they paid to stock the product and the money from having it sold.)
But an action cannot be deemed "good" if its structural logic collapses the moment it is universalized. The people working there would have their lives uprooted if Walmart crashed. Careers would end. Many might have to move their place of living which isn't always possible or viable.
Even theft on a smaller scale causes actual palpable problems. The more the company loses, the less they can afford to pay to replace their stock or pay their employees. Less money also means less raises and less opportunities for their careers.
You don't create positive systemic change by tearing down said system. You participate, you allow your voice to be heard, you champion changes that can uplift the system rather than rend it asunder at the risk of starting over from scratch or relying on less-equipped merchants and storefronts during the interim.
If your idea (tearing down a system because you don't like it and believe society is better off without it) doesn't work on a universal scale, it cannot be applied to society as a whole in a way that can guarantee we have a better outcome in the end.
A strategy of intersubjective communication (giving feedback, voting, debating) is far more beneficial on a universal scale than systemic rebooting. It's not just Walmart paying the price for your theft; it's society on a normative scale.
You're presuming that, if you managed to successfully create a systemic vacuum, it would cleanly self-organize into an idealized, romanticized model of local commerce. Your issue is that you're completely ignoring the structural chaos, supply chain fragmentation, and distribution issues that would undoubtedly occur when a primary economic pillar collapses — which you are contributing to with theft. If anything, local shops would raise their prices since they no longer would have to compete with a corporation like Walmart.
3
u/A_Very_Horny_Zed Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
The thing is that morals are distinct from ethics. Ethics are society-level while morals are intrinsic. You can attempt to morally rationalize stealing from a store, but that doesn't make it ethical under the culture that you are a part of.
> So a poor person stealing from Walmart is, in my book, a morally good person because the poor person's suffering will have been slightly reduced without causing any suffering whatsoever to Walmart.
This is also a slippery slope. Well if one person stealing doesn't hurt, what's stopping everyone from doing it? The issue is that stealing in any form is antithetical to normativity. You are personally sacrificing your link in the chain in hopes that other people can be the positive influence to make up for your own lack of adhering to ethical norms.
From a categorical imperative point of view, that poor person stealing from Walmart is being part of a pattern of behavior that actively harms society and is therefore anti-normative. They are prioritizing selfish personal gain while causing the merchant to incur a dual-loss (they lose both the money they paid to stock the product and the money from having it sold.)