Spoilers for SFP --
In this lead up to this, we learn there is a boy with the power to enhance other people's super powers. He doesn't use it, because he thinks his power is dumb. He is a straight white rich privileged guy.
Allison literally strongarms him into using his powers to enhance her friends regeneration. As we learn in today's comic, she now provides sufficient organs for the needs of the world is 40 hours a month. Considerably less than a full time job.
There are not easy answers to the below! If you think there, reconsider and then try to answer.
Here's what I'm interested in exploring over the next couple of days:
-- Were Allison's actions ethical? Can it ever be ethical to violate someone's consent to compel action?
-- If so, what are the conditions? That is, when is it OK to violate someone's will to produce good for others?
-- Who decides these things?
-- Conversely, is Allison acting immorally? That is, has she crossed a line by compelling action?
-- When determining if an action is moral, what considerations go into it?
Some rules: Think. Be kind to other posters. This is effectively an ethics class, so be aware I may respond with more questions. While among professionals I wouldn't expect kindness (philosophers are dicks to each other), I will insist upon it here.
http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-6/page-92-2/
http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-6/page-92-2/
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What really bothers me is that Feral also never got asked if she wanted this. She violated the consent of both.
ReplyDeleteif Alison were a medic here in the US, her actions toward Feral would be covered under _Implied Consent,_that is, a reasonable person who can't usefully respond is assumed to want their life saved, their health preserved, their pain eased.
ReplyDeleteHmm. This relates to the endgame in Paladin of Souls by bujold too.
Tim Franzke Jesse Cox I had forgotten Feral's name! I basically only remember Allison's name, and everyone else is defined in relationship to her in my head.
ReplyDeleteFollow up question for each of you:
Tim Franzke What right does a person have when they are incapable of providing or withdrawing consent? In other words, if I take an action -- as Feral did -- that prevents me from consenting or changing my position in the future, then does anyone have the right to modify that? Can they? Can there be a moral stance in which I ignore the express claims of another?
Jesse Cox A lot of ethical quandaries in media tend to relate to each other, and its great to see those connections. In the absence of consciousness, how far can implied consent go?
Gotta point out, for pedantry's sake, that Feral gave consent: Issue 3, Page 59: "And guess what? If you do find the one-punch solution to all the world's problems, come here with a bottle of bourbon and a big-ass hamburger, and we'll do your thing instead."
ReplyDeleteI think there's a question here of how far we take virtue ethics. For instance, in a superhero comic it's generally understood that if a villain is trying to destroy the world, it's okay to punch them in order to stop them. In pure virtue ethics (if I understand correctly) punching is bad as such, so punching Dr. Necromite is an immoral act, and you should avoid it. The goal is to find such a perfect solution that you never ever have to besmirch your honor in any way.
This strikes me as very much the same question. What Allison did was really ridiculously restrained as far as coercive force went. It was less damaging than a punch. If the stated goal for saving the world was a "one-punch solution," I would argue she came in under budget.
But then, I think of statements like "But he was trying to rip my face off, I had to punch him!" as excuses to make the puncher feel better, rather than logical or ethical arguments for punching being a virtue, so I see superhero comics as all presenting a "virtue-besmirching, but better than the alternative" vision.
p.s.: Max didn't see his target ... so I'd guess his power is indiscriminate area-of-effect. I look forward to seeing how Allison's powers manifest the similar exponential boost she must have received.
Ron Edwards Maybe so, but this post is about ethics and thinking thereof. Its about the comic only so far as media inform and construct our view of ethics, as the majority of persons have never read Kant or Nietzsche, much less Dennett or Hume. I'm must more interested in a media-informed discussion of ethical quandaries than I am in using media to say discussing ethics is illegitimate.
ReplyDeleteIf your position is something like force implies rightness? I'd love to hear the argument.
If your position is something like force negates thinking about right and wrong? I'm not really interested.
If your position is something like "its a show, learn what the author means"? Well, this isn't that thread, either.
This post is a little longer and more involved than others because you're you.
I don't read this comic so I don't have all the extra data (like.. beyond assuming that Feral is a character, I don't know what the other commentators are talking about) so I'm going to ignore that stuff...
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm trying to decide how much I really want to elaborate on this. :P Also, I suppose I shouldn't get into the hows and details of this regeneration... like, there's no way she could regenerate her heart 8-10 times a minute, if she was doing that fast I don't think they'd be able to remove it fast enough it would just be healing the cuts as they made them... also, is she somehow a universal donor for organs? Is there no rejection or failed surgeries to worry about? Why aren't they chopping off her limbs to replace those for people? Her eyes? Or are they? I have so many questions about the details here...
First off you have to define what ethics and morals are. Are you operating from the perspective that there is some universal set of morals that can be used to judge all things? Are they flexible by context?
Personally, I don't adhere to their being a universal set of morals, it's all a construct of the society you live in. (as an insight for those ethics students out there , I was the sole person in my ethics class to argue, rather vehemently, to kill the plague child) So, by the generally accepted construct of the modern western world neither Allison nor the enhancer (who, I 'm not sure why it's relevant that he is a privileged white dude...it's not really relevant to this discussion) acted morally.
Allison is being portrayed as have been acting in the "greater good", though I'll be honest and I question her motivation since she seems to be acting out of desire to make her friend's wishes come true as opposed to acting out of a sense of general morality... would she be willing to force her friend to give up her organs if she wasn't okay with it? If not, why is one strong arming good and the other bad? Murky.
But the enhancer guy should, as part of the moral responsibility contract we ascribe to, be willing to help out those around him so long as using his powers wasn't harmful in some other way. I mean, we don't even force people to give blood...
So I guess, I don't think anyone here really has the moral high ground.
.
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch Good memory! The pace of this comic means I don't remember much. How long ago, in real time, was that?
ReplyDeleteAs for Virtue Ethics: If we go back to Aristotle, here's an snippet from wiki: Soldiers must display moderation with their enjoyment while at war in the midst of violent activities. Temperance concerning courage gives one moderation in private which leads to moderation in public.
That is, even Aristotle suggests there is a time and a place for violence, and that the just woman (screw you, socrates) will use the minimum force necessary to accomplish goals and achieve eudaimonia. That is, virtue does not preclude violence.
Tony Lower-Basch I almost forgot a follow up question!
ReplyDeleteWhat degree of force would, in your opinion, be unjustifiable given the outcome that Allison is seeking?
Which, let's be clear about the stakes: Sufficient organs for all people who need them throughout the world, and a restoration of consciousness for Feral.
Matt Johnson Straight to the follow up question: To what extent do my motivations matters if the outcomes of my actions are a world agreed as morally superior?
ReplyDeleteThat is, if my desire is to make Moral Man feel good because I've got a crush, and Moral Man will only feel good by, say, organs being available for anyone who needs them, is it morally praiseworthy or blameworthy action if I make that outcome possible?
William Nichols Okay.
ReplyDeleteMy position is, "Implementing policy does not arise automatically from practicing good ethics." Policy absolutely requires social engineering of some kind. To implement policy involves force, or perhaps the gentlest way to put it or do it, strength. The question is whether that strength includes coercion or not, and most of the time I think it does. Otherwise no policy.
Alison has spent the whole comic butting her head against that. She always thought you get good policy if everyone would just stop being mean. Just now, I think she practiced awful ethics toward the end of implementing a policy which she has decided is good. See my point? It's not a matter of the ethics being justified; ethics and policy simply aren't implemented in the same ways. The ethics sucked. The policy doesn't. The latter doesn't justify the former, but the former has no power over the latter. As evidenced perfectly in the final words between Alison and Max.
Now, whether that means ("the story says") we roll up our sleeves and do awful things to implement good policy, is something I don't know. Or better, if I thought I did, so what, 'cause I'd have to do it with others anyway and that's always messy. And unlike stories, the policy doesn't turn out to be "tainted" or whatever, or also unlike stories, the policy is never "done" or "fixed."
That latter point about "with others" is important too - in fact, more important than the Philo 101. Alison didn't consult any of her extremely expert and 'morphic friends, for instance, especially not Tara, although people are apparently still trying to debate that. The point to me is that she completely abandoned her whole ethical structure called "We got this," in order to implement a policy.
Is that better or OK with your goals for the post?
To be honest I tend to feel like that's not the right question. Every action is morally weighed on it's own, so doing something horrible, in order to make the world a better place is still horrible. But it might be worth living with. torture is horrible, but it might be worth it if you saved enough people. Killing someone is horrible, but it might be worth it. Killing the plague child is horrible, but saving the country might be worth it. It doesn't make the act better, it just makes it easier to live with having done the act.
ReplyDeleteMatt Johnson Then what is the right question?
ReplyDeleteRon Edwards I think so! I've got a meeting in a couple minutes, and will respond for reals when I can. Your posts take time to grok. :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm going to think about it. I may not have an answer to that.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols: Well, let me (in finest tradition) respond to your question with a question: What level of "justification" are you looking for?
ReplyDeleteIf we're looking for a level where the people Allison is answerable to will be content ... well, there are no such people. No convenient authority to justify or chide.
If we're looking for a level that Allison should be content about, one that shouldn't worry her ... she's already clearly past that level, and knows it. She knew it before taking action. And, of course, that's not news: She has killed lots and lots of people (issue 3, page 74 is always worth a re-read), in the service of making the world a better place. She carries a lot of weight on her conscience.
So, those two possibilities having been gotten out of the way ... I wonder whether the question is "Is there a degree of force that would, in my opinion, cause me to no longer trust Allison?"
And I find it really interesting that this question doesn't come up when she's whaling on folks like Daniel/Cleaver, who are custom-made to be treated as "other" ... but put pressure on the shoulder of one privileged guy who is, through inaction, dooming thousands of people to death, then it's a question of whether she's gone too far.
It makes me imagine superheroes pounding on limp villains, while yelling "Stop resisting! Stop resisting!"
How much of our self-defense laws, and our attitude of support for heroes when they are acting against villains emerges from our sense that we don't stop trusting people until they might be a threat to us.
To answer that question, if she were acting on a plan that seemed likely to have net benefits, I'd be inclined to assume that Allison had the best interests of humanity as a whole at heart up to and including the moment in which she killed me. If she started killing thousands of people without any perceptible benefit for anyone else, though, that would stretch my credulity.
Does that get to the question you were trying to ask?
The world is overpopulated. This was ultimately an evil act. (devil advocate, since there's no skin in this game.)
ReplyDeleteI feel like an imposed obligation on an individual to spend negligible amounts of effort at no personal cost to save hundreds of thousands of lives? That comes remarkably close to taxation or good samaritan laws, from a moral perspective. A better question iswhy is this kind of action not a legal requirements of people with superpowers.
ReplyDeleteOK. This is great, but going by too fast for me to keep up (yay!) so I'll just swing from what I've processed so far.
ReplyDeleteImplied consent is based on that horrible, horrible kludge, the doctrine of the reasonable person. It's not right, it's not correct, and damnit, it's the best we have by an order of magnitude.
Alison/Mega Girl has been using massive force on people to get them to do good or stop doing bad for the whole comic.
A villain comes to call her out and stomp on her. She throws the guy out of the city, and then pummels him until he can't fight and is contained. He was behaving badly, Alison fixed it.
An ex-supervillain is trying to fix the world and control his own relationships. It's hard for him not to -- he's an involuntary mind-reader. In particular, his company is holding down an idealistic hero Alison knows and likes because her personal grudges will get in the way of his work. Alison asks him for a reasonable time period (he gives two years) and says, at the end of that time, he needs to turn over his whole damn company to said idealistic hero. Alison fixes it.
but wait...these are all examples where she's smacking supervillains in some way. Right?
"A really chill bro names Miles" tries to take a drunk girl away from a party. The girl is obviously way drunk past the point of being able to give consent, the dude doesn't even know her name, and he falsely claims that she's his girlfriend when challenged. Alison stops him, scaring the sh*t out of him in the process, and takes the girl home. Alison fixes it.
Heck, here's a really special example. One of Alison's professors gives her an F on a paper for, basically, unfair but humanly understandable reasons that have nothing to do with the paper. Alison (a huge celebrity) goes and talks to someone in the administration because, duh, given a totally unfair grade. The college sees she's upset and has a valid complaint, so they fire the professor. Not what she was hoping for but...Alison fixed it.
I have kids. Little kids. Some mornings they don't want to go to school. They want to make big messes and don't want to clean them up. I motivate, barter, bargain, and cajole. But at the end of the day, I have to use a lot of force. I intimidate and appeal to authority. I give timeouts. I revoke fun things like screen time and desert. I pick them up, cary them to the car, and strap them into their car seats. I do countdowns that threaten spankings at the end, and on rare occasions, they call me on it...and I give them a whack on the butt.
Do I try not to use force? Hell yes. I do my (sometimes pathetic) best. But in order to help them grow into not terrible people and hopefully into caring, attentive people and maybe even successful, self-disciplined people I use force.
In short, I use force where a reasonable person would, to get people to act like reasonable people. And so does Alison. Rich Spoiled Super Libertarian makes it really explicit -- Alison literally says please comply with this completely reasonable basic-human-decency request. And he says No, and even if yes, No to you.
So Alison applies an incentive...deliberately, with due respect for his stated concerns and, yes, some pain, but no injury induced. Alison fixes it.
So. What does a reasonable person do?
Tony Lower-Basch
ReplyDelete"And I find it really interesting that this question doesn't come up when she's whaling on folks like Daniel/Cleaver, who are custom-made to be treated as "other" ... but put pressure on the shoulder of one privileged guy who is, through inaction, dooming thousands of people to death, then it's a question of whether she's gone too far."
Again, I don't read this comic so I'm not sure of the context here but honestly the reason I question her in this instance isn't "Because he's a white guy". It's because he isn't /doing/ anything to harm anyone. Yes, there is an argument that his inaction will lead to death.. but at that point you can make that argument for everyone in the world who isn't actively trying to donate blood, organs and time to save people.But we don't. There is no reasonable expectation of us putting ourselves out there to help others, so long as we are not actively hurting them.
Or perhaps because I have no investment in the comic, I have no trust in her as all I've seen is her forcing someone to do something against their will.
What a reasonable person can do can still be immoral. I haven't been reading this lately, but I think Allison can feel that it's immoral but still do it, based on the parts I've read. (I'm not reading it not because I don't like it but I just never manage to keep up with webcomics.)
ReplyDeleteRon Edwards
ReplyDeleteTo double check that I understand: You are suggesting that personal ethics and the policy of a group are different things. That to ensure the policy of a group occurs, you must, at least from time to time, act in a way that is personally ethically wrong -- in this case, the use of force and violation of consent.
It seems that your notions of personal ethics are deontological (for those who haven't taken a phil class lately? rule based). Things like "don't violate consent", "don't hit people".
What I find really interesting, though, is the notion that a persons ethics don't necessarily cohere to the group ethics. That is, if a group decides collectively that, for example, we will kick out people who violate our rules, then it could be a virtuous act for the group to do so, while still a personally immoral action for an individual to callously treat another.
Are you comfortable with that disconnect?
So, because people want to key in on him being a "rich white dudebro" to justify this... what if he were a poor woman of color, who was afraid the government would take her away if they found out about her powers... would she then be justified in saying no? Would it make Allison's forcing her worse?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I say no because it's already a bad thing... him being a dudebro is just making people less sympathetic towards him and thus they find it easier to accept her violence towards him. I mean... what if he kept saying no? Is it acceptable because he complied before permanent damage was done (i.e. a wack on the butt), but if he held out to the point of sever violence would it then have been bad? What if she had broken some bones? What if he held out and she had killed him?
Matt Johnson
ReplyDeleteIt actually does come up with Cleaver -- Alison goes an has a talk with him that hits this pretty hard and only a little subtly, after anti-super activists try to burn Feral to death. It just doesn't come up until he's been behind bars for a while.
I'd say, and I think +Ron Edwards would agree with me, that this exact issue has been driving the comic since it's start and just keeps getting more obvious.
Moonshadow murdering rapists. Furnace standing up for Law and Order. Templar being proud of working for good...and calling out that her prized collection of ancient knight's armor was worn by asses who threw their weight around, not the storybook heroes they were presented as.
The convention for supers who can't pass for normals, and the convention head's concern when Alison gets excited that she might use it for recruiting for her do-good super network is a really bracing and penetrating look at the cognitive dissonance this can cause.
