On the corner of Broad and some street near VCU’s campus there is a man who day after day leaves a large backpack, clothes spilling out of it, sitting on a bench next to a bus stop. I’ve never seen the man whose home is contained in the bag, but apparently he feels comfortable enough leaving his life in a public area believing nobody will tamper with his belongings. I’ve never seen anyone doing so. We would never steal from the man, who trusts the world enough to put it out for anyone to see, yet some steal from businesses, steal ideas from each other, and often take what they don’t deserve. People steal music online, illegally download movies, etc. However, I think of the man with his lonely bag, and how if one were to take say a tube of toothpaste from him, it would leave a resounding effect on his life, besides the initial hurt of having something taken from him. He would have to find a way to replace the object, and if it was something that he used to stay healthy, being without it could cause poor health effects. People are subconsciously aware of the difference one missing object would make on the homeless man’s life and that is why they walk past the bag rather than view …show more content…
No matter the happiness gained, it is still an immoral act. But, in some cases there are exceptions to moral rules. A strong exception to the moral rule of not stealing, for example, is if one was murderous and had a knife in his or her hand, it would be immoral not to steal the knife from the murderous individual. In that case, the happiness of others would greatly decrease due to being harmed by the murderer. If his weapon is taken, only his happiness would decrease, but everyone else’s relief would increase the overall happiness of the group. Therefore, it is beneficial to steal the weapon, and the case is not immoral. So, because the group happiness goes up in the case of illegal downloads, the case is not immoral, because there is no one negatively