Why do people justify stealing?

[lowtech redneck]

I steal copyrighted products from the internet. Why? Because its easy, low-risk, refraining won't make a difference, everybody does it.....and my desire to get free entertainment is apparently greater than my conscience as far as petty theft is concerned. I'm not proud, but it is what it is.

 

[fghw]

A person who is willing to expend large amounts of energy to commit a large scale crime is mentally more of a criminal than one who commits crime only when it is practically begging to be committed.

 

[WhoCares]

A person who is willing to expend large amounts of energy to commit a large scale crime is mentally more of a criminal than one who commits crime only when it is practically begging to be committed.

WTF? So a morally bankrupt individual who rapes a child because the child was there, and the opportunity presented itself and it did not take much mental or physical effort to overpower a child isn't mentally much of a criminal then?

It's this kind of thinking and the "well all corporations rip their staff off anyway" and "rich people can afford it why not?" mentality that I just do not understand. I work for a corporation that loses $80,000 a month due to staff thefts. But that's okay because they can afford it? If you were the founder of that corporation, would you still think the same way? So basically what I'm getting from this thread is that personal ethics only matter when the consequences are high, most other people don't do it and you consider the other party to be the same or less well off than you are. Wow, what a dubious and tenuous thing this thing called conscience is in humanity. It's moments like these when I realise my earlier statements of humanity at large being quite a useless species and largely insane are actually somewhat true.

So you make a whole lot of suppositions about who and what your victims are and then decide whether or not to commit a crime based on that. It's okay to commit a crime as long as....

It's easy
You think you wont get caught
You have the company of others
You assume that your victim can afford it, wont care or is more morally bankrupt than you

*walks away shakes head*...Must remember to lock my doors at night in case some passerby assumes my vehicle is more luxurious than theirs and decides to steal my stuff because I can obviously "afford it".

 

[Stansmith]

I understand the sentiment behind it (an eye for an eye), but I wouldn't do it. This is the one I can (vaguely) sympathize with, specifically:

They either justify it as being innocuous (low value items) or having no victim (I'm stealing from a company not a person) or by seeing it as some kind of right of theirs to take something (The company/person owes me this).

 

[fghw]

WTF? So a morally bankrupt individual who rapes a child because the child was there, and the opportunity presented itself and it did not take much mental or physical effort to overpower a child isn't mentally much of a criminal then?

It's this kind of thinking and the "well all corporations rip their staff off anyway" and "rich people can afford it why not?" mentality that I just do not understand. I work for a corporation that loses $80,000 a month due to staff thefts. But that's okay because they can afford it? If you were the founder of that corporation, would you still think the same way? So basically what I'm getting from this thread is that personal ethics only matter when the consequences are high, most other people don't do it and you consider the other party to be the same or less well off than you are. Wow, what a dubious and tenuous thing this thing called conscience is in humanity. It's moments like these when I realise my earlier statements of humanity at large being quite a useless species and largely insane are actually somewhat true.

So you make a whole lot of suppositions about who and what your victims are and then decide whether or not to commit a crime based on that. It's okay to commit a crime as long as....

It's easy
You think you wont get caught
You have the company of others
You assume that your victim can afford it, wont care or is more morally bankrupt than you

*walks away shakes head*...Must remember to lock my doors at night in case some passerby assumes my vehicle is more luxurious than theirs and decides to steal my stuff because I can obviously "afford it".

I'm not saying any of its justified, I'm just saying it's more critical to put away the people who will go out of their way to commit crime rather than the ones who just do what's convenient. Laws can make things less convenient.

 

[Habba]

Disclaimer: Downloading copyrighted material is not stealing, it's copying. It's whole another deal to copy digital content. When copying content you leave the original piece intact. When stealing, there'll be no original piece left. Digital copying is not theft and should be punished as such. It is ridiculous how some people are ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for few bits they copied. I say this as someone who makes living selling digital content.

Back to topic:
Stealing is breaching the protocol of how we distribute the system resources in our civilization. We find it offensive for two reasons: First, someone gains unfair advantage for not having to play by the same rules as you and second, someone loses something entitled to him/her in an unfair manner.

But people steal because their world is not so black and white.

I believe the most common rationale is "I'm entitled to take this". When people feel mistreated by the authority, they may want to empower themselves by taking something for themselves. If it's office workers stealing pens and other office supplies, I wouldn't bother (if I was the employer). I'd rather investigate if the employees are feeling happy enough with their current occupations and if there was anything I could do to help improve the working conditions. I believe happy workers are benevolent and altruistic. Unhappy workers are malevolent and selfish.

As for poor stealing loaf of bread issue: I believe in that no one should be in need of stealing food. Food should be such an abundant commodity that everyone should have enough, much like air and water. I'm against stealing, but I'm even more against unfair distribution of wealth. I'd rather educate the poor not to steal and would share with them whatever leftovers (because I still need to sell the prime in order to keep in business) I'd have.