Priest Tells Poor To Shoplift

Father Tim Jones has said to hell with the 8th commandment and advised the poor in his church to shoplift if they can't afford to feed their families. He said, "My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift. I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or because I think it is harmless, for it is neither. I would ask that they do not steal from small family businesses but from large, national businesses, knowing that the costs are ultimately passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher prices. I would ask them not to take any more than they need, for any longer than they need.I offer the advice with a heavy heart and wish society would recognize that bureaucratic ineptitude and systematic delay has created an invitation and incentive to crime for people struggling to cope." Of course, church leaders, business owners, and the police strongly disagree with the father's moral relativism.

Comments

huh?

[nomadic]

I don't think that qualifies as moral relativism; the guy seems to be basically saying stealing is wrong, but not as wrong as letting your family starve. Of course slashdot is a very strongly capital L Libertarian viewpoint so I'm sure if anyone else responds to this story they'll be a lot more disapproving.

Re:huh?

[jayme0227]

Most churches do quite a bit to help the poor, whether or not they are constituents of the church. The problem lies in the fact that churches are quickly fading (esp. in the developed world) so their donations are dwindling, while, at the same time, the number of poor is increasing. Even if the church is supporting them, generally it's to the tune of a couple meals a week, generally, not enough to raise a family.

There are other mechanisms in place to help the poor, but, due to the abuse of some, it can be difficult for those who truly need help to get it. Sometimes there really is no other alternative.

Re:huh?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Moral relativism is closer to saying that there is no universal "rigtht thing" to do or any universal "wrong thing" to do. Looking at the situation moraly reltavistcally, one might say that the large company isn't wrong for trying to prevent shoplifting, Society isn't wrong for not providing means for the individual to provide for themselves, and the individual stealing isn't wrong for stealing. There is no potential for Justice in that situation. No ideal solution to the conflict of interests.

Re:huh?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

TFS seems very badly confused about what "moral relativism" actually means.

Saying "X is always wrong." is a trivial example of moral absolutism. However, saying "X is wrong unless condition Y holds." is precisely as absolute as the first example. There is absolutely nothing about moral absolutism that requires the absolute ethical rules to be of low complexity. Nor is there anything forbidding absolutist ethics from acknowledging competing interests(so long as there is an absolute rule about how to choose between them). The "Three Laws of Robotics", for example, are not exactly an example of relativism, and they do exactly this.

Re:huh?

[mcgrew]

If you followed the New Testament, the stealing is wrong, but you're forgiven for it. However, I can't agree with this guy. Maybe it's different in his city, but in mine we have bread lines who will feed anyone who shows up; I know one woman who isn't poor but goes to the bread line because she likes the food. And there are several charity food pantries that will keep a family fed easily.

Plus, there are "food stamps" (now called "LINK") and WIC. The problem with America's poor isn't lack of food, it's lack of money to pay the rent, utilities, and transportation. The sad, evil part aout it is that most of the poor in America are employed.

The only people I know who go hungry are those who trade their food for drugs.

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

And the nuns did what with it? Bought recliners and PS3s?

Or did it maybe feed and keep the missions running where the nuns were? The nuns who were, you know, helping the poor?

Money that supported the nuns indirectly supports the missions they're on. It's not like the administrative costs that eat 85% of your donation to the Red Cross.

Re:huh?

[Rob the Bold]

If "x is wrong, but isn't as wrong as y" doesn't qualify as moral relativism, I'm not sure what would, precisely.

I don't think that term means what you think it means. It's not saying that, morally speaking, X is "relatively" worse than Y. It's more along the lines of saying that there isn't an absolute morality. For instance, Person A might disagree with Person B as to whether action X is moral or not: it's not Person A's "relative" judgment about X vs. Y. There's a Wikipedia entry on Moral Relativism.

Re:Completely Agree With Him

[v1]

so they can get out of the cold at night. Where I live, there is lots of heated, unused space, and yet people are freezing outside. WTF?

Spend a little time as a property owner that's tired of bums pissing in the corners in your property you're going to try to show the next morning, or what happens more often, they light fires inside anyway despite of the heat, and burn the place down.

Ya, these types need to be locked out. You can't just blanket-trust every man on the street not to trash your place if you leave the door unlocked, because eventually they will trash it. It's not a maybe or a probably. it will happen in a short space of time. The average bum keeps a building he's managed to get inside about as well as the alley he was just at outside.

Nope, its not relativism

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, one may or may not agree, but it is not relativism.

It is clearly a hierarchy. And duh... Feeding your children is more important than not stealing.
Relativism would be the implication that the hierarchy itself was relative. Relativism would be something like: We believe random acts of murder are worse than random acts of theft in America, but in XXX things are different.

Relativism removes any universal ethical thinking and leave us only with historical/cultural morals.

I'd hope all of the obvious things like foodstamps and church charity were done first. I also acknowledge that some people fuck up. If one loses money and its one's one fault ... I don't think that doesn't mean they shouldn't steal to help their kids. They should do what they need to do and try and make sure they pay the price not their kids...

That is easier said than done and likely one in this situation will fail, but legality is also a separate concept from ethics. The ethical picture here is complex, the legal picture is simple.

Let's stop firehosing the Rich with Free Money

[jeko]

If the Government can be the "Lender of Last Resort" for the Wealthy,
If we can pony up seven to eight hundred BILLION dollars because the banks got greedy,
If we can bail out any Fortune 500 company with it's hand out,
If we can provide every form of corporate welfare imaginable to shield the Rich from the harsh realities of the market,
Then why can't the Government be the Employer of Last Resort? We've got infrastructure falling around our ears, we've got social problems galore, why not simply take every unemployed person in America and put them to work fixing problems far too long neglected?

And yeah, let's put tax rates back to where they were in 1950 to pay for it, and ask any who complain why they hate America?

Food for drugs

[tepples]

The only people I know who go hungry are those who trade their food for drugs.

What should people with chronic medical conditions do so that they don't have to choose between food and the medication that keeps them alive?