I think so, to some degree. I start with the marginal utility of money - the first thousand dollars means a lot more to someone than the next thousand means to a billionaire. If you take a thousand from a billionaire, and give it to someone who currently has $0, that improves their life massively while hurting the billionaire only a tiny bit. So while it still "hurts others", it's still a massive net gain...

... until you get to second-order effects, where things get really complicated. If the rich have less money to invest in things, does that cut down on job creation? If so, is the tax a net win or a net loss?

I think so.

https://www.brookings.edu/bpea-articles/progressive-wealth-t...

No, because you cannot draw the line at who is rich.

Any tax based on wealth/income is fundamentally legalized (hence perfectly ethically acceptable to most morons) theft.