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 Originally Posted by wufwugy
I haven't proposed a definition of theft, at least not one that is any different than the accepted definition of theft. What I've proposed is that the concept exists without the law.
Determining which instances are theft does have some level of arbitrariness to it, but that's also a different topic.
What is the accepted definition, if it's not the legal definition? Accepted by whom? Your implied definition of theft includes taxes. Since we are talking about social constructs, I can only think of two frameworks to define them, formal (laws) and informal (morals). Your definition is clearly not the formal one, so it must be the informal one. If you had originally said "in my opinion, taxation is morally the same as theft", I don't think anyone would have had any beef with it.
Originally Posted by wufwugy
I'm not sure I would say it's universal. Some people may not have concepts of "theirs" in the first place. But what we do know is that we do have a concept of ownership and theft regardless of what the law says.
A moral concept based on each individual's beliefs on what's acceptable and what's not. Indeed very non-universal. You're arguing that your morals are more correct than those of others, and those defined by [a set of] laws. I'd argue that the legal definition is the least incorrect. This also as a response to ImSavy's earlier comment.
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