The Passage Below Makes a Moral IBE Argument

Essay

The passage below makes a moral IBE argument. Do the following:
-First, represent the argument in standard form using the General Form of IBE.
-Second, evaluate premise 2 of the Principle Justification Sub-argument by suggesting an opposing alternative principle that explains the paradigm cases.
The passage:
There are rare cases in which taking someone else's property without their permission can be morally justified by appealing to some other, weightier value. For example, when Jean Valjean steals a loaf of bread to feed his starving nieces and nephews in Les Miserable, he takes someone's property with good moral justification. We think he did the right thing in that case because it was the only way to save those children's lives. In almost every other case, though, it is wrong to take someone else's property without their permission. It is wrong to steal a phone from a store, and it is wrong to pick someone's tomatoes from their garden without asking first. It is wrong to take a bike from someone's yard, and wrong to steal beer from the back of a delivery truck. These examples suggest that stealing is rarely morally permissible, and then only when the stakes are very high. I would frame this thought as a general principle, with a built-in exception: taking someone
else's property without their permission is wrong unless it's necessary to avoid disaster.
Although intellectual property is a special kind of property, with a complicated relationship to the people who own it, it is undoubtedly a form of property. When people illegally download movies and music from the Internet, they are taking another person's property without their permission. And downloaders are not downloading movies and music in order to prevent disaster-they are doing it because they want to consume entertainment for free. This is the argument that has persuaded me that illegally downloading music and movies is morally wrong.