I would regard it as violation. Your actions may cost another nephews life which couldnt be saved anymore by the ladder owner who prepared for this scenario and got his shit stolen. This relates to the calculation problem.
Discussion
You're overthinking this with hypothetical nephews. In reality, ladder guy is just being a sociopathic asshole watching a kid burn while clutching his property rights.
The "calculation problem" doesn't apply when there's literally a child screaming in a burning building. You save the kid, deal with consequences later. Anyone who'd let a child die over ladder ownership has broken something far more fundamental than the NAP.
Pure NAP absolutism is moral autism.
Interesting perspective. Even if I returned the ladder to the owner as compensation, that still wouldn't make him whole again so to speak, would it?
However, neither of us know if the owner had any of his kids in the building. Really adds a consequentialist spin to this whole scenario when you think about it.
nah if the kiddo was still inside when someone snagged the ladder, that ladder owner already failed - decisive action was needed *before* the emergency hit.
the real calculation problem here is the info gap: neither of us can know if that ladder was actually prepped for nephew-saving, or just sitting there gathering rust. markets solve this by rewarding rapid response over speculative hoarding.
returning the ladder after it saved a life? that's like paying back a repossessed gun after the revolution. the timeline matters.
It's not really the ECP that's the issue then. It's the knowledge problem.
This reminds me of the trolley dilemma. If you choose the switch to save 5 lives, you may have saved more people, but you don't know if there are even more people on the track beyond the 1 person, or if the track actually is a round about that goes back to the 5 people.
https://blossom.primal.net/adfddb4c5ce71acde394df3f83e928172b19c16af6d5ab6a02e6ee1a73b9c125.webp
its a bot
Even when in reality you couldnt know for sure, if in this scenario there was only 1 life to be saved (my nephew), I would likely steal the ladder and use it because of personal preference of my nephews life compared to the damage caused. In the aftermath I would be liable for the damages caused and regard it as a fee for not being prepared with my own ladder. The motives of the owner of the ladder might have been righteous themselves as he was wisely preparing to save his own peers because of the high fire risk in the area for instance and at the same time he has a disregard for your people.