My Cat Question
 

I've decided to repeat a question I left at the bottom of another thread.

An eccentric old lady leaves a $100,000 diamond necklace to her pet cat to play with after she is gone. Assuming that if you steal it, you will use the money for personal gain for you and your family, how bad off would you have to be for to make it right?

Re: My Cat Question
 

Is my relationship with the old lady or the cat relevant?

Am I the "custodian" for the cat, or just an a neutral party?

Re: My Cat Question
 

I would steal it to save a human life and even then, I'd confess to the theft and accept the consequences after the life was saved. Otherwise, I simply don't steal.

I would expect religious people to be taken aback that an atheist would not steal. But why are you so surprised? I don't believe I've seen your thorough justification on why you seem to condone theft in certain circumstances. With all due respect, does your whole world view come down to mathematics and nothing more?

Re: My Cat Question
 

You are lying. You would steal that necklace to keep someone from having their leg amputated. You would steal it to pay the one defense attorney who would keep your innocent friend out of jail. You would steal it to seperate Siamese twins. And you would steal it in close situations where you wouldn't steal $100K from a middle class human.

And what on Earth makes you think that this is in any way a math problem?

Re: My Cat Question
 

<font color="blue">You are lying. </font>

Not lying, just not thinking it all the way through before answering. Yes, I would steal it for those reasons as well, but again, would confess after the fact.

Maybe math wasn't the right word either... Theivery to me, contains an element of bad character. I suppose I'm ok with "commadeering" the money to be used in your examples. But stealing implies a vile act which you would not be willing to admit to. Taking something which is not yours to take for selfish gain, etc. This is my problem with the way you're phrasing these questions.

Re: My Cat Question
 

You have slipped lately. I use the word steal to save letters. Obviously. And your comment about how the Angolan kid could use his talents was horribly off the subject. Guesswest has now pulled ahead of you. Maybe Mickey Braush as well.

Re: My Cat Question
 

I'm also a fan of Guesswest and Mickey Brausch. I don't mind defering to them.

Re: My Cat Question
 

[ QUOTE ]
I've decided to repeat a question I left at the bottom of another thread.

An eccentric old lady leaves a $100,000 diamond necklace to her pet cat to play with after she is gone. Assuming that if you steal it, you will use the money for personal gain for you and your family, how bad off would you have to be for to make it right?



[/ QUOTE ]
Who owns the cat when she dies? If the cat is just to be set free in the woods with it's new play toy upon her death, then of course I would steal the necklace. I wouldn't care what I used the money for.

Re: My Cat Question
 

[ QUOTE ]
Who owns the cat when she dies? If the cat is just to be set free in the woods with it's new play toy upon her death, then of course I would steal the necklace. I wouldn't care what I used the money for.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I don't think cats have property rights, so the question is ill formed

Re: My Cat Question
 

Who owns the cat?

Re: My Cat Question
 

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And what on Earth makes you think that this is in any way a math problem?

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You've been slipping lately. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

chez

Re: My Cat Question
 

Adopt the cat. Dilemma solved. Moral and financial.

Re: My Cat Question
 

What kind of acts would I have to do to steal it? Breaking and entering or do I get to see the cat in the woods taking a nap where no one is watching? Can I know with certainty ahead of time that I will never be found out? Also who owns the cat and what is likely to happen to the necklace after it dies? I think I would have to be pretty desperate to do it nonetheless.

p.s. I have returned money (~$100) to a store when given incorrect change before on more than one occassion where I would not be discovered so am very strongly opposed to stealing or keeping something that is not mine if I know who owns it. I think I would however keep money if it was in a paper bag on the sidewalk with no identifying information even if it was a very large sum of money, maybe even especially if it was a very large sum, rationalizing that the person who lost it was criminal or rich so didn't 'need' or 'deserve' it.

I would return it if it became known to me who owned it though even if I was the only one who knew I had found the money and would not be discovered if i just kept it and said nothing.

Re: My Cat Question
 

I'd steal the cat and the necklace, sell the necklace and keep the money. All the while providing a good life for the cat.

Re: My Cat Question
 

I'd steal the kitty's necklace, unless I was so absurdly rich that the money meant nothing to me.

Re: My Cat Question
 

I'd trade with the cat: a ping-pong ball for the necklace. Sounds like a good deal for both of us.

