fandomhigh | Ethics class, 2-4pm Monday afternoon

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ethics

Ethics class, 2-4pm Monday afternoon

Tara leans against her desk, smiling as she watches the students come in. Some of the faces she recognises, and gives a nod. The room is filled with soft, comfortable chairs, which are positioned in a circle. Each chair has a wooden insert in one arm, to lean on while writing, and each wooden insert has a blank piece of paper on it.

When everyone has taken their seats, Tara begins.

"The first rule of ethics class is that you do not talk about things that happen inside of ethics class. The second rule of ethics class is that you do not talk about things that happen inside of ethics class. Allow me to clarify: you may discuss your revelations, challenge your friends and mock the teacher all you like. But if anything said inside this class is ever used against another member of it, you will answer to me, personally. You will have the opportunity to explain yourself before I drag you before Principal Connor. This class cannot function if people are afraid to speak."

She looks around the classroom, stopping briefly on each face. "This school is very unusual. Yes, obviously the squid is a bit odd, but what's more interesting to me is that there are individuals sitting in this room" she nods to Angelus, "who identify themselves as evil. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what the first section of the course will be discussing. Evil, good, and what makes the difference between the two. Your evil classmates have perspectives you need to think about and consider. Don't ignore them in a mistaken belief that they have no ethics."

"Each class runs for two hours. Ordinarily this will be broken up into two sections: discussion and debate - today, however, there will be two discussion sections instead. The majority of your assessment will come through your involvement in class discussions. Every student is expected to participate every week. If you are painfully shy, write your thoughts down and hand them in to me. If I don't know what you're thinking, you don't get credit for it. After this week a formal debate will be held once a week. For those of you unfamiliar with debating, this means two teams of three students taking opposing sides on an issue determined by me. You will each be expected to debate three times during the term, with a week's notice to prepare for each one. If I don't get enough volunteers, I will volunteer someone. At the end of semester a practical exam will be held. This will assess not what you choose to do, but how accurately you have come to an understanding of your own ethical code. I expect you to be honest with yourselves."

"Friday and Monday classes are identical. Please feel free to switch between them if you have commitments that interfere with your regular attendance."

"I will want two teacher's assistants for this course, whose function it is to prompt discussion and challenge your thinking. These students will be expected to attend both Monday and Friday classes. Today's discