3.2.2 - Applied ethics - stealing and lying

The Applied Question

Applied ethics is not a request for personal reactions. It asks how a moral theory generates a judgement about a concrete issue, and whether that judgement reveals a strength or weakness in the theory.

The two cases in this lesson look familiar:

The philosophical work begins when the same action is put through different decision procedures.

The shared applied-ethics pattern is:

1. Describe the action precisely: What is being stolen, or what falsehood is being asserted?
2. Identify the morally relevant features according to the theory.
3. Apply the theory's criterion: utility, duty, virtue, or meta-ethical status.
4. State the judgement the theory seems to produce.
5. Ask whether that judgement is plausible, too strict, too permissive, unclear, or dependent on a hidden assumption.

A simple comparison already shows why the topic matters. An opportunistic theft for luxury, a desperate theft of food, a self-serving lie to avoid blame, and a protective lie to prevent serious harm are not all morally alike in ordinary thought. The question is whether each theory can explain that difference without abandoning its own principles.

The main argument for treating applied ethics as a test of theory is:

Claim at issue: Stealing and lying reveal how ethical theories work in practice.

1. P1: A normative ethical theory should explain what makes actions right or wrong.
2. P2: Stealing and lying are action-types where ordinary moral judgement often depends on motive, consent, harm, trust, rights, character and social practice.
3. P3: Utilitarianism, Kantian ethics and virtue ethics select different features as morally central.
4. Therefore, C: Applying the theories to stealing and lying tests both their guidance and their plausibility.

Hidden assumption: A theory's practical verdict matters to its evaluation.
Inference type: Practical and comparative reasoning.
Main pressure point: A theory might give clear guidance but a counter-intuitive result, or a plausible result but unclear guidance.

Meta-ethics adds a second layer. A normative theory asks, "What makes stealing or lying right or wrong?" A meta-ethical theory asks, "What kind of claim is 'stealing is wrong' or 'lying is wrong'?" It may be a truth-apt belief, an expression of disapproval, a universal prescription, or an error if there are no moral facts. That does not replace the normative application, but it changes what the application is claiming to establish.

Utilitarian Application

Utilitarianism judges actions, rules or practices by utility. In AQA terms, that includes Bentham's quantitative hedonistic utilitarianism, Mill's qualitative hedonistic utilitarianism, non-hedonistic utilitarianism such as preference utilitarianism, and the act/rule distinction.

The core utilitarian application is:

1. Identify all those affected.
2. Estimate the relevant pleasures, pains, satisfactions or frustrated preferences.
3. Treat each person's utility impartially.
4. Compare the total utility of doing the action with the total utility of available alternatives.
5. Judge the action by which option maximises utility.

Stealing

For an act utilitarian, the first question is not "Is it stealing?" but "What are the consequences of this act of stealing compared with the alternatives?"

In a case of stealing luxury goods for amusement, the likely utility profile is negative. The thief gains a limited pleasure. The owner loses property, security and trust. Others may face higher prices, anxiety, policing costs, or a weakened expectation that possessions are safe. If the action encourages imitation, the longer-term harm multiplies.

In a desperate case, such as stealing food or medicine to prevent severe suffering, the calculation is harder. The immediate benefit may be intense and urgent, while the owner's loss may be comparatively small. An act utilitarian may therefore judge that the theft is right or at least justified in that specific case. The judgement depends on the balance of utility, not on the action-type alone.

Bentham's style of calculation makes the pressure visible. The utilitarian must consider intensity, duration, certainty, closeness, future tendency, purity and extent. That means a theft cannot be assessed only by the thief's benefit. The calculation must include the owner, dependants, witnesses, social trust, possible punishment and likely imitation.

A rule utilitarian shifts the focus. Instead of asking whether this individual theft maximises utility, it asks which general rule would maximise utility if accepted or practised. A rule allowing "steal whenever you personally need or want the object more than its owner does" would create insecurity and bias. A stricter property-respecting rule may produce greater utility by protecting trust, planning and personal security. However, a carefully limited emergency exception might be defended if it prevents serious suffering without undermining the wider rule.

The argument can be reconstructed like this:

Claim at issue: Utilitarianism usually condemns stealing, but may permit it in exceptional cases.

1. P1: An action is right if, of the available options, it maximises utility.
2. P2: Stealing often produces pain, insecurity, distrust and social costs that outweigh the thief's gain.
3. P3: Some exceptional thefts may prevent greater suffering than they cause.
4. Therefore, C: Utilitarianism condemns many thefts but can justify some thefts where total utility is higher than the alternatives.

Hidden assumption: Utility across people and future effects can be compared well enough for moral judgement.
Inference type: Consequentialist practical reasoning.
Main pressure point: The calculation may permit violations of property rights when utility strongly favours them.

Telling Lies

The utilitarian application to lying is similar but trust becomes especially important. A lie may produce immediate relief, safety or happiness. It may also produce bad consequences: false beliefs, poor decisions, damaged relationships, emotional harm, reduced trust in testimony and wider social suspicion.

An act utilitarian may permit a lie if it prevents serious harm and the costs are limited. For example, a lie that protects someone from immediate danger may have better consequences than telling the truth. But a self-serving lie to avoid blame will usually shift costs onto others and reduce trust, so it is likely to be wrong.