Re: My Cat Question
 

Deleted

Re: My Cat Question
 

[ QUOTE ]
Who owns the cat?

[/ QUOTE ]

Re: My Cat Question
 

[ QUOTE ]
I've decided to repeat a question I left at the bottom of another thread.

An eccentric old lady leaves a $100,000 diamond necklace to her pet cat to play with after she is gone. Assuming that if you steal it, you will use the money for personal gain for you and your family, how bad off would you have to be for to make it right?

[/ QUOTE ]

Frankly, I'd steal it for no good reason at all. The old lady is dead and her opinions don't matter anymore. The cat does not have the right to own property. I'm not hurting anyone who is alive.

If the old lady had family, though, I would be obligated to give the money to them. And if she didn't, I would give a portion of the money to charity.

To clarify, the necklace would belong to her family in the same way that anything would in the absence of a will. If she has no family, then the necklace has no owner and is mine in the same way that a gold nugget I found in a river would be. Any proceeds I give to charity is purely out of the goodness of my heart.

Re: My Cat Question
 

"The old lady is dead and her opinions don't matter anymore."

Really. Her will shouldn't be honored?

Re: My Cat Question
 

[ QUOTE ]
Really. Her will shouldn't be honored?



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Yeah, her will should be honored. Whoever owns the cat, owns the necklace. Otherwise, her will should be honored and we should be honored to steal the necklace.

Re: My Cat Question
 

[ QUOTE ]
"The old lady is dead and her opinions don't matter anymore."

Really. Her will shouldn't be honored?

[/ QUOTE ]

A will is a statement about who owns a person's property after they die. It is not a license for the dying person to direct the living to do damn-fool things just because they said so.

Cats cannot own property. If the necklace has a legitimate inheritor, then they own it. If not, it doesn't have an owner and I will take ownership of it.

I don't feel any moral obligation to respect the wishes of the dead. They are DEAD. The dead cannot own property and they cannot have opinions. If I respect the wishes of the dead, it is because I am demonstrating to myself or others a respect for the dead person. But if I didn't respect them, or if their wishes are idiotic, I will disregard their wishes.

"One owes respect to the living. To the dead, one owes only the truth."

-- Voltaire

NB: All of the above is simply my opinion. I am not familiar with the legalities, but they are probably quite different.

Edit: Honouring a dead person's wishes is a bit like going and putting flowers next to someone's grave. It's a ritual, which makes us feel that we are honouring the memory of the person. But there is absolutely no moral obligation to do it.

Distribution of property is different because it is like an instruction made at the moment just before death, which in a perfect world would be carried out immediately. It doesn't involve the hand of a dead person still trying to meddle with the world after they are gone.

Last edit, I promise: If you are given an instruction by a dying person about what to do with a certain piece of property after they are dead, you probably have an obligation to inform them if you aren't going to carry those wishes out and there's someone else they could will it to who would.

Re: My Cat Question
 

I'd steal the necklace, feel guilty, and make sure the cat was well-supplied with catnip, balls of yarn, and tummy scratches. I'll also buy a laser pen, and make it chase that on a regular basis.

Re: My Cat Question
 

A better question that "who owns the cat" is "how do we decide who owns the cat"...that is, what is our theory of ownership?

A couple of ACists have denounced the concept of desert in distributive argument, but the reality is that the concept and theory ownership is also debatable, and their criticisms of desert apply to that as well. What does it mean to own something? How does one come to own something? Etc.

This is why I don't think we can ever sensibly say that taxation is theft. We can't ever say who owns something in anything other than a legal sense, and, by definition, taxation says they do not legally own that thing anymore.

I'm going to start a new OP so that I don't hijack this thread, so please post anything related to the theory of ownership in that thread.

Re: My Cat Question
 

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Really. Her will shouldn't be honored?

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The rituals of death are for the survivors. If letting the cat play with the necklace makes YOU feel better about the passing, by all means do so. Me, I'm paying off the mortgage, and putting a picture of the old lady on the wall to remember her by.

Re: My Cat Question
 

[ QUOTE ]
Really. Her will shouldn't be honored?

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What if her will weren't so benign? What if her will were for the cat to make all of your future financial decisions. Should that will be honored?