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(continued response to #33) ... OK, let’s look at this. The essence of your question is why shouldn’t I better my life by harming others whenever and where ever I can get away with it. Wouldn’t that be a neat trick to pull? The short answer is no.

Ok, I'll read along to see "why" the answer is no.

To take your example of the dropped $8,000, what would be the essence of that action? It would be the attempt to gain or keep a value by fraud and force. The money is not mine by right. I didn’t earn it. It rightfully belongs to the other man unless he also stole it.

You say "It rightfully belongs to the other man unless he also stole it".

That is a moral "rule" - where are you getting that rule from ?

I was responding to this:

I don’t believe I am evil by nature and need a moral code to keep me in check. I know that being moral is in my own rational interest and morality is a guide to help me achieve the best possible life.

You are saying you don't need a moral code to keep you in check. You have no moral code. But then you say that it is wrong to steal. Who made the rule that it is wrong to steal ? Where did you get that rule from, upon what are you basing your moral judgement that stealing is wrong ?

If you respond with "stealing is wrong", then you're trying to prove that stealing is wrong based on your statement that stealing is wrong.

Would the money bring me any happiness? Not if my purpose is life. Say I took the money down and bought a new four wheeler. In your example you say that no one would ever find out but that is not true. I would know. Every time I used it I would know that I hadn’t earned it and it was not mine by right. If I bought food with it I would know with each bite that it was stolen.

Not everyone experiences guilt to the same degree; with some folks, it certainly appears that they have no guilt or shame. Plenty of folks gleefully live the high life with ill-gotten gains, are never found out and right up to the point of death exhibit no remorse. Since guilt and shame are not universally consistent, one cannot develop a universally consistent moral code based solely on obvserved evidence of guilt and shame.

How would I explain to my friends why I could suddenly afford four wheelers and lobster tails.

This of course only has to do with getting caught, which for millions of folks with ill-gotten gains never happens. Simple trashy folks (of any color) scamming welfare programs are nearly impervious to the law (which encourages them), while all the way up to billionaires who financially pillage whole countries glide around the world as our most respected citizens, so-called pillars of the community. They have a hard time getting convicted of just about anything because they have the government in their pocket, like virtual employees.

Perhaps your moral code is based on your own feelings of right and wrong, and the prospect of doing certain things produces feelings of apprehension, a feeling that those certain things are wrong. If that's the case, and that's what you base your moral code on, that certainly answers the question. The Bible tells us that God's law is "written in the heart", which explains feelings of guilt. However, if people subscribe only to their own thoughts and feelings as their moral code, then every man has his own moral code, as every man is in his own situations in life and reacts with his own thoughts and feelings.

The principle involved is that honesty, the recognition of reality, is a virtue.

Again, what are you basing this on ? Who wrote this ? Plato ? Aristotle ? Is it inherently obvious to you, so in fact this is your original idea ?

The founders set this principle down in the declaration. They correctly recognized that man exists with certain inalienable rights.

Most unfortunately, however, they did not cite any references explicitly, so all we have to go on is the Constitution itself. And the Constitution does not address morality.

To violate any man’s rights is to violate every man’s including my own.

Figure of speech.

So that is why fraud, rape, murder, stealing and all other forms of the initiation of force are wrong. It can never be in anyone’s rational interest to help themselves to what’s not theirs.

I asked "By what standard do you gauge whether something is moral or immoral ? "

You did cite the founding documents of America. In response, I'll simply say that they do not address morality; in fact, they read simply as a masterwork of secular humanism. It would take some time, but one could go through those documents from a Christian theological point of view and it would become painfully obvious. Simply using the word Creator is not enough to say that US law must conform to the Bible. The same could be said if one analyzed them from a Bhuddist point of view, Hindu etc. There would be plenty of room to comment on them, but they simply do not reference any particular moral framework.

Other than that, perhaps there is someone else's writing, e.g., Confucious, Aristotle, Adam Smith, specific cultural traditions, etc., that you could cite in defining a moral standard ? Otherwise, of course, your moral standard is simply that, your own, which no matter how sincere and heartfelt, implies that there is no objective moral standard, but it's "to each their own".

To restate the question, with stealing, to keep things straightforward - what is the moral standard which you adhere to that defines stealing as wrong ?