Not A Poll: Does Motivation Affect Morality?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

2.  Susan sees a money clip lying on the floor of a restaurant.  No one is about, so she scoops it up and uses the money to buy the shoes she's had her eye on but just couldn't afford.  Brenda finds a wallet on a park bench and takes $50 from it to buy the medicine her 6 years old son needs, but which she can't afford.  Does Brenda's motivation (helping her sick child) make her action more moral than Susan's motivation (really cute shoes)?  Remember, in both cases theft has occurred and innocent parties are out money due to the actions of both women.

Boru

Both examples aren't actually stealing but embezzlements. At least that's how our courts tend to regard things like that. Did I pick up a 20 lying on the floor without the owner being round? Yes, and I pocketed it. And I don't feel any worse for it, to tell the truth. Did I lose a 20 at some point in time? Certainly, and I didn't go looking for it or tell the police, since fat chance of it ever turning up again. Not worth the effort and the only person to blame was myself.

Stealing is, if you grab it out of the pocket of anyone. Or if you invade a home to take whatever strikes your fancy. Would I do it if I had the skills? Certainly not from grandma collecting her pension. But from some obvious fat cat, the answer would be, I don't know.

There has been a pretty recent example of someone forgetting a bag containing 25.000 in cash in the bus. Now if someone can carry around 25.000 and then forget about it, the conclusion is, they won't miss it. I'm not sure if I had be as honest as the actual finder turning it in.

Austria must look at embezzlement differently than most places. Here (and it the UK) it is the misappropriations of funds left in your trust for personal gain. Taking a wallet full of cash or a loaded money clip that clearly isn't yours would be prosecuted as theft. And - as far as I'm aware - embezzlement is merely a particular type of theft.

But I'm not sure how that alters the original point. Legal niceties aside, taking cash that doesn't belong to you is widely considered to be an immoral act, so the hypothetical remains unaffected.

Boru