Matt Johnson: I key in less on him being a rich white dudebro, and more on the fact that his ability to help is unique in the world.
ReplyDeleteLawyers get called upon to be public defenders ... against their will. It's coercive, but we accept it because they have an ability that is in extreme demand. Max is, literally, the only person who was able to do this. That makes it a different argument than "Should I force Joe here to donate blood? It could save lives!"
Tony Lower-Basch Love how you ask a question and then give an answer. How very Socrates. :-)
ReplyDeleteAs for what level of justification am I looking for? One that makes the individual satisfied. These are issues I've struggled with in and out of classes, and have what I think of as a decent means of thinking about them. The actual answers aren't what I find fascinating, but rather the means that people use to try to find answers to moral questions.
Sometimes, that's an appeal to authority (god says hitting is bad). Sometimes, its an argument from rules (hitting people is bad). Sometimes it is utilitarian (she did good, so it is good). But, most of the time, human thinking is straight up muddled. We are all -- very much including myself -- much worse at it than we think we are.
The question I (almost) always want to point to is something like this, taken from Pirsig:
And what is good, Phaedrus,
And what is not good—
Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?”
William Nichols: Okay ... I have no idea what you're asking. Can you rephrase?
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch While yes we do force people to be PDAs, we don't force people to BE ATTORNEYS. The possibility that they will need to defend someone is part of the job they are signing up for. It's part of the deal. We don't force someone to donate an organ just because they are a 1 in a million match to someone... because that isn't their choice to be that.
ReplyDeleteStephanie Bryant Very nice. If there are too many people, does morality demand that Allison take corrective measures?
ReplyDeleteMatt Johnson That, exactly. I once played someone who had an origin event and ended up with transmutation. Not just lead into gold, but carbon into uranium. While it can be very okay to be the only person in the world with that power, admitting that you have it is a quick way to lose all agency. (I picked it because it was the only already untaken power set in GURPS Supers that appealed to me, mostly for another component that was a lot less risky to run around with, then thought it through later.)
ReplyDeleteMatt Johnson: Sure ... but we have forced (and could force again) young men to serve in the armed forces, because they have a strength and resilience that other citizens do not. We do force people with more money to pay more taxes. In some areas we require things, and in some areas we don't.
ReplyDeleteThe question of "How much does society get to call upon those with gifts to exercise those gifts?" is an interesting one. While "with great power comes great responsibility" is a chestnut, it gets really complicated when you ask further "So what does 'responsibility' mean in this setting? Does it imply loss of freedom?"
Tony Lower-Basch Sorry, there was three thousand years of ethics embedded in that question, and twenty years of personal thought on the subject.
ReplyDeleteTo rephrase, what I am most interested in is a discourse into the values individuals hold. I've found this really hard to do over the years, in part because our brains aren't good at thinking about it, and (often) the media and games we consume teach us the wrong things. We've all played games where we're the PC and use a sword or a fireball to kill the dragon and save the prince, and by doing so prove our virtue and win the game. That is, we are taught over and over again that might and right go hand in hand -- even Lincoln co-aligned the two!
And so, ultimately what I want is for more people to drink deeper of the cognitive well that is ethical philosophy. I think doing so makes us more aware of our foibles and better able to make decisions that are good, however we personally define good.
So, the ultimate question, rephrased, is something like: What is the nature of good? And of evil? And do we need someone to tell us these things, or do we know it for ourselves?
That's what I hope to get people to think about.
Jason Pitre Follow up question: To what extent should laws compel moral actions, versus leaving moral choice in the hands of the person?
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols I'd argue that it won't matter, because she's basically a bully who will take whatever measures she sees fit. I'm not enamored of her as a character, and especially not after she has violated someone's bodily autonomy.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols: Sure, but what's your question of me?
ReplyDeleteUnless, that is, you actually want me to respond to "What is the nature of good?" I sort of imagined you had something more specific in mind.
Jesse Cox I think in each of those examples, Allison uses the minimum necessary force to accomplish her goals. There are maybe other ways to solve the problems, but the use of a punch to the face is one that comes pretty easily to her -- maybe due to training, maybe due to being the strongest person ever. I dunno.
