[betenoire]

I'm gonna dumb it down even further.

Now, we all agree that using a ladder to climb onto someone's balcony, steal their cat, and bring their cat home to live with you sounds like the wrong thing to do....right?

Just say that the owner of said cat had a long history of going out of town for weeks at a time and leaving the cat behind, that she had been gone for over a month this time, that the cat could be heard crying and was clawing under the door whenever someone walked down the hall, and the smell of urine and feces coming from the apartment was so bad that it could be smelled in the adjoining apartments. And to add to that several people from the apartment building had called the SPCA and all they did was leave notices on that person's apartment door demanding that she call them? THEN is it wrong to use a ladder to climb onto someone's balcony, steal their cat, and bring her home to live with you? Of course not.

Not that I've done that or anything. (The cat is fine, by the way. Although a little neurotic and clingy, and often breaks into the garbage can for food even though I feed her MORE than what she needs and she is now quite fat. I mean, um. What cat?)

But seriously, of course things like "right and wrong" are totally dependent upon circumstances. Stealing a necklace because you want it is bad, stealing a loaf of bread because your kid is hungry is not bad. Hitting someone over the head with a frying pan because you're annoyed is bad, hitting someone over the head with a frying pan because they are harming you is not bad.