Which of these (if any) was unjust:
Drilling the oil beneath the school
Blocking out the sun
Attempting to steal candy from a baby
Maybe I’m confused, but I don’t understand why the first would be bad. The third is mean, but the second will kill the baby.
blocking the sun is pretty bad… that’ll kill us
That was theft, since the school had already found and claimed the oil beneath its land. ( I am a Simpsons nerd. 
)
Of course the school itself is an institution founded on theft to begin with, a great deal of which would have been from Mr Burns, assuming his mansion is zoned for Springfield Elementary. 
He could claim it was restitution.
Knowlingly causing damage to property and human life/health is surely wrong.
Obviously robbery. That didn’t turn out so well for him, though, did it? Maggie exercised her 2nd Amendment rights…
What about when Mr Burns stole and kept out of circulation the Trillion Dollar Bill printed by Truman, or whoever, to pay for his Marshall Plan? That redeems a lot of his evil in my book.
Can you really claim oil to yourself without drilling it, though?
Drlling the oil beneath the school (by the way I found hilarious how the public school started spending like crazy even before the first drop of oil had been sold) was an example of “tragedy of the commons”: since the ground on which the school is built is “public” everybody could have drilled into it for oil.
Blocking out the sun clearly violated the rights of the Springfield residents, since they were clearly harmed and no steps were taken into either obtaining their consent or compensating them.
Attempting to steal candy from a baby… well that’s attempt theft and that’s always bad since Maggie was clearly the owner of the candy and her property rights were being violated. Mind that she didn’t just stand there and took it but she legitimately defended herself and her property. In some European countries she could have been persecuted for “excessive legitimate defense”!
Happy new year to you all!
Not trying to troll, honestly want to know answers:
“That was theft, since the school had already found and claimed the oil beneath its land.”
What does this claim entail? Does finding the oil first mean one can justly exclude all others from its extraction? By taking a drop of oil do I have a claim to all the oil to which it was connected? By taking a clod of earth do I have a claim to all the earth to which it was connected?
“Knowlingly causing damage to property and human life/health is surely wrong.”
What damage did he cause? All he did was build a large piece of metal in the sky - did anyone previously own the sky in which he build this? If so, why?
“Can you really claim oil to yourself without drilling it, though?”
Can you claim it all for yourself even if you have drilled it?
“an example of “tragedy of the commons”: since the ground on which the school is built is “public” everybody could have drilled into it for oil.”
If it wasn’t public, would the school have the sole right of drilling? If the whole world were oil, and I was the first to extract 1 drop, would it be just for me to exclude all others from drilling oil?
“Blocking out the sun clearly violated the rights of the Springfield residents”
What rights did it violate?
As for stealing the candy - that was certainly unjust.
What makes the second wrong? You surely have never touched the sun to homestead it.
True, but neither had Mr. Burns. Can he take from another that which isn’t even his to legally take in the first place?
Why could he not homestead unowned resources? You have no title, why can he not establish one for himself?
Right, but he didn’t exactly “touch” the sun anymore than anyone else. He just built a big metal disk to block it. Does building the disk act as homesteading the sunlight? If so, does that mean he only owns just as much sunlight as his contraption can block?
We know that blocking out the sun would destroy us. And we don’t want to get destroyed. So we call it “wrong”, and hope that enough people jump on board to calm our fears. If everybody thinks that doing that would be “wrong”, then we don’t have anything to worry about. Or, if it’s only most people that believe that it would be “wrong”, then we’ll be a strong majority!
Or, to be more charitable, we know that blocking out the sun would ruin us; and we don’t want to get ruined; so we threaten to punish anybody who tries to do it, which is what being (morally) “wrong” is short-hand for, at least in ordinary discussions.
Pretty democratic of you. That’s how minimum wage laws work, too, I think.
Doesn’t being a democracy include having formal voting?
Can you explain?
I. Ryan: Tyranny of the masses. The majority might think that the minimum wage is “good” and abolishing it is “wrong” but that doesn’t necessarily make it so. It’s good for the people who benefit and bad for the people who get priced out of a job, which begs whether there is indeed a definitive quality to the law or if it’s entirely subjective. Being curious creatures by nature, I don’t know if it’s possible to keep people from sticking their nose in other people’s business (I know sometimes I can’t resist the urge), but there are dangers to exending this quality un-impeeded into the democratic realm.
Society itself is simply a certain kind of “tyranny of the masses”.
I’m aware of that; but I’m pretty sure that I’m right about the sun thing.
Of course it’s entirely subjective; but its beauty reveals itself when we consider the harmony of interests between the social people.
Can you elaborate?
(I’m not sure where you’re trying to go with that.)
Sure - What I was trying to say, with the example of minimum wage, is that people would notice that there was a group of individuals who made a comparatively pitiful wage, and if they felt a strong moral misgiving with it, they’d probably be inclined to make government do something about it. Ergo - Minimum Wage Laws.
Humans are curious creatures, but this doesn’t necessarily make them smart. I agree with you on the topic of the sun and Mr. Burn’s contraption, but as history has demonstrated far too many times, I’m just very wary of the “harmony of interests between the social people” when they all too often decide to act on something they don’t like before fully understanding the root(s) of the problem.
Touching isn’t required; use of the sun is what’s required, and everyone uses the sun. Indeed the sun is often a factor of production to many people all over the world (farming, solar power, drying wet clothes, etc.).
If previous use of photons entitles you to future use of such, doesn’t previous use of crude oil molecules entitle you to future use of such, as well? Apples, too?
I’m not really sure what you’re saying. If you use photons continuously in production and someone comes along and prevents you from using them, it would seem to me that their action is illegitimate.