Why Is Stealing Wrong

Moral Dilemma: Stealing During my first month of college I found out that my friend, Mia, stole Kate’s-my friend and her roommate- sinus medicine. Mia asked me to keep it a secret from Kate, which left me feeling torn as to what the right thing to do was. The ambivalence I was feeling was because their situation went against my morals; I knew what Mia did was wrong, as I intuitively knew stealing was wrong. Stealing is wrong because it violates basic moral conduct. Based on the rationalist belief, explained in the Righteous Mind, and similar to Piaget’s study where kids learned volume on their own, Mia should have learned by now that stealing is morally wrong. In the same manner, stealing is immoral because it violates Kate’s happiness. Both of my friends are sick, and since Mia took Kate’s medicine it slows Kate’s recovery time, and thus makes her not have
According to hedonists, Mia is justified in that she is doing what she needs to for her own good and personal well-being. In the same manner, to deny Mia of immediate, sufficient sinus medicine to recover from her sickness would deny her of a good life because she would be unhappy. Based on John Stuart Mills’ view, Mia is justified in that she prioritized her health over her friendship when she stole Kate’s medicine; Mia did what was necessary for her to have a good life. Additionally, Mia exhibited reasonings parallel to that of Kohlberg’s findings in that Mia justified her dishonesty with those similarly exhibited by the “post-conventional” stages. She is justified in that she placed her life and well-being over the property (medicine); it was for the “greater good”. While life over property is justifiable, Mia put her life over Kate’s which demonstrates bad morale. However wrong it was Mia is still my friend, so I decided to give her some of my medicine and return