What might be some other categories of Ethical reasoning? Consider two ethical characters throughout history or fictional culture, one that operates under a category we discussed, and one that operates under a new category that you either invent or research.
Identify and explain both.
Pre-Warning. I am terribly sorry about any spoilers and I will try to keep it as spoiler free as possible. I'll be talking about BBC's Sherlock and NBC's Hannibal.
ReplyDeleteOne character in the fictional universe is John Watson (BBC's Sherlock). Watson is an ex-Army doctor who at the beginning of the series becomes the flat mate of a consulting detective named Sherlock Holmes. In one episode Holmes is searching for a serial killer who poisons his victims and makes it look like a suicide. Holmes encounters the serial killer and the serial killers attempts to kill him but before he is able to Watson appears and shots the serial killer. This is an example of Consequential (Teleological) Ethics, which says that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for any judgement about the rightness of that conduct. Watson shows this ethics because he believes his choice to kill a serial killer is righteous because it means saving his best friend and the future victims of that serial killer. Before he takes the shot he must ask himself how many people are benefiting from his action and how many are being hurt by them. In this case he saw his actions as directly hurting one person and benefiting a greater number of people.
My second character is Hannibal Lecter (NBC's Hannibal). Lecter is a forensic psychiatrist and a cannibalistic serial killer. He is portrayed as a cultured and sophisticated man of intelligence. Lecter shows a refined taste in music, art, and cuisine. Lecter is deeply offended by people who are rude and have bad manners, so he kills and consumes these people. Lecter shows an ethical egoism which means he does what is in his own self-interest. He is this because it is in his own self-interest to kill ill-mannered people so he doesn't have to interact with them anymore and he gets the added bonus of a new cuisine to try to make.
Most military and police work is based off of implicit utilitarian reasoning, yet most laws apply/created deontologically. Unless Watson can prove taht a serial killer presents clear danger in the moment, killing him would be against the law ("it is wrong to kill" is greater than "killing him prevents more potential deaths and increases happiness for the most people"). Well done.
DeleteHannibal is my favorite show. We will be discussing elements of his character when discussing the human sciences. Self-interest ethical reasoning is a form of hedonism. See the "objectivist ethics" of Ayn Rand.
My first one is also from Sherlock, but it centers on Sherlock himself, Sherlock shoots a man in the head to prevent anyone he loves from getting hurt or killed. And although this is not deemed ethically correct by society, it is morally ethical because he is protecting good people and ridding the world of an extremely dangerous person.
ReplyDeleteMy second one is from Doctor Who and is the Doctor himself. The Doctor destroys an entire planet, gallifrey, killing all of its inhabitants, along with an entire other species, the daleks. He did this because they were in a war that would in the end destroy the universe. He commited mass genocide, which is an awful crime, but for the better, for the end of suffering and worse consequences, making it ethical. (Emma)
Same applies here as what I wrote to Natalie.
DeleteThe question of potential happiness is always troubling to me. How does one know with certainty that one's actions will result in greater happiness? How is it inevitable that genocide would amount to a "greater good" in any particular circumstance so as to justify it? Certainly in a deterministic universe (like fictions on television) one may show how this ethical reasoning is justified, but the corollary may not exist in our universe (non-deterministic as far as we know).
The first charcter I can think of is The Master from the amazing and totally recommendable video game Fallout (the original). *It's been twenty years, but SPOILERS AHEAD* This character had been left behind in a prewar research facility in a post-apacalyptic world in Southern California. He fell into a vat of some kind of virus, where he developed psychic powers and became an organism whose body was the entire facility. In the end, The Master forces people into these vats known as Forced Evolutionary Virus to turn them into mutants. Though this at first sounds horrible, The Master had known that humans by themselves would be unable to survive in this inhospitable wasteland without continuing the chain that had destroyed America in the first place. If everyone was an evolved mutant, there would be no discrimination, mutants had increased physiques and mental capacities, and mutants also had access to psychic abilities. The downfall began when The Master is told by the player character the mutants are sterile and would be unable to repopulate, destroying the ultimate plan. This turns The Master, who was doing these horrible acts to people for the greater good, from a horrible man into a sypathetic villain.
ReplyDeleteA second example would be ethical based on one person choosing for all based on experience. In the other amazing and totally reccomendable video game series Mass Effect, the idea of free will and personal choice in regards to fate is explored highly (among other things) *Even more SPOILERS*
In the first Mass Effect, Commander shepherd, a human who is the equivalent to a space marshall, goes around and kills robots and humans and aliens in a badass way, but the end goal is to take out a rogue matshall who is amassing a robot army of intelligent A.I to take over everything. It is revealed that theis agent is working for even older robots who are the harbingers of doom and have killed life in the Mily Way galaxy ever couple of thousands of years and have not been stopped yet. We'll skip over two and land in three. In the end, you as commander Shephard make the choice of what to do with the old alien robots who kill everything: destroy them, control them, or GALACTICAL MERGER. Each ending, though very underwhelming for someone who played through the trilogy, goes against what could be considered the common good. If the machines wipe out life in the galaxy, everything the cycle continues until a new race comes up and then they get wiped out, the status quo. If you destroy everything, then the destruction wipes out not just the old machines but all A.I, which is sad because some of the best characters in the game are A.I. If you control, then you are forcing a race into slavery to rebuild what was lost and then they stay around like pets all the time. If you MERGER then all synthetic and organic life come together and form a new kind of organism (that kind of defeats the purpose of the first game) and all is well and rebuilt.
Each option has its own reasoning, but in the end each ending is inherently bad to everyone. The last one may seem great, but in the end you are changing the organic structure of everyone without any idea of what kind of harm it could do in the future against (not to mention the entire first game's plot was to avoid the MERGER to retain individuality).
In the end, whatever choice picked is based on what the character believes is best for the galazy, and each ending has its pros and cons. The choice is up to one individual based on what he believes will keep everyone safe
Not to mention its disappointing to put more than 400 hours into a series and then have it all come down to 4 choices, but that's another matter
The Master (kind of creepy): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZwRAcTWEQM
Mass Effect 3 endings (kind of disappointing and long): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT2L2ckllEw
I love the decision making concepts of video games, and am glad to see you utilizing some of the ideas of ethical reasoning as it relates to aspects of your extended essay. Sorry you didn't like the ending of Mass Effect. :(
DeleteMy first one is Anakin from Star Wars, he murders every Jedi except for Obi-won, which he does later, and Yoda. He is convinced that it is morally justified and that they are all trying to overthrow the empire, but in reality he was tricked and it is not morally justifiable, which he finds out towards the end of the 6th movie.
ReplyDeleteMy second is Captain Edward Kenway from Assassin's Creed: Black Flag. He is a pirate, he kills people, drinks, fights, steals, all that good stuff, but he still finds a way to justify it to himself. he justifies it by basically saying, I'm a pirate, I want money, I'll share with my crew and my friends and it'll all be cool.
The first character i choose is Byakuya from Bleach. When arresting his sister Ryukia he had used deductive reasoning using similar events that have happen to make judgement and spying over her for a certain amount of time.
ReplyDeleteThe second character is Raiden from Metal Gear Rising: Vengeance. Raiden claims that all his actions are justified as lawful and morally right because his sword is a tool of justice. Also, stating that all his victims signed up to help the corrupted corporations so they knew what they were getting into.