290 Unit 7 Critical reasoning: Advanced Level
shop and fill your pockets with anything that
takes your fancy – as long as no one finds out.’
In other words, Dieter sees no difference in
principle between the two ends of the scale,
because there is no point at which you can
draw a line and say, ‘This is where petty
cheating ends and where real, grown-up
stealing begins.’
Who is right? In the strict sense Dieter
seems to have a better case. If all that Carla can
say is that her mobile phone cost much more
than the small amounts she is going to take
from the music corporations, and that they
can afford it much more than she can, then it
looks like a difference of degree and not of
kind. And therefore the principle applies. But
it is not always as simple as that.
Consider, for example, degrees of wealth.
Although there is only a difference of degree
between one person’s income and another, no
one would say that there is therefore no
difference between wealth and poverty. Just
because we cannot say exactly where one ends
and the other begins, it doesn’t mean that the
adjectives ‘wealthy’ and ‘poor’ do not signify
differences in kind. Similarly, if an employee
takes a paperclip home from work, surely she
is a different kind of offender from someone
who systematically swindles the company out
of millions. Even if our principled friend
Dieter would say that they are both taking
something that isn’t theirs, and are therefore
both thieves, no rational person would say
that they were in the same league.
And so Carla has a point. Sometimes
differences in degree are large enough to
become differences in kind. The truth is that
we can distinguish between minor offences
and serious crimes, just as we can distinguish
between the wealthy and the poor. Dieter is
right to say that they do differ in degree, but
wrong to argue that we can’t tell the difference.The slippery slope
Dieter’s argument in fact contains quite a
well-known flaw: a version of what is calleddifference one of degree, not one of kind. If we
ask the same two people what they do for a
living, and one says he is a doctor, the other
says a farmer, that is a difference in kind. There
aren’t degrees of being a farmer: you either are
one or you aren’t.
Here is another example. The capital of
Canada is situated on the Ottawa river, which
not only divides the city in two, but also forms
the border between the English-speaking
province of Ontario and the French-speaking
province of Quebec. Judged on the basis of
where you live, you are either an Ontarian or a
Quebecer. You are not more of an Ontarian if
you live three kilometres from the river than
you are if you live one kilometre from the
river. In other words, the difference is of kind,
not degree. The river draws a line between the
two residential areas, and you live in either
one or the other.
If we apply this distinction to Dieter’s
argument we see that he thinks the difference
between copying a CD and stealing goods
from a shop is just a matter of degree. In
effect he says there is no difference, other
than the amount that is taken. Petty cheating
is the same as stealing – in principle. And on
principle it is dishonest to do either.
Carla, by contrast, sees a difference in kind.
She fails to come up with any sort of definition
that shows how they are different, but she
clearly assumes that they are. Comparing the
copying of a CD with the theft of her mobile
phone, she says: ‘That was different. You know
it was. It cost a lot of money to replace.’ And
comparing it with shoplifting: ‘If you really
think it’s the same as copying one little CD
you’ve got some very mixed-up ideas.’Drawing the line
Dieter’s response is a rhetorical question:
‘Where do you draw the line? One cent?
Twenty? A dollar? If it’s OK to take a small
amount, it’s OK to take a little bit more. Then a
little bit more, and a little bit more still... In
the end you’ll be saying it’s OK to walk into a