When devastation may be lawful

In order that anyone may be able to destroy another's property without doing wrong, it is requisite that one of these three conditions should precede: [first is a] necessity, such as should be understood to have been excepted in the first institution of ownership. An example would be that a person, in order to escape imminent danger, should cast into a river the sword of a third party, which a madman is about to use. In this case, however, we have elsewhere said that, in accordance with the better view, there remains an obligation to make good the loss. [Second is] a debt arising from an inequality, it being understood that the thing destroyed is reckoned as received for that debt, since otherwise the right would not exist. [Third is] a deserving of evil, for which such punishment may be an equivalent, or the measure of which is not exceeded by the punishment, for…equity does not suffer a whole kingdom to be laid waste because flocks have been driven off or some houses burned. These reasons, which are applicable only within proper limits, cause the absence of wrong in the destruction of another's property.

But, unless a motive of utility commends such a course, it would be foolish to injure another without securing any good for oneself. Those, therefore, that are wise are usually influenced by considerations of utility.