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Early in our history, especially in the western part of the country everything was far apart and much was not even available. Loss of seemingly little could actually spell death or loss of livelihood for an entire family victimized by predators, robbers, sneak thieves and sundry other miscreants. In that light, protection of life and property took on the mantle of morality, because it was and is moral to protect one’s life, and property which could stave off a lingering death of one, his family or their livelihood.

We simply have held to that culture more assiduously than the people of the east who came to expect help or aid or surcease from deprivation because they were surrounded by people who claimed to believe in a new morality. Unfortunately the majority of those people do not step up and show the support nor provide the protection they claim to be part of the new morality. Yet, they hold each other to legal strictures that prevent them from providing for their own support and protection under threat of penalty.

That is not a position based in morality, nor even good sense. Moreover, it has encouraged the miscreants among us to become ever bolder in their predations.

Now that we have built this society in which the law abiding must acquiesce to the criminal in all but the most serious of circumstances, I share with Sebastian the puzzlement of how to fix it. A reasonable man does not want to give his life or freedom in a situation he might avoid altogether if he just allows his life and his to belongings to belong to those who would take them. Nor can he replace the years spent in prison if that should be the end result. Yet, he refuses to view the years he lost to a thief in that same light.

The rationale for it is simple, he can replace his things given enough time, though he has lost the time he used to acquire them. He can never replace his life, so at that point when his life is threatened, he has nothing to lose if he is at risk of it in the immediate or at the hands of unjust laws because he did defend it.

Most of the discussion here has used the hypothetical of the theft of a car stereo. Nobody would be in danger of loss of life or livelihood by the theft of a stereo. Ergo, most here, myself included, would not opt to take a life over such an inconsequential belonging. However, that does not change the moral equation. So, while I would not do it, I would not vote to convict a man who did if he tried to stop the thief and met threat. Because the morality of it remains unchanged despite my reluctance to live by it so strictly. I still maintain that the decision is to the owner of the property. I may not like him or his decision, but a trespasser of another person’s rights has surrendered his own voluntarily.

Someone on the other thread on this issue said at one time a horse was worth more than a man’s life, that’s why they used to hang horse thieves. That isn’t quite accurate, in those days a horse was worth a man’s life. For without it the owner of it was at great risk of death. The thief who took it very likely condemned the owner of that horse to death. That is why they were hanged.

There weren’t a great many horse thieves, despite Hollywood’s portrayals. Anyway, outlaws always had the best horses. Their lives depended on them. Since honest people don’t steal horses, outlaws had little to fear in that regard, unless they were caught on a horse not theirs. They might be jailed for many things, but condemning a man to die of thirst, exposure or starvation for want of his own horse would not be treated with leniency. This is a little far afield, but I wanted to address it, though I am a day late and a dollar short, or more.

Here’s where law and morality become inextricably entwined. “Am I willing to shoot a thief in the back over a week’s worth of pay?” Well, would you get away with it? I’d bet that would change the answers of more folks than you might suspect.

I think the earlier comment about regional differences in the law is spot-on. I’d argue that these help to illustrate regional differences in morality. Remember that the core of self-defense law — you do not have a duty to retreat when attacked in a public space, but instead may stand your ground, including the use of deadly force — has long been a part of the common law of the states West of the Mississippi, including California! East of the Mississippi, in most jurisdictions the law required you to first try to run if attacked. These legal differences presumably arose from the different moral attitudes in the East and West about the proper response to crimes.

However, it’s not just regional differences, but cultural ones as well. My wife, a Latina who grew up in poverty surrounded by crime and criminals, would leave her bicycle or car unlocked in our driveway earlier in our relationship, with the comment that if someone stole it, “they must have needed it more than I do.” I was as astonished at this fatalistic attitude as she was when informed that my uncle would and had beat to a bloody pulp anyone impertinent enough to steal from him.

But I would argue that in addition to the regional and cultural differences, there’s a much more important generational one too. My uncle, brutal as he may be, grew up with John Wayne as his role model and would never intentionally kill an unarmed thief. My uncle’s in his sixties; I’m in my late thirties; my daughter’s college-age. In my experience, my peers, and my daughter’s peers, seem much more comfortable than my uncle with the idea of lethal vigilante action, even for nonviolent property crimes — maybe it’s not the lawful thing to do, but it’s the right thing to do. They would consider that a morally defensible position, BTW.

The extent to which this reflects despair or disbelief in the efficacy of the “justice system” among the younger population is left as an exercise for some enterprising doctoral candidate. I blame Hollywood!

