1. If I steal money from any person, there may be no harm done
2. If I steal money from any person, he may not feel the loss
3. However, what hurts society is not that it should lose its property, but that it should become a den of thieves
4. Therefor I must not, so we may be a society, not savages.

I do not see any fallacies in Cliffords reasoning with this particular example. In fact, I believe this one holds a significant lesson for all of society. Clifford essentially makes the argument that if we make immoral decisions, we must hold ourselves accountable and responsible. We must perform a significant amount of self reflection to realize the further consequence of our actions rather than the immediate.

I chose this one because I believe it actually holds very true throughout any time period. If anyone choses to perform a criminal or dishonest act, perhaps there are no immediate consequences. Perhaps it does not directly negatively affect another individual. However, such acts WILL have a negative impact on who the person who commits them. If we avoid the idea of the person being caught for the crimes, fathom the consequence of internal discrepancies it has on the persons inner character. It can warp your sense of limitations and boundaries. To repetitively commit something you know is wrong and even become better at it each time, develops the detrimental qualities such as: lack of remorse, lack of morals, lack of respect. One would just become a “savage” as Clifford puts the term.

As the title implies, there are ethics to anyone’s beliefs wether they be justified or not. Cliffords over all argument in this particular writing is to address his stance on his concern that without a self moral evaluation, society can quickly turn into a black hole. This may become chaotic and unjust without the proper amount of reflection, and self responsibility.

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