[Hypothetical] Do The Right Thing or Do What is Necessary?

I despise people that steal.


I am also a firm believer in KARMA. Return, I will.

 

You should be banned from ever commenting on someone's grammar or coherency.

 

Take the food and then

 

That spoiler was M Night Shyamalanian. Did NOT see that coming.

 

WWJD

What Would Jeremy Do?

 

Life or death (such as eating, health, shelter, etc), I would do the necessary thing (this is how I voted since food was used in the OP).

Otherwise, I like to think I'd do the right thing if it were strictly a moral situation.

Is finding cash on the ground a different situation? Technically, it is not yours and could be considered "stealing", but what would you do in that situation? I would take them money every time. It's not like the owner can claim it.

 

So, I'm in a "food market store" where I find some food with a receipt. But--psych--I'm actually on a street across the parking lot.

I am Brundlefly.

 

Do What is Necessary is the worst sequel ever. I'm surprised Spike Lee even made it. So, Do The Right Thing by a longshot.

 

I would eat it for myself.

 

Wouldn't the right thing be to feed your family? I picked necessary, because it is NECESSARY. In the grand scheme of things, not getting the food for your family is the wrong thing to do. You'd rather have your family starve so you can get a "pat on the back" for returning unattended food to a store?

Why do we work? Why do we get educated? To get better jobs and support ourselves and our families. Sometimes you have to do things you don't like in order to get things done. Feeding my family is priority #1. The food was unattended, you didnt beat someone up and take their food, you didnt go into a supermarket and put a loaf of bread in your shirt.

 

Maybe that is the karma...food given to you for all the times you did the right thing.

 

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If it were just me, I would return it. If it were for my children, I would feed my kids, at least a little. I've been around long enough to know that nobody will take care of yours but you, and sometimes chick fil-a.

 

Is there beans and tortillas in the basket?

 

As members of a society, we have constructed societal norms of right and wrong *within the context* of harmoniously fitting in within the society. Generally we call these 'rules' or often 'laws'.

However, the obligation to follow these norms exists only as long as there are not other situations or circumstances which would supersede that obligation.

For example, the very basic primal obligation 'to survive'.

You say the words 'your family is *starving*'. 'Starving' meaning, 'on the very verge of death due to a lack of food'. And yet you say you would dispose of an available way to prevent the deaths of yourself and your family members (presumably you are also starving, since you would be a member of 'your family'), rather than use the solution at hand in order to prevent said deaths.

I think you may simply be using the word 'starving' when in reality maybe you just meant 'really hungry'.

In any case, being on the verge of death absolves you of the obligation to do 'what is right' (at least according to the societal norms), because in the hierarchy of actions, what you yourself describe as 'necessary' becomes of greater importance than 'what is right' - especially because the 'what is right' is simply part of a social contract which you cannot continue to adhere if you and your family are *dead*.

I do not mean to say any of this facetiously. I take your question at face value, and when you say 'starving', I assume you really mean starving.

This is actually an old legal training issue, usually put in terms of something like the Donner Expedition. A group of settlers becomes stranded in the mountains during winter, with no way to escape their location. The group begins to succumb to starvation and the elements. Eventually, in order to survive, some of the survivors had to turn to cannibalism of the bodies of the departed. While clearly 'wrong' by any moral standard, and in fact 'illegal', their situation had effectively removed them from the social contract in which they had existed, and thus survival became the top priority.

Your question is a variation of that theme.

It's always fun and interesting to ask the 'what would you do?' questions, but in this case, there really is not even any need for debate.

Any rational person, when faced with certain death on the one hand, and the relatively minor infraction of utilizing some food which someone had either lost or forgotten on the other, would choose to feed his family and prevent their deaths.

You can always repay the person after the fact.

Which you cannot do if you are dead.

If the social contract leads directly to your death, then you become within your rights to operate outside of that contract, at least until such time as you are able to re-enter it.