Ellen Evans: The problem you're having is that you're spending a whole lot of time trying to insist that your version of a "moral code" is, inevitably, The Moral Code.
Michael Palmer: I am under the impression that moral codes are built on basic principles. If this is the case and we posit that one of these principles is that it is wrong to take something that is not ours then how does one justify taking something to which one does not have a legal right?
Bandura and Freud both address this issue. Freud would say that rationalization is one - of many - "strategies" that we use to excuse immoral acts. Bandura, similarly, says that we often use "justification of behavior" to decrease any remorse or dissonance related to an immoral act.
In this case one of the rationalizations/justifications that I've seen is "I'm hurting others for a good reason." (I'm harming the artist in an attempt to change the system.)
In other arguments used to "morally disengage" in this thread,
Bandura would also identify diffusion of responsibility (e.g.,
A lot of people pirate software and music.), disregarding or
minimizing the consequences of one's behavior (e.g., The artist
only gets a few cents from the sale of a CD anyway. OR "Well,
yeah, I hit my wife, but I didn't hit her very hard."), and
advantageous comparison (e.g., I'm not hurting the artist
nearly as much as the record industry is hurting the artist.)
