The Italian Supreme Court has ruled that stealing small amounts of food out of desperation “does not constitute a crime.” The adverse moral and political effects of this ruling will be large and downright criminal.
License to steal
The case concerned an impoverished Ukrainian immigrant who stole a few pieces of cheese and some sausages from a Genoese market. He was sentenced to six months in jail and a fine that he could not pay. One has visions of Jean Valjean in Les Misérables suffering as a state slave for stealing a loaf of bread to feed a hungry child. Who wouldn’t oppose such a miscarriage of justice?
Indeed, in the appeal, Italy’s high court decided that “The condition of the accused and the circumstances in which he obtained the merchandise show that he had taken the little amount of food he needed to overcome his immediate and essential requirement for nourishment." The court further added that “People should not be punished if, forced by need, they steal small quantities of food in order to meet the basic requirement of feeding themselves.”
This ruling leaves open many legal questions. Does it imply that the punishment didn’t fit the crime or does it imply that no crime was committed? Does it imply that anyone who steals and can make the case that they did so for some essential, immediate need must be found “not guilty?”
Ethics of emergencies
Ayn Rand sheds light on this case in her essay “The Ethics of Emergencies.” She explains that one must “differentiate between the rules of conduct in an emergency situation and the rules of conduct in the normal conditions of human existence. This does not mean a double standard of morality: the standard and the basic principles remain the same, but their application to either case requires precise definitions.”
Specifically, she observed that “An emergency is an unchosen, unexpected event, limited in time, that creates conditions under which human survival is impossible—such as a flood, an earthquake, a fire, a shipwreck.” In such situations, it’s morally permissible to do things to preserve one’s life that would not be moral under normal circumstances.
