A philosophy webcomic about the inevitable anguish of living a brief life in an absurd world. Also Jokes

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Philosophy of Shoplifting a Giant Turkey



always remember when you are stealing a Giant Turkey to, at the last second, intend to do it virtuously, and you'll be fine.

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For Kant, the idea of shoplifting is self defeating, and thus immoral. If universalized and everyone shoplifted, the very concept of selling goods for money wouldn't work, no one would sell anything if everyone shoplifted, and therefore there would be nothing to shoplift. This is a similar arguement to why he thought lying is immoral, because if everyone lies, no one would believe anything, so lying would no longer make sense.

For Anscombe, on the other hand, the morality of stealing depends entirely on the ultimate intention of the thief. If you are stealing for a noble purpose and genuinely intending only to help people, it is a good thing to do. So if you steal food and give it to the poor, but only do so because you hate the store owner, that's no good, but if you intend purely to help, it is still good.

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