Thank you for that bit of wisdom. That is exactly what has been so maddening for me in this discussion.

As for your question which establishes the other(paraphrased) Does the law establish morality? If it did, then the Nurembeg Trials were vigilantism in the extreme, because every thing the defendants were accused of was legal under the laws of the Third Reich. And therefore moral, if law establishes morality.

Morality should establish law. However, there are several moral codes with differing opinions, so how to reconcile them? Justice should be the guide. Justice suggest a basis in morality, but it also requires a grounding sense and a dedication to the most good that can be provided an individual. Not the greater good for the greater number, too many sins and crimes against humanity can be hidden in that philosophy. The greater good for the individual translates to everyone and keeps a much higher barrier against governmental and criminal (sometimes they’re the same) abuse of the people. If every individual is autonomous within the bounds of not trespassing his neighbor, then he has as much freedom as can be successfully maintained in a free and civilized society.

To allow others to restrain the exercise of the individual over the protection of his life, lives of his loved ones, or defense of fellow innocents, or property, is to cede the society to the barbarians. And it is exceedingly immoral in its denial of justice for people who have trespassed no one, but are required under penalty of legal sanction to suffer trespass against themselves.

It is not necessary or even to be desired to cause great harm to a petty thief, however the option should be the owners of that property, not the decision of people who have no interest in it, nor in your life, but feel they have the right to exercise your options for you.

If it were general knowledge that those options resided with the owners of those lives or property there would be markedly less need for those options ever to be exercised.

As it stands now, people fear the cops and courts more than they do the criminal and the criminal relies upon that. A partnership between government and goon exists that is beneficial to both, but very detrimental to the law abiding citizen.

There is nothing civilized or humane about that.

Some venues are breaking that symbiosis.

But as for morality having more than a consensus base, I agree that a lot of Judeo-Christian ethics permeate our civilization…. but to someone who’s not much of a believer, that’s just a consensus. Either way, I think we have other sources of western values, such as Greek and Roman ideas about government, philosophy, etc.

But my ideas of morality mostly revolve around what works, and the values of The West are pretty obviously demonstrated to work in terms of making a functioning, prosperous, and mostly importantly, free and happy societies. I’m not a squishy moral relativist, because I believe in the values of our civilization, and am willing to stand up for them, and say they are better than other values. But it’s just difficult to see how it’s anything other than consensus.

I think it would be a strain to fit every law into that mould, but I can understand the reasoning.

My rebuttal would be – did the morality create the law or did the law create the morality? If a law was created that went against your grain, would you simply accept it as a new moral standard? or is there another part of you that recognizes that there are higher laws than the State Code Book.

In your post the other day you stated “It is possible to achieve moral status without being religious.” Honestly, I don’t see how it is possible. One way or another, morality has to be anchored in something deeper than law, or, even more impossible, consensus. This is not proselytizing on my part. I do not believe one becomes a Christian unless he has been called by God. I do not believe that the entire society must proscribe to the rites of any church.

But … and this is a big but …if you are European, South American, or good old North American, the Judaea-Christian system of ethics is your norm, your “home-base” if you will. To just suddenly make a proclamation that morality is completely subjective to the whim of the government in power, the current population or even the individual is preposterous. I’m sure there could be made a list of things that everybody who reads here can agree are immoral: pedophilia (but the ancient Greeks and Romans were okay with it), forcible rape (but a norm in some cultures), killing a child, etc.

That code of morality permeates our society. It is in our literature, our arts. It’s on our money. It’s part of the 12 step programs. It’s chiseled into the wall at the Supreme Court building. That code that’s so deep in us tells us that the most that can be brought against a wrong-doer is equal retribution – an eye for an eye. That is the Law. Jesus said the best is to turn the other cheek. Not sure how closely I’m following Jesus on that one.

For me, I’d never considered the “unarmed assailant stealing property outside of the home” scenario. If he stole my stereo and was running down the road, nope, I am reasonably certain I’d cuss and put the gun back in the holster. What I find troubling, though, is that arson scenario. If he were attempting to burn down my house, match poised over the gasoline, I’d be emptying on him. Does that mean I’m attaching a monetary and physical value to that person’s life?

Isn’t any law, to some degree, legislating a certain morality? Eugene Volokh has written about this. It’s a good read. You’re right though, that what the law is and what is moral is being confusingly argued in parallel. Perhaps I should have separated the two arguments.