fandomhigh | Ethics [Tuesday, February 10, 2nd period]

Anakin was in a very good mood this morning. Something about seeing old friends and a wife's ex-boyfriend transformed into a girl had cheered him right up.

"Today we talk about something called the Golden Rule, a concept which unites many separate religions on this planet," he began, leaning against his desk and stared around the classroom. "It sounds altruistic: 'do unto others as you would have done unto you', but there's a couple of logical flaws in it. What if you don't mind getting poked in the stomach? Does it follow that you could wander around aimlessly poking people? What if you don't see what's wrong with stealing? Or killing? Or hating entire groups of people on principle? If the practical application is supposed to be you randomly help people because they could be good, wouldn't the opposite be that you could randomly harm people because they might be evil?"

He shrugged. "I suppose the Golden Rule could be broken down to 'be nice to people, and they'll be nice to you' but out here in the real world, we all know it doesn't exactly work like that, and the concept could also be reinterpreted as 'it doesn't bother me, so why does it bother you?' Is this a case of aiming for an ideal and hoping that it will cause a ripple effect of positive things, or something overly simplistic that taken to its logical extreme renders itself useless? Has seeing it on everything from coffee mugs to tea towels made the very idea of it trite, or does it still have a place in the mind of someone trying to lead an ethical life?"

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"I," a long pause, "did not know that."

See? She could be graceful about it.

"But still."

Or something.

"In the context of this classroom most of us would probably call a mug something average and everyday though," Peter said, acknowledging her point in return.

"They're pretty awesome for everyday use," she said, twirling a pen around. "But, I guess, I don't know. The sacred coffee mug idea just makes me want to laugh."

"There are those who worship caffiene," Peter said. "Early in the morning we might have to pry the mugs from their cold, dead hands."

She blinked. "Can being deprived of caffeine, if you're hooked on it, actually kill you?"

Now she was curious!

"I honestly don't know," Peter admitted. "I know if you drink a lot and then stop you can get headaches and feel sick. Not sure if you could have so much of a crash it could kill you."

"I know you can drink too much and it'll kill you, but that's if you're really insane about it all at once," she mused. "But I don't know about the withdrawal."

"See, and I didn't know about the too much," Peter admitted. "I just thought it made you really jittery."

"I looked it up during a clinic shift," she explained. "Out of curiosity. But, yeah, it's mostly if you've got a weak heart? No matter what, with too much all at once, you can get really sick, but if you've a weak heart it can send you into shock and your heartbeat can get irregular, or way too fast." A beat. "And in really severe doses it can even cause hallucinations and stuff."

A longer pause.

"That's not, of course, the sort of thing that's going to come from drinking, like, a pot or two of it a day, but it is something interesting to consider."

"I suddenly have the urge to drink nothing but water," Peter said.

"Sorry?"

"Don't worry about it," Peter said, giving her a smile. "It's interesting stuff."

"Though slightly horrifying," she admitted.

Ethics [Tuesday, February 10, 2nd period]

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