Intentions

(As a fair warning, I'm asking a lot of questions here without definite answers. Also, I don't like to see innocent people suffering as much as the other guy, so I'm going to ask you, dear reader, if you could, please pinch-in some help to the survivors. )

I'm pretty sure that almost everyone knows righ about know how the typhoon (or is it a cyclone?) Yolanda/Haiyan devastated the Philippines. I'm a Filipino too, and I know too well how painful it is to lose something precious, so I'm not going to talk about the damage done or rant about the sloppy piece of work we've got from the government (I guess I just did?).

What I'm more interested in, really, are the intentions of people during the aftermath. If you're thinking 'Anarchy', then you're on track with me. But I'm more interested in Dentology. How do people decide what they do? Would you steal like Robin Hood does to save individuals? 

Anarchy, as defined by my trusty dictionary here (dictionary.com) means "a state of society without government or law." And deontology is pretty close to it. If you didn't know, The Philippines is home to rather pious followers. And lately, I've been hearing that people steal to survive, but stealing electtic appliances too? What the heck?

Take the Plank of Carneades for example. If killing one man saves yourself, would you do it? Would you kill one person to save five people, like in Trolley problem? Or would you kill yourself like Kunihiro Ritsuko from the Japanese horror novel Shiki, the local nurse who is killed and revived as one of the undead but refuses to kill and feed, spending her last moments (she ends up getting staked) in misery?

In the end, I guess I would've done the same thing (of course, not the appliances) for survival too, if I were in the same position. If you survive and others survive with you, then who says crime doesn't pay. 

I'm not saying you should steal though. That's just plain wrong.