ReplyDeleteIs her use of force morally acceptable in all these instances? Would use of additional force also be acceptable? With the example of the chill date raper, let us assume that Allison was morally praiseworthy to scare him into not raping. Would she also have been praiseworthy to break his arm? Drop him off the roof? Rip out his spine and use it as a flag to scare other rapists?
These are all well within her capabilities as I understand them. By taking the minimum action, she stopped a rape. By making an example, she might have stopped a dozen or a hundred. How should we determine what is right?
Tony Lower-Basch ::rereads:: Oh, right.
ReplyDeleteI think its interesting that you pivoted away from morally acceptable and to trust.
I suppose one question, then, is: What is the relationship between trust and ethics?
Gretchen S. I think I hear you saying that an action can be immoral, but that it is still justifiable to do it. Maybe! This is different from "People do bad things and are shitty", which is maybe also what you are saying, but I think it is the first.
ReplyDeleteCan you elaborate on what sort of justification it takes to do an action that is immoral?
Stephanie Bryant A few comics ago, that was basically her position: I'm strong and can do whatever I want, and will make you (dudebro) do what I want whenever I want.
ReplyDeleteIf a person is as intransigent as he was being, is there a point at which coercion is morally acceptable?
William Nichols
ReplyDeleteI have, perhaps, a slightly odd take on moral judgements.
I think that we can talk about the morality of a person within the context of the society (or, really, societies) that they are enmeshed with, and to try to talk about the morality of a person in absolute terms doesn't actually make sense.
I also think we can talk about the moral implications of different moral systems -- of different definition of what it is to be a "reasonable person." This doesn't require an understanding of some overarching moral framework that all these are part of.
It requires a plausible practical understanding of cause and effect, and it doesn't look a whole heck of a lot like judging the morality of people against the backdrop of society.
Our date rapist party exists because we're still undergoing a shift on what reasonable sexual behavior is. Notably, some people are living into some future set of reasonable behavior that's not here most places -- and some are fighting to roll the world back to where their beliefs of what moral sexual behavior are reasonable.
The rule utilitarian bit -- where "if everyone did this, would it be ok?" is the yardstick -- is a good start. But it ignores the fact that systems where everyone acts the same aren't sustainable: they don't exist, and, practically, I see no even faintly possible plan for making any of them exist.
William Nichols: Well, part of that pivot is that I am very hard pressed to imagine a circumstance in which I would even remotely care about whether another person's actions are "morally right."
ReplyDeleteLike, seriously, why should it matter?
For me, what matters is a grab-bag of practical concerns that often get tossed together as correlates to that question:
(1) Should I trust the person's individual judgment going forward? (key to small-scale team-building)
(2) Should I reconsider my own internal rules, in light of the person's actions, and if so how? (key to self-improvement)
(3) Should I support (or, alternately, oppose) the person's role-modelling of action for others? (key to political action)
(4) Should I directly support (or, alternately, oppose) the person's physical actions in the moment? (key to direct action)
For actions I am considering undertaking, myself, the questions get turned outward: Will this impact other people's trust? Will I teach a lesson I don't want to? Will people act against me? etc.
If all those questions are answered, it takes a lot of the urgency out of "But was it a good action?" as a question, y'know? It's still a fun question, but more as a way to refine your thinking than anything else.
So I would say that the relationship between trust (and role-modelling, and leadership, and politics) and ethics is this: Ethics is a set of abstract systems to help you think about how to evaluate actions in a society. Actually evaluating actions in a society is the value-add.
Does that make sense?
As a follow-up ... as morally laden as this set of comics has been, the main questions in my brain:
ReplyDelete(1) Is Feral going to hug and/or kiss Allison?
(1b) If so, will she ask for permission this time?
(2) Is Allison going to tell Feral about strong-arming someone to help her?
(2b) Does she even remotely believe that Feral would care? "Allie, I would have dislocated the guys jaw just for talking to you that way!"
For the record, I'm agaisnt the draft so I don't find it a compelling argument. :P
ReplyDeleteMatt Johnson Please engage a little harder. :-) Tony's second position was on taxes -- that is, that we require greater taxes from those who have more money. Are you against that?
