Journal #23: Morality

Morality is a tough subject. Romantics said that it was ok to break the law if breaking it was morally superior, so long as you paid the price afterward. This question reminds me of a scenario in which a man needs to buy some medicine for his ill wife and she will die if she doesn't get it soon. The man has $3000 to his name and the medicine is sold at $5000, despite the fact that the medicine is manufactured for only $2000. The man goes to the pharmacy to buy the medicine and tells the pharmacist he will pay a down payment and swears to get the rest of them money to him when he has it, but the pharmacist refuses and tells him he needs all of the money to buy the medicine. The man then leaves the store and breaks in at night to steal the medicine for his wife. This in my opinion is a situation in which disregarding the law is an acceptable alternative because the moral aspect of it is greater. The man saved his wife by stealing the medicine, and while it is usually wrong to steal in this situation the pharmaceutical company is truly in the wrong. They are pricing the medicine too high and despite the man having enough to make the company a profit he was still turned down and forced to turn to crime to save a life. I think that Romantics would agree that saving a life at the expense of breaking the law is acceptable. This situation is not commonplace and extremely rare, so these types of occurrences are not normal and would be acceptable to break the law if the damage done by breaking the law was not severe and by breaking the law the moral benefits were greater than the harm done, and serving your punishment for your crime would make it acceptable in the opinion of a Romantic writer. Blog done.