Is it permissible to steal for food

[Tis_Bearself]

I echo this. Maybe I’m just being obtuse, but I have a hard time understanding how true hunger — the kind of hunger that leads to distended bellies on children, stunts both physical and mental development, and that gets wars started — even exists in this country.

Drug addiction and child neglect/ abuse, primarily. Also if you have an elderly person and they are not able to get food for themself or connect to reliable networks to bring it, you can end up with malnutrition or starvation. It is often not that easy to keep elderly people reliably fed, especially since a lot of them have trouble eating so you can’t just plunk down a meal and expect them to consume it.

However, you can ruin your health severely with bad nutrition long before you get to looking like a starving “Live Aid” child. The more so if you have any number of underlying conditions such as diabetes.

 

[phil3]

but they are not dying of starvation.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

To everyone saying “this isn’t going to come up in a developed society with even a minimal social safety net”, that really isn’t the point. I don’t think OP was asking because he/she is in danger of starving to death and is eyeballing someone else’s pot roast. Pretty sure it’s just a hypothetical.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

I echo this. Maybe I’m just being obtuse, but I have a hard time understanding how true hunger — the kind of hunger that leads to distended bellies on children, stunts both physical and mental development, and that gets wars started — even exists in this country.

Drug addiction and child neglect/ abuse, primarily. Also if you have an elderly person and they are not able to get food for themself or connect to reliable networks to bring it, you can end up with malnutrition or starvation. It is often not that easy to keep elderly people reliably fed, especially since a lot of them have trouble eating so you can’t just plunk down a meal and expect them to consume it.

However, you can ruin your health severely with bad nutrition long before you get to looking like a starving “Live Aid” child. The more so if you have any number of underlying conditions such as diabetes.

As for elderly people, I am working with this situation involving my own father right now. He can no longer eat solid food, and I cajole him daily into drinking at least four Ensure-equivalents per day, sometimes he does, sometimes he can’t. Prayers for HomeschoolGrandpa much appreciated.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Pretty sure it’s just a hypothetical.

That was how I took it also.

I would hope no one is trying to turn this into some kind of anti-leftist political thread again.

 

[EricF]

Father Kapaun, when he was in a North Korean prison camp, would sneak out at night and steal food so he and his fellow prisoners wouldn’t starve. He would say a prayer to St. Dismas, the good thief in the cross next to Jesus, before each excursion.

 

[Anesti33]

When I was homeless, we received a sack of food every day from the Salvation Army. (SVdP didn’t have a homeless service center in this part of town.) They also had a rack of pastries and bread. You could take whatever you could carry from the rack, because it was already expired, and ready to go stale.

Most of the food wound up on the grass outside. There were huge flocks of pigeons that inhabited Sally’s yard and people would directly grab a loaf of bread just to toss it to the pigeons out there, because there was far too much for the “starving homeless” to eat it all. There was plenty left on the racks to be discarded for good at day’s end.

 

[Anesti33]

For example, I had plenty of friends on the streets who begged meals from my teacher friend. She often obliged them. The husband hated everything except meat. He ate burgers and steaks. They spent all their food stamps on cuts of meat to cook. He was losing teeth but still he ravenously ate all the meat in sight. The wife loved the big creamy Starbucks frappés and milkshakes from the burger place. She never met a vegetable that agreed with her. I knew plenty of other people who are ravenous and overweight. I knew some who blamed it on genes or hormones or something, but they were undeniably ravenous.

 

[BornInMarch]

Well I was able to find a report by the United States Department of Agriculture. The title of the report is “Household Food Security in the United States in 2019”. Here are some of the findings:

• 10.5% of households were food-insecure
• 4.1% of households had very low food security
• 6.5% of children were food insecure
• 0.6% of children had very low food security
• 58% of food insecure households participated in one or more of the three largest federal nutrition assistance programs

What this amounts to is that a large amount of Americans are malnourished even when they have access to government aid and/or charities. This report was in 2019, but all indication seems to be that the recent pandemic has made the situation worse. I found a CNN article that suggested as much, while also stating that 83% of Feeding America’s food banks reported an increase in the number of people served.

While these talk about food insecurity overall rather than starvation specifically, malnutrition can result in poor health and death even if it isn’t due directly to starvation. It’s common knowledge that malnutrition makes one’s immune system weaker, which in turn makes it harder for a person to recover from diseases or injuries. Apart from that malnutrition in childhood can stunt physical and mental development.

 

[Canvas]

Most theologians hold that in circumstances of grave need, it is not sinful to steal —provided you are taking from someone’s surplus and there is no other option.

 

[Annie]

You are permitted to take what a reasonable person would give.

A context is someone whose plane has crashed in the mountains who comes upon a cabin. The owners are not there. However, it is reasonable to expect that if the owners were there that they would help the person by providing food and shelter. Thus, entering and eating some food, etc., would be all right.

Sure, some house owners might be unreasonable, but that does not change the stranded person’s moral situation.

And the stranded person should not charge the house owners’ account by watching pay-per-view stuff either.

 

[o_mlly]

If you’re that desperately starving that you’re snatching food from the starving person next to you, then you may be sinning, but your culpability is likely to be reduced by mental and physical stress. People who are that hungry are not in their right minds to be making a moral judgment.

The act remains one of stealing, an intrinsically evil act. The culpability of the actor is a separate issue and even if circumstances completely eliminate culpability, the act remains evil.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I didn’t say that stealing wasn’t a sin. I said “you may be sinning”. So I’m not sure what your comment is supposed to be clarifying.

 

[o_mlly]

I didn’t say that stealing wasn’t a sin. I said “you may be sinning”. So I’m not sure what your comment is supposed to be clarifying.

