The Great Debate

So the spinto band doesn’t really have debates about anything but beast wars topics (see message board.) However, today, the spinto band became philosophers for about a half hour. It all arose when I had a moral plague in the back of my head. I have been purchasing fountain sodas at gas stops, then refilling the empty cups at separate gas stations or restaurants. I asked the band if they thought this was stealing, and more importantly, whether or not it was wrong. I tend to place it on a different level than taking a ho-ho or a bottled soda, but realize that I am taking goods for free. I feel as though that when you buy a soda, you are mainly paying for the cup, and that those big things of syrup and carbonation make the value of the soda non-circumstantial to the business’s income. We then discussed whether or not morality is a black and white issue or if there are gray areas that work as moral loopholes. For instance, if the stolen good is of little value, is it less of an immoral act to steal it, or is theft of all scales viewed the same? Also if someone else (like a gas station attendant) allows you to steal the soda, or gives you the free refill even though you never bought the initial beverage that is being refilled, are you no longer responsible for stealing the good? The debate then went crazy. We started talking about pirated computer files and fish in the sea and attempted to figure out whether or not we were all going to hell or not. It was quite the debate.

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