Theft and Lying (AQA A-Level Religious Studies): Revision Notes
Theft and lying
Overview
This note explores how three major ethical theories – natural moral law, situation ethics, and virtue ethics – approach the issues of theft and lying. Each theory offers a distinct framework for making moral decisions about these actions.
Theft and ethical theories
Natural moral law and theft
Core principles
Natural moral law approaches theft through the framework of primary and secondary precepts. The most relevant primary precept is living in an ordered society, as theft generally creates disorder. From this flows the secondary precept: do not steal. This principle is reinforced by the biblical commandment prohibiting theft, and the cardinal virtue of justice condemns stealing.
Aquinas on proportionate reasons
However, Aquinas recognised that proportionate reasons might justify breaking this rule in exceptional circumstances. He specifically considered whether a starving person could lawfully steal to save their life.
Aquinas concluded that in cases of extreme necessity, taking another's property becomes lawful. He wrote in the Summa Theologica that when someone faces imminent danger with no other remedy, they may lawfully take what they need from another's property, either openly or secretly. In such circumstances, this doesn't properly constitute theft or robbery.
Key conditions for justified theft according to Aquinas:
- The need must be manifest and urgent
- The person must be in imminent danger
- No other possible remedy exists
- The theft is from someone who has enough for themselves
Aquinas also suggested it would be lawful to take property to help a neighbour in dire need.
Proportionalist perspective
A modern proportionalist approach would weigh the values and disvalues:
Values:
- Preservation of life (aligned with primary precept)
- Ability to continue supporting family
- Intention is to save life, not merely acquire goods
Disvalues:
- Injustice to the person stolen from
- Potential negative effects on society if others copy the act in less urgent circumstances
On balance, the proportionalist view suggests that theft in this extreme situation produces more value than disvalue.
Situation ethics and theft
Fletcher's approach
Situation ethics rejects fixed rules about theft. Fletcher illustrated this with the example of a student wanting to buy a useful thesaurus, who might obtain it through various means including stealing. The rightness of any action depends entirely on the specific situation.
Case study: the library book
Case Study: The Stolen Textbook
Consider a student who steals an expensive textbook from the university library because they cannot afford to buy it and need it for an important test. They intend to return it after the exam.
Analysis of the act:
- Motive: passing an important test
- Means: theft (temporary possession without permission)
- Consequences: likely to achieve the desired result
- Pragmatic: it will probably work
Why it fails situation ethics:
Despite appearing pragmatic, this act fails the fundamental test of situation ethics because it ignores agape (unconditional love). Fletcher insists that love is justice distributed. The action cannot be just because:
- It deprives other students of using the book
- They may be in the same situation
- It is not other-person-regarding
- It serves only self-love
Love of self is permitted in situation ethics, but only when it simultaneously serves love of one's neighbour.
The starving person scenario
Using situation ethics, a starving person stealing to stay alive could be justified if:
- The act serves agapeic love
- It addresses the genuine life-threatening situation
- The consequences serve love's ends
- It can be justified through agapeic calculus
Virtue ethics and theft
Focus on character development
Virtue ethics shifts attention from individual actions to lifelong character development. People become morally good not by solving moral dilemmas but by learning to act virtuously in all situations through habituation. This involves following the example of someone with practical wisdom.
Aristotle's position on theft
Aristotle appears uncompromising about theft. In the Nicomachean Ethics, he states that certain actions are always base, including theft. He argues that theft cannot be done well or badly, with the right victim or wrong victim – doing it at all is simply wrong.
This seems stricter than Aquinas, who at least permitted stealing to save a starving person's life.
Possible interpretation
However, we must consider context:
- Aristotle discussed justice in both broad and narrow senses
- Broad sense: the whole system of law, rule and custom
- Narrow sense: fairness in restoring distribution of gain and loss
Aristotle likely had in mind theft for personal profit between members of the same social class. Stealing to save a starving person might be better understood as distributional justice because:
- The intention is not personal profit
- The redistribution is from someone with more than enough
- It serves a higher virtue
Aristotle's audience was adult males of his social class, so his comments about theft being base may have been directed at theft within that context.
Character and habituation
The virtue ethics approach emphasises that a person who has developed virtuous character through proper habituation would instinctively act justly. When faced with a case like saving a starving person, practical wisdom would guide the decision. Some modern virtue ethicists suggest that in extreme situations, taking the mean to the extreme might be appropriate – where theft becomes the virtuous mean.
