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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He'd been one. "Very rarely," he said. "And even those I gave a chance to."

"And when it turned out that even after that chance they still needed to die?" Which, in Triela's mind, was a foregone conclusion.

"Then that was their choice," Anakin said with a little shrug. "But they have to be given the choice. I'm not an assassin."

Any more.

Triela eyed Anakin doubtfully. "You're saying that you're okay with people killing you as long as they give you a choice before doing it?" That might have come out a bit sarcastic.

"Yes," Anakin said firmly. "I never set out to kill someone." Again, any more. "That's not how Jedi operate. The opponents we face--we're there to bring justice, not death."

"A lot of the time those are the same thing." Duh.

Anakin shook his head hard. "Justice and killing are two separate things," he said. "I'm not judge, jury and executioner. Nor should I be."

"What about just executioner? I mean, it's not like I pick my targets or anything."

"Assassination is different," Anakin said, sounding distinctly unhappy about it. "It's another set of rules. Ones that I don't like."

"Who said anything about assassination?" Because while she had been talking about it, she'd said 'execution'. And sometimes Triela resorted to pedantry in debates.

"Executioners tend to work in groups, at least in my galaxy," he said, "so no one knows for sure that they killed the person. You seem sure."

"Oh, yeah, well that's because I pay attention to who I shoot." And because she was really more assassin than executioner.

Anakin was not buying what she was selling. "Uh huh."

"But my point," Triela tried to get back onto verbal footing that she had the advantage on. "Is that sometimes you're 'justified' in killing people, right?" Whatever 'justified' was supposed to mean. "But even then you don't want to be killed yourself."

"'He was asking for it' isn't justification," Anakin replied, "at least for me. And it's a little hard to argue self-defense when you go in with weapons and intent to do harm."

"But that still doesn't change the fact that even when you are justified you're doing something to someone that you wouldn't want them to do to you, right?" Yep. That's pedantry.

"I prefer remaining unmaimed, generally," Anakin replied dryly.

"But you've maimed people before." She didn't make it a question. "Doesn't that violate the stupid rule?"

"They always tried to hurt me first," Anakin said. "I was just better."

"Same here." Well... about the being better part. Though part of being better to Triela was shooting first...

"But you still broke the rule, right? Which is why it's dumb."

"I didn't break the rule," Anakin said, voice getting a little testy. "I used my skills for defense. I'm not going to get shot at just to prove my moral supremacy."

Triela snorted in disbelief. "'Do unto others as you would have done unto you'," Triela quoted. "Even when it's self-defense, killing someone isn't something you'd want done to you, I bet."