> Instead of discussing how car theft is fundamentally an unethical behavior
What's to discuss? Is there any ambiguity about whether stealing cars is unethical? What are you bringing to that conversation that moves us forward?
What's to discuss? Is there any ambiguity about whether stealing cars is unethical? What are you bringing to that conversation that moves us forward?
Outliers stealing cars is not a demonstration that some part of society finds that ethetical.
We may have laws for things that we don't bother to enforce as a society. It's easy to see the possibility that society just views car theft as a normal occurrence ("insurance will cover it"), or perhaps too burdensome to enforce, and therefore society just accepts some amount of it without blinking an eye.
Does society believe it's acceptable behavior though? I haven't seen any evidence to support the theory that we do. After all, if we did, we'd be out there stealing cars.
For example, what unethical behaviors do you take part in that are not illegal? And if you do, why have not stopped doing them even without a law?
Even if 99 out of 100 people will behave ethically around a car with the keys literally sitting on the windshield (and I suspect the ratio is actually much higher), if 1 out of 100 causes you to have a loss of tens of thousands of dollars, you're going to want better protections than "that was unacceptable".
Our political system is currently demonstrating this - in theory, public servants should be altruistically motivated, making informed and wise decisions about how to govern for the good of the people, and elections should select for these individuals. Unfortunately, this system is highly vulnerable to narcissistic, wealthy, greedy, power-hungry famous sociopaths willing to lie and compromise their ethics. We should not be surprised or disappointed when out of a nation of 300 million people, a few of those people emerge to take those positions.
The sensible response is not to throw up our hands and moralize about corruption in politics, it's to design the system so that this perfectly predictable outcome doesn't keep happening.
Also, while the courts are not entirely fair and free of bias, trying to enforce cultural norms about not stealing by public shaming is not likely to be any more fair. I'd rather take my chances with a lawyer, prosecutor, and jury than to have the rumor mill spread falsehoods about an immoral act I may or may not have committed.