ReplyDeleteIf you are, is there any sort of infringement of personal liberty that you find acceptable?
Matt Johnson
ReplyDeleteIgnoring the draft...
We regularly make people leave their homes.
We make people give up things they have before leaving the building.
In both cases, we tend to do this if they don't pay -- don't pay their mortgage, don't pay their rent, don't pay for the things they picked up off the shelf in the shop. Don't pay their taxes, don't pay for licenses.
And we don't think much about it, even when some clearly physically can't pay.
William Nichols If I do not sign a piece of paper allowing my organs to be harvested, nobody can force me to donate them.
ReplyDeleteIf I understand correctly, she forced him to use his powers (which he presumably has good reasons not to use, including "I don't want to" or even "if I do this now, someone else can make me do it again") against his will.
How, exactly, is that okay? The needs of the world (which, again, is overpopulated already, so reducing the number of people who die is actually an evil and destructive action, so "the greater good" does not apply) do not trump the right of an individual to say "no, I do not want to do that with my body."
We have bodily autonomy, and it is considered a medical right. A person can be compelled into military service, but can also (now, and because we are better than animals and understand bodily autonomy) conscientiously object.
Stephanie Bryant: Conscientious objection is not about bodily autonomy.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols I'm not saying that I think it's justifiable so much as I'm saying I can see why Allison thinks it's justified.
ReplyDeleteI honestly don't know what I'd do in her shoes, given that her leverage is force by nature of her powers. I'm really opposed to coercion. I think I'd be really unhappy about the cost, but end with, "well, I don't force people to donate kidneys or become doctors, so forcing him is wrong."
On the other hand, I might well see his saying "if you find a one-punch solution, come to me," as consenting to that punch. It's awfully tempting, given the stakes, and I don't think I could see that as being a moral act or not coercive, but that feels almost like a dare or a bet. But it also comes dangerously close to "he was asking for it." Ugh!
I do believe in using force for self defense, and have. But I feel morally in a gray area there, probably because I'm heavily acculturated against force, because the gray feeling I get is more like I violated a taboo than that I did anything indefensible. (I used proportionate force, warned first to give them a chance to stop using force on me, etc. Objectively I feel like that was moral, but emotionally it feels like a failing to have to in order to resolve a situation. But not all people are reasonable.)
But my usual reaction to intractable people is to present my arguments, let them sink in, and then come in at another angle and present my arguments again. My sort of low blow would probably be to try to morally link him to the people who could live if he helped, by finding examples he would empathize with and presenting that to him. This is still immoral if he's told me to stop, mind you. But I might do it anyhow if he's still listening to me.
Tony Lower-Basch I'll take that to mean you agree with everything else I said, but had to nitpick on one thing. ;)
ReplyDeleteStephanie Bryant: Not as such, no.
ReplyDeleteAlso!
ReplyDeleteThey just published a cast page for SFP. Which is OMG helpful:
http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/cast/
I'm not opposed to state coercion as I see it as part of the contract for a citizen (though that necessarily has to be tied to a realistic ability to emigrate if you don't like the local social contract.) But I believe that state power should be exercised with the minimum amount of violence.
ReplyDeleteSo I'd make the draft universal, close-ended, say two years, and mostly focused on civil infrastructure projects, but any position that is high risk like the military would be better compensated to reflect that risk, and purely voluntary. Any draftee can choose a civil-only draft. Career military people would start with the draft. If we weren't getting sufficient volunteers for the need we would work to reduce the need or incentivize volunteering. There would be a reasonably flexible period to serve those two years in, say until twenty-five, to let people accommodate educational plans.
I am partly having a hard time engaging because I only care so much about either convincing others or what others think of my positions, and I kind of hate debates and arguments There's a very good reason I ended up with a minor in Philosophy as opposed to going for it as a major.... :P
ReplyDeleteGenerally I believe that personal liberty is only to be infringed upon when it infringes in someone else's personal liberty or bodily autonomy.But I'm also a believer that 0 tolerance, one size fits all, no consideration given to individual occurrences is just a recipe for stupidity and problems.So my structure is pretty spongy.
And as far as taxes go... I view taxes and "Giving up something from your body" to be highly different things...