Lying and ethical theories
Natural moral law and lying
Foundation in ordered society
Lying violates the primary precept of living in an ordered society. An ordered society cannot exist where people habitually lie to each other. Without truthfulness:
- Business arrangements would be unsafe
- Marriages would be unstable
- Trust would break down
The secondary precept 'do not lie' derives from the biblical commandment forbidding false witness.
Aquinas on the nature of lying
The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines lying as the most direct offence against truth. To lie is to speak or act against truth to lead someone into error who has the right to know the truth.
Aquinas emphasised that lying is wrong because it represents an unnatural failure. In the Summa Theologica, he explained that words are naturally signs of intellectual acts. It is therefore unnatural to signify by words something that is not in one's mind. Someone who says one thing and thinks another lies to himself and breaks the virtues of courage and justice.
The crucial distinction
Key difference between theft and lying for Aquinas:
- It can be right to steal to save a life
- It is never lawful to lie to save a life
Aquinas argued that lying is sinful both because it injures one's neighbour and because of its inherent inordinateness. It is not allowed to use anything inordinate to ward off injury from another. Therefore, it is not lawful to tell a lie to deliver another from any danger.
However, Aquinas added an important qualification: it is lawful to hide the truth prudently by keeping it back.
The mad axeman scenario
Classic Scenario: The Mad Axeman
A mad axeman comes to your door asking where his victim (your friend) is hiding. The victim is inside your house.
Kant argued that even in this situation, one has a duty to tell the truth. However, one may tell a misleading truth, such as 'I saw him at a football match two hours ago'. This states exact truth without revealing what the axeman wants to know.
This approach aligns with Aquinas's concept of prudently keeping back the truth.
The problem with this solution
Critics question whether this solution truly upholds moral good if:
- The axeman remains unconvinced
- Both you and your friend are killed
- A direct lie might have saved lives
The parallel case of Christians hiding Jews in Nazi Germany raises similar questions about whether prudent holding back of truth is sufficient.
Situation ethics and lying
No intrinsic right or wrong
Fletcher insisted that lying has no intrinsic moral status. The rightness or wrongness is entirely situational, with agapeic love as the only absolute.
Case study: the syphilitic man
Case Study: The Doctor's Dilemma
Fletcher discussed a case where American medical ethics at the time prohibited doctors from disclosing a patient's medical details, even to a fiancée. A doctor was forbidden to tell an innocent woman that her fiancé had syphilis.
Fletcher's analysis:
This legalistic principle prejudges the situation and cannot serve love's ends. The man's actions in marrying without disclosure are unjust because:
- The woman will likely contract the disease
- Any child could be infected during pregnancy or birth
- The man who lies about his condition will likely lie about other important matters
- Such actions show lack of love for one's neighbour
The lying by withholding information results in a dangerous and unloving outcome.
Case study: WWII female agents
Case Study: British Intelligence and Female Agents
British Intelligence during the Second World War allowed female agents to return to Germany to certain death to keep secret that they had broken the German code.
Fletcher's justification:
This withholding of information (requiring direct lies to be convincing) was justified because:
- The action was pragmatic – it worked
- It addressed the particular situation
- The means (lying) served the end (love for the majority)
- It involved agapeic calculus weighing risk and distribution of love
- Without this action, thousands might have died
- The war might have lasted longer
The decision prioritised love for the majority over the individuals concerned.
Case study: nurses and schizophrenia patients
Fletcher suggested that nurses lying to schizophrenic patients to keep them calm for treatment can be justified because it affirms Christian love in that specific situation.
The fundamental principle:
In all these situations, Fletcher maintained that there is no intrinsic right or wrong regarding lying. The only absolute is to affirm Christian love (agape). The rightness or wrongness of lying depends entirely on whether it serves love's ends in each specific situation.
Virtue ethics and lying
Truthfulness as a virtue
Aristotle's virtue ethics points to the virtues of honesty and truthfulness, which forbid lying. The situation might also require:
- Courage to tell the truth
- Justice in admitting faults
The problem of habitual lying
In a society aiming for habitual truthfulness, lying can too easily become habitual. Whether it's a murderer lying to avoid imprisonment or someone not admitting to accidental property damage, lying represents a mental state where people distort reality for their own benefit.
Aristotle's perspective on falsehood
Aristotle stated in the Nicomachean Ethics that what is false is based on the blameworthy, whereas what is true is noble and praiseworthy.
However, this isn't a blanket condemnation of all lying. In Aristotle's table of virtues, lying is discussed under truthfulness, with:
- Boastfulness as the excess
- Self-deprecation as the deficiency
Truthfulness relates to truth and self-expression – how we interact socially with each other. False promises are about being unjust rather than untruthful. Truthfulness concerns how you present yourself in social contexts.
