Question

For each of the following kinds of laws, pick at least one of the four grounds for justification—legal moralism, the harm principle, legal paternalism, and the offense principle—and construct an argument designed to justify the law. You may not agree either with the law or with the argument; the exercise is to see if you can connect the law to the (allegedly) justifying principle. For many laws, more than one kind of justification is possible, so there can be more than one good answer for many of these. Laws against shoplifting.

Answer 1

Laws against shoplifting are justified through the harm principle in the following way.

When a person shoplifts, they steal property that another person applied their labor to, and thus applied value to. To steal property is to steal something that has inherent value due to the work done to it. In doing this, the person(s) that worked on said property are not given their due, an exchange for their service. This exchange usually comes in the form of money, and when something is stolen this exchange doesn't happen. Thus, when a person shoplifts they harm those that applied their labor to the stolen product, as those people do not get right what they rightfully deserve for the labor they applied.