Jesse Cox
I'm not really sure what you are getting at so this may not be relevant... I'm a fairly firm believer in basic income which might address some of what you are getting at... but I'm honestly not sure. Or, more concisely, "Is there a question there?"
I find it pretty morally squishy on my part that I'm okay with requiring a limited term of service but not an open ended one, because morally speaking the limited term is still backed by state level coercion (though I see it more as taxes than as organ donation, and I'm fine with taxes.) In a world with civil draft and amplifying power dude, I know what I'd hope the government assigns him to for two years, though. :)
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols Hi! With respect, no, that is not what I'm saying at all. Your paraphrasing is "That to ensure the policy of a group occurs, you must, at least from time to time, act in a way that is personally ethically wrong -- in this case, the use of force and violation of consent." Whereas I did not use the word "must" at all, and if I did, it would not have been in the imperative sense even a smidgeon. Nor do I think it's valid to equate "force" with "ethically wrong," that's a telling reverse-versy thing to slip in, even if you didn't intend it. Force is merely force.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, no, I am not presenting a deontological view. With respect, that is a useful but still introductory-level topic, and I think it traps us into a zero-sum and ultimately not useful pretend-balancing act of "doing bad thing" and "make the world better." Most of the discourse I've read about this storyline is trapped there, which is why people are resorting to arguments of scale, i.e., how much.
Your distinction between individual assessment vs. group assessment is absolutely on point, and I appreciate seeing that! It moves us into the really difficult/advanced zone of talking about what to do with invoking "rightness" at all. Therefore your phrasing for that - "it could be a virtuous act for the group to do so" - needs review. It's not that it's virtuous (or not), it's that the group members simply fuckin' do it, and "that's the way we do things around here." That they construe it as virtue, and feel it as virtue, is an important behavior to observe and understand.
That goes straight to what I'd like to suggest to you: that sincerity is perhaps the worst and most dangerous meter of ethical thinking. One can feel sincere about anything. We are dangerous, especially because we are social and good at organizing, and because our minds so easily identify doing so as "right."
And yes, that makes me a fan of Prof. Gurwara. I think reviewing the scene with him is worthwhile. Going by the numerous comments at the site, I don't think he was "trying to make Alison admit" anything at all, or "make her look/feel stupid," nor that anything he did or said was a "dick move," with the possible (and so far, mysterious) exception of his joke (?) about the regular instructor's death. I also think her reactions to him were crucial - by doing nothing more than getting her to consider the ramifications of her position, she perceived it literally as an attack. Like, a real, physical attack. To Alison, her sincerity is her lifeline, and I'm saying, that's no kind of ethics at all.
Please work with me in avoiding the issue of "agree/disagree" or "convincing." I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything, but strictly to articulate to you what you asked me.
Ron Edwards I'm going to need some time digesting. That your view is more nuanced that I thought is fantastic. I have an inkling that the thrust of my question still stands, but it'll take some time to articulate.
ReplyDeleteEveryone else: I've got some work that has to be done. Carry on. Remember: Be kind. I'll be watching, even if I'm participating less.
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch If I understand you right: ethos are abstract, actions are concrete. When you view your own actions or others, you don't think of them as good or ill, but rather if they engender trust / make you question your own rules / act as positive role-modeling / should they be supported.
ReplyDeleteWhat I wonder is where those "should" answers come from, and if not ethos, then what exactly. That is: What answers questions that start with "should" other than your own ethos?
William Nichols: My shoulds come from the world I want to see and make. While you might reasonably ask "doesn't that beg the question?", I think there's a meaningful difference in that (1) I try not to either imply or believe that my desires emerge from an objective structure underlying the universe, and (2) I expect my desires to change as I live longer.
ReplyDeleteBy contrast, I see the way some people practice ethics as akin to "I didn't like bananas yesterday. Therefore bananas are objectively bad, and I can never like them tomorrow."
Mind you, most people_don't_ do that. They work with a provisional view, and 'discover' new ethical principles in a way that's only subtly different from my changing my mind. I feel like there's something real in the subtle distinction, though.
Tony Lower-Basch I feel that my own experience of the principle of nonviolence (or strictly limited violence, in practice, sigh) is built out of that "world I want to see and make" idea.
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