The mean is neither to exaggerate nor to underrate yourself. Aristotle described the truthful person as a 'plain dealer' who acknowledges the qualities they possess without exaggerating or diminishing them.
Synergy of virtues
Aristotle's key insight is that virtues work together to form a synergy – something greater than the sum of individual parts. This is like how individual car parts only reach their full potential when assembled into a complete vehicle.
Truthfulness itself is a synergy of different virtues:
- Honesty to express truth
- Courage and temperance to face truth
- High-mindedness and friendliness in giving others their due
- Just resentment when others are not given their due
Practical wisdom shows that honesty cannot be isolated from other virtues. Honesty is one aspect of what it means to be virtuous. Once a person acquires a disposition for truthfulness in social interactions, they are likely to be honest in all contexts.
Application to the WWII agents scenario
In the case of British Intelligence lying to female agents:
Arguments for truthfulness:
- Honesty requires telling the truth about life and death matters
- The agents would feel just resentment at being deceived
Arguments for the lie:
- The situation was about their place in world society as a whole
- The war could have been lost with catastrophic consequences
- This may be a case where taking the mean to the extreme is appropriate – the lie becomes virtuous
- It required great courage and temperance to lie convincingly
- The pain and regret in making this decision showed virtuous intention
Application to the mad axeman scenario
While Aquinas might have given an evasive answer, virtue ethics can handle this differently. An evasive answer is still a deception, but virtue ethics justifies it through:
Balancing virtues:
- Friendship, loyalty and honour to your friend
- Honesty and truthfulness to others
Why lying becomes the mean:
- In this extreme situation, dishonesty becomes the virtuous mean
- Common sense indicates saving your friend's life is right
- Lying on this occasion won't make you untruthful in future
- The decision comes from your own virtuous character and practical wisdom
- The same applies to saving a stranger's life, exercising empathy, compassion and understanding
Key comparisons
Theft
Flexibility in extreme circumstances:
- Natural moral law: Permits theft with proportionate reasons (starving person)
- Situation ethics: Depends entirely on whether it serves agapeic love
- Virtue ethics: Generally prohibits theft but may allow redistribution to save lives
Decision-making basis:
- Natural moral law: Primary and secondary precepts, with exceptions
- Situation ethics: Agapeic calculus and pragmatic consequences
- Virtue ethics: Character developed through habituation and practical wisdom
Lying
Fundamental position:
- Natural moral law: Never lawful to lie directly, but may hide truth prudently
- Situation ethics: No intrinsic right or wrong; depends on situation
- Virtue ethics: Truthfulness is a virtue, but extreme situations may justify lying
Treatment of extreme cases:
- Natural moral law: Allows misleading truth but not direct lies
- Situation ethics: Can justify lying if it serves agapeic love
- Virtue ethics: Lying may become the virtuous mean in extreme circumstances
Exam tips
Essential exam strategies:
- Always explain the reasoning behind each theory's position, not just the conclusion
- Use specific examples to illustrate how each theory works in practice
- Recognise that each theory has internal logic and consistency
- Consider both strengths and weaknesses of each approach
- Link back to the fundamental principles of each theory (precepts, agape, virtues)
- Be prepared to discuss challenging scenarios that test the limits of each theory
- Remember that natural moral law allows some flexibility despite appearing rule-based
- Understand that situation ethics isn't simply 'anything goes' – it has the absolute of agapeic love
- Grasp that virtue ethics focuses on character over time, not just individual actions
Remember!
Key Points to Remember:
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Natural moral law generally prohibits both theft and lying through secondary precepts, but Aquinas allows exceptions for theft (not lying) when proportionate reasons exist, such as saving a starving person's life.
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Situation ethics has no fixed rules about theft or lying. Both actions can be right or wrong depending entirely on whether they serve agapeic love in each specific situation. Fletcher's examples show lying can be justified (WWII agents) or wrong (syphilitic man) based on consequences.
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Virtue ethics emphasises character development over individual actions. Aristotle appears strict on theft and lying, but modern interpretations suggest that in extreme cases, what is normally vice may become the virtuous mean, decided through practical wisdom.
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All three theories struggle with 'necessary lie' scenarios like the mad axeman, but handle them differently: natural law allows misleading truth, situation ethics may justify direct lies, and virtue ethics may see lying as the mean in extreme situations.
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The key distinction is that natural moral law works from rules with exceptions, situation ethics from consequences and love, and virtue ethics from character and practical wisdom developed over a lifetime.