Stealing is Sometimes Justified

Thank you for accepting. Note my opponent agrees with everything I said in the first round.--Argument 1: Legitimate reasons--(Ia) Scenario 1: Johnny is 27 and living in the midst of a big American war. Many people from Iraq are trying to destroy America.One day, Johnny goes into the Empire State building to take a tour. He gets lost and wanders off from the group. He goes into a room that is scarcely visited and sees a very dangerous bomb that is about to go off. Johnny knows how to disarm it and throw it away where it can not do any harm. However, is stealing justified here? (Ib) Is this stealing, and is it justified?First, we need to look at if it would really be stealing. The definition in the first round is to take another person's property without permission and without intending to return it. Johnny would be taking the bomb without the Iraqi's permission, and does not intend to return it. So yes, this would be defined as stealing.Now, is it really justified? Or in other words, does Johnny have a legitimate reason to steal it? Yes, he does. If he disarms the bomb and puts it where no harm can be done, he would be saving hundreds, if not thousands, from a deadly terrorist attack. So his reason to steal is to save lives. If I am not mistaken, saving lives is a justifiable reason to do almost anything. For example, murder, which is a much more serious crime (at the point of jail time, at least), has been found to be justified in self-defense and saving lives (1). And stealing is a lesser crime than murdering. Even if they were equal crimes, stealing would still be justified in this situation, since you could compare it to the Supreme Court ruling that murder is justifiable when you do it to save lives.Therefore, my resolution is proven in this scenario.(IIa) Scenario 2:A little boy named Alberto in the poor part of Nigeria is starving and will die if he does not eat. His neighbor, a very rich successful farmer, grows apples and potatoes for a living, but does not share at all.Alberto decides to steal to survive. His neighbor has 500 apples, and he takes one, just ONE, to eat and survive. His neighbor never notices it goes missing and does not impact his profit at all.(IIb) Is this stealing, and is it justified?First, we need to look at if it would really be stealing. Alberto does not have permission from his neighbor to take the apple, nor does he ever intend to return it. So yes, this scenario would be defined as an act of stealing. However, is this justified?In my eyes, this is justified. First off, as also pointed out it my last point, stealing for life is justified. Alberto's life would be saved by stealing. Also, this stealing has no negative effect, only a positive effect. The neighbor never notices the apple has gone missing and does not suffer from it, so why is it bad to steal for life in this scenario? Only good comes from it.If my opponent disagrees with these two arguments, it would mean that she does not think that life/living is a legitimate reason to steal. She would also think that one/multiple deaths is better than stealing. And the lives saved would not be bad lives (such as Al Qaeda or Lindsay Lohan).Since this debate is going to be more of a rebuttal debate or me, that is all I have for today. I will post much longer arguments in the proceeding two rounds. Thank you for reading.(1) http://www.wisegeek.com...