A rule utilitarian has a strong reason to defend a general rule of truth-telling. Human cooperation depends on testimony. If lying becomes common or accepted whenever convenient, communication loses reliability. Still, rule utilitarians can debate whether the best rule is absolute truth-telling or truth-telling with narrow exceptions for preventing serious harm.

Mill's discussion of justice and rights helps here. A utilitarian can treat rights and security as extremely important because stable expectations are central to happiness. That means utilitarianism is not forced to treat every right as disposable in each small calculation. But the protection remains grounded in utility, so a sufficiently extreme case can still test it.

The main utilitarian issue is not that it has no answer. It has a clear method. The issue is whether that method is too permissive when stealing or lying would maximise utility, and too demanding when calculation is uncertain.

Kantian Application

Kantian ethics is deontological: it judges actions by duty and rational moral law, not by a balance of consequences. For AQA, the relevant tools are good will, acting out of duty, hypothetical and categorical imperatives, the first formulation of the categorical imperative, and the second formulation.

The Kantian application is:

1. State the maxim: the principle on which the person proposes to act.
2. Test whether the maxim can be willed as a universal law.
3. Ask whether universalising it creates a contradiction in conception or contradiction in will.
4. Ask whether the action treats rational persons as ends in themselves, not merely as means.
5. Judge the action by duty and motive, not by whether the outcome happens to be useful.

Stealing

Suppose the maxim is:

When I want or need another person's property, I will take it without their consent.

Universalised, this maxim threatens the practice it presupposes. If everyone could take property whenever they wanted or needed it, then secure ownership and consent would be undermined. The action depends on the idea that the object is another person's property, but the universal law weakens the institution that makes that description possible. That creates pressure toward a contradiction in conception.

The second formulation adds another route. Stealing normally treats the owner merely as a means. The thief bypasses the owner's rational choice about their own property and uses the owner's resources for the thief's ends. Even if the thief's end is sympathetic, the owner is not respected as a rational agent who can consent, refuse, negotiate, donate, or set conditions.

The Kantian argument against stealing can be reconstructed as:

Claim at issue: Stealing is wrong because its maxim cannot be universalised and it fails to respect persons.

1. P1: A morally permissible maxim must be capable of being willed as a universal law.
2. P2: The maxim "take another's property without consent when it serves my purposes" undermines secure property and consent when universalised.
3. P3: A morally permissible action must treat rational persons as ends, not merely as means.
4. P4: Stealing bypasses the owner's rational agency over their property.
5. Therefore, C: Stealing is morally wrong on Kantian grounds.

Hidden assumption: Property and consent are rational social practices that a universal moral law must be able to preserve.
Inference type: Deontological and conceptual reasoning.
Main pressure point: Emergency cases create pressure from consequences or competing duties.

Kantian ethics has a clear strength here. It protects individuals against being sacrificed whenever someone calculates that taking from them would produce a better total outcome. The difficulty is hard cases. If stealing medicine is the only way to save a life, utilitarianism can explain why the action may be justified. Kantian ethics resists that move because good consequences alone do not override the duty-based test of rightness. A defender may distinguish stealing from seeking consent, borrowing, compensation, public emergency rules, or a duty to aid. The residual problem is whether the theory becomes too rigid when duties seem to compete.

Telling Lies

Lying is a central Kantian test because it manipulates another person's rational agency. If I lie, I invite another person to reason from information I believe to be false. That makes their decision serve my purpose rather than their own informed judgement.

The universalisation test can be applied through a false-promise style maxim:

When telling the truth would frustrate my purpose, I will assert a falsehood so that another person believes me.

If universalised, this maxim undermines trust in assertion and promising. The practice of using words to secure belief depends on a background expectation of sincerity. A universal law of convenient lying would damage the very practice the liar relies on. That is why Kantian ethics gives a strong prohibition on lying.

The humanity formulation reaches the same conclusion. The lie treats the hearer merely as a tool to be moved by false information. It does not respect them as a rational chooser.

The targeted issue is protective lying. Suppose telling the truth would expose someone to serious harm. A critic argues that Kantian ethics becomes morally implausible if it forbids lying even there. The target is not Kant's logic alone; it is the implication that duty to truthfulness can override consequences that seem morally urgent. The strongest Kantian reply is that rational agency and trust are not optional goods to trade away whenever outcomes look attractive. The residual problem is that this reply may still seem too strict where lying appears to be the only way to protect a person.

The core Kantian resources here are universalisation, duty, motive and the humanity formulation.

Virtue Ethics Application

Aristotelian virtue ethics does not begin with a utility calculation or a universal law test. It asks what sort of character, choice and practical reasoning are expressed in the action, and whether these contribute to eudaimonia. Eudaimonia is the flourishing or living well that functions as the final end for human beings.

The virtue-ethical application is:

1. Identify the relevant virtues and vices.
2. Ask what motive, feeling and choice the action expresses.
3. Consider whether the action is voluntary, involuntary or non-voluntary.
4. Use practical wisdom to judge the particulars of the case.
5. Ask whether the action belongs to a flourishing, just and well-formed character.

Stealing

Stealing is naturally connected with justice. In Aristotle's account, justice concerns relations with others, fairness, lawfulness and taking too much or too little. Theft appears as an unjust action because it involves taking what is not one's due.