You do make some very good points. The main thing though is no matter what anyone says about their morals. They really wouldn't know until in that situation. Your right about rationalizing it. morally yes, Legally? Our laws can be debated. Situation is the big deciding factor. Here's kind of a different type question for you to show what I'm trying to say. Say, a hoard was stolen a 100 yrs ago and buried. even though it's on their land it doesn't belong to them either. So, what is moral here? your basically stealing a stolen hoard! Not picking on you. Just late and I'm bored! lol
I delved into that a few pages back. Right, for me (and probably most people here), would be to tell the land owner. If I woke up tomorrow to find that my house had burned down, someone had stolen my car, and I'd lost my job, "right" would become a very different thing for me. "Right" would mean putting a roof over my head and food on my plate. "Right" would essentially mean survival, and that widens the playing field by a good margin. Still, I'd like to think that further on down the line, if I found myself in a position to make amends, I would do so. I still have to live with myself when it's all said and done.
As for your hypothetical situation, I'd be more than willing to walk you through my actions and why I'd take them, but you'll have to be much more specific with such a scenario. Every detail matters. Do I know that a horde was stolen? Do I know who it belongs to? Can I find out who it belongs to? How can I be sure that this horde is that horde? What's my situation? What's the landowner's situation? If I can find out who has a rightful claim on the horde (if anyone), what's their situation? And just how big is this horde anyway? (Because let's be honest...when enough wealth is involved, even ethical people struggle, and sometimes with the best intentions.*)
Right is not necessarily the same as lawful. I try to do what's lawful, but ultimately I'm going to do what I think is right. Generally that's lawful, but not always. It all depends on the circumstances, and every situation is different.
* Imagine that you were offered $50 million to allow a child to starve to death. You were not required to take any action (in fact, you were required to take no action at all), but simply to observe. In the absence of money, it's easy to say, "Screw that, I'm feeding that kid. That's not right." Now consider how many starving children you could feed for even a fraction of that, and the question becomes, "For $1 per day, I could feed 5,000 starving children for three years." Now, twist this around to, "I could feed 4,500 starving children for three years, and I could pocket $5 million for myself in the process because I'm feeding so many starving children." Who is the bad guy?
One guy fed one kid and let 5,000 starve.
One guy let a kid die and fed 5,000 other children for three years with the proceeds.
One guy let a kid die and pocketed a large sum of money, although he went on to save 4,500 children from starvation for three years.
Again, who is the bad guy here? Is there one? Going strictly by the numbers, the guy that stepped in to save the starving kid was the bad guy, as he could have saved many, many more by not doing so. The second guy let a kid die but saved many more in the process. The third guy did more good than most people will do during their lives, but he potentially starved 5,001 children in the process of saving 45,000 that would have otherwise died. I can't really fault the first guy for simply being a human being, even though he made the least logical decision of the bunch. I can't fault the second guy because he sacrificed one child for 50,000 others. I can't even fault the third guy, as he fed 45,000 children, but I can choose not to like him for giving up the other 5,000. But can I hate him? How many children have I fed? How many have you fed? He's done more good than most people, but one might argue that he's done more evil as well...but those kids would have starved without his intervention, so he did good in the end. It depends on how you look at it.
It's not cut and dried. It's not right for me to steal now, but if my situation changed, and the landowner's situation changed, it might very well be right for me to steal. It still wouldn't be lawful or ethical, but I'd be doing what I had to do.
Does that make sense?
Just be careful that it is not your' head.