Stealing is always evil. Whether the act is also sinful is a different issue.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Most theologians hold that in circumstances of grave need, it is not sinful to steal —provided you are taking from someone’s surplus and there is no other option.

Tis_Bearself:

If you’re that desperately starving that you’re snatching food from the starving person next to you, then you may be sinning, but your culpability is likely to be reduced by mental and physical stress. People who are that hungry are not in their right minds to be making a moral judgment.

The act remains one of stealing, an intrinsically evil act. The culpability of the actor is a separate issue and even if circumstances completely eliminate culpability, the act remains evil.

Tis_Bearself:

I didn’t say that stealing wasn’t a sin. I said “you may be sinning”. So I’m not sure what your comment is supposed to be clarifying.

Stealing is always evil. Whether the act is also sinful is a different issue.

If it’s okay for me to “jump in here”, I’d like to throw out a few principles:

• Stealing can be defined as “taking something that someone else has a right to possess, and you have no right to possess”. Is that a fair definition?
• Someone is hungry. For added measure, their children are hungry too.
• They have no money and no way to get food by exchanging money, goods, or labor.
• They have asked for food, or money to buy food, but everyone they meet is a cold-hearted wretch who won’t help them.
• They can get some food, from somebody who has it to spare, but only by taking it without permission.
• If they asked that “somebody”, that “somebody” would tell them “No! No food for you! I don’t give food to lazy people who can’t pay for it! And as for those hungry kids with you, if you can’t feed 'em, don’t breed 'em, that’s what I always say!”
• That “somebody” has no right to keep their food, and the hungry person has every right to take it. In a very real sense, the food already “belongs” to the hungry person. So it’s not stealing. Everything that exists was made by Almighty God, and property rights are never absolute.

Is this a fair assessment?

It’s all a hypothetical. Unless you live someplace where every person to a man is just a horrible, horrible person, there would be someone who would feed the hungry.

One thing I find inspiring about Islam — not that I’m about to embrace it — is that the Muslim is actually commanded to make a certain percentage of their fortune available to the poor (zakat, or the Jewish tzedaka, same basic idea) — it’s not optional. Along with their concept of makruh (“not quite a sin, but not the best thing either, something you should avoid, something to be disliked”) and their practice of burying the dead in utter equality and in a way that allows them to return to nature, the Muslims have some good ideas.

 

[o_mlly]

Stealing can be defined as “taking something that someone else has a right to possess, and you have no right to possess”. Is that a fair definition?

No. Both may have a natural right to possess. The moral question is based on a determination of who has the primary right (which is the OP’s issue, I think).

Someone is hungry. For added measure, their children are hungry too.

How “hungry”? Ready for their dinner at 6PM? “Starving” would make a stronger case.

They can get some food, from somebody who has it to spare, but only by taking it without permission.

If starving then such an act would be a moral “taking”; not “stealing”. No permission is needed to take what one has a primary natural right to possess.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

Stealing can be defined as “taking something that someone else has a right to possess, and you have no right to possess”. Is that a fair definition?

No. Both may have a natural right to possess. The moral question is based on a determination of who has the primary right (which is the OP’s issue, I think).

Point well made. When the hunger reaches a certain point, and the food is not otherwise available, I think an excellent case is made for the hungry person having the “primary right”.

HomeschoolDad:

Someone is hungry. For added measure, their children are hungry too.

How “hungry”? Ready for their dinner at 6PM? “Starving” would make a stronger case.

So hungry that you are close to getting sick because you haven’t eaten, and prolonged, unsatisfied hunger will make matters even worse.

HomeschoolDad:

They can get some food, from somebody who has it to spare , but only by taking it without permission.

If starving then such an act would be a moral “taking”; not “stealing”. No permission is needed to take what one has a primary natural right to possess.

Agreed fully, though my scenario presupposes that you either cannot ask (for whatever reason), or you have asked and have been rebuffed by the person who does not want to do the right thing and help you.

 

[Formon]

Aquinas: “In cases of need, all things are common property, so there would seem to be no sin in taking another’s property, for need has made it common

So if my stealing from someone caused them to suffer starvation, that’s not a sin?

 

[Beryllos]

Agreed fully, though my scenario presupposes that you either cannot ask (for whatever reason), or you have asked and have been rebuffed by the person who does not want to do the right thing and help you.

That is pretty close to what the Catechism says:

2408 The seventh commandment forbids theft , that is, usurping another’s property against the reasonable will of the owner. There is no theft if consent can be presumed or if refusal is contrary to reason and the universal destination of goods. This is the case in obvious and urgent necessity when the only way to provide for immediate, essential needs (food, shelter, clothing . . .) is to put at one’s disposal and use the property of others.

"if consent can be presumed" – If it is not possible to ask for the owners consent, one may reason that the owner, if asked, would allow the goods to be used to meet an urgent need.

"if refusal is contrary to reason" – For example, if the owner values property, or property rights, over human life, the owner’s wishes may be overridden. Care must be taken when discerning “contrary to reason,” because the owner may refuse for good reasons that we are not aware of, for example, the corn is intended for planting and so has been treated with a toxic pesticide.

"the universal destination of goods" – This is defined/explained in CCC 2401-2404.

 

[Aslan]

Aquinas is talking about the morality of dire needs-based stealing from someone who has property in abundance. The question you’re asking was answered by a few posters up thread. I thought @Tis_Bearself, in particular, answered this question quite nicely:

“If you’re that desperately starving that you’re snatching food from the starving person next to you, then you may be sinning, but your culpability is likely to be reduced by mental and physical stress…”