> Wolves do not recognize "ownership" of land, because a weaker wolf cannot appeal to the community when dispossessed of land by a stronger wolf.
A powerful wolf "owns" the best parts of a kill (whether or not they possess it) because their social system values the traits that makes a wolf powerful. Their system for determining the legitimacy of a claim involves violence, or more typically the threat of violence. Modern humans have different social values than wolves and would not consider "I am bigger than you, and male, therefore it is mine" to be a legitimate argument.
Regardless, ownership, narrowly defined as a legal (and therefore necessarily human) concept, is a red herring. Theft, the concept being discussed, exists in systems that have concepts of possession even if we dismiss the possibility that they have a concept of ownership. A beta can certainly steal from an alpha male.
If you define theft as something that can only exist in the presence of a value system that modern humans respect, and then claim that therefore only modern humans can have a concept of theft, then you are doing nothing but making an uninteresting tautological argument. I am asking you to consider the possibility of theft in systems with value systems dissimilar from your own. This includes the concept of theft in human value systems that are dissimilar to those currently codified in our laws.
A powerful wolf "owns" the best parts of a kill (whether or not they possess it) because their social system values the traits that makes a wolf powerful. Their system for determining the legitimacy of a claim involves violence, or more typically the threat of violence. Modern humans have different social values than wolves and would not consider "I am bigger than you, and male, therefore it is mine" to be a legitimate argument.
Regardless, ownership, narrowly defined as a legal (and therefore necessarily human) concept, is a red herring. Theft, the concept being discussed, exists in systems that have concepts of possession even if we dismiss the possibility that they have a concept of ownership. A beta can certainly steal from an alpha male.
If you define theft as something that can only exist in the presence of a value system that modern humans respect, and then claim that therefore only modern humans can have a concept of theft, then you are doing nothing but making an uninteresting tautological argument. I am asking you to consider the possibility of theft in systems with value systems dissimilar from your own. This includes the concept of theft in human value systems that are dissimilar to those currently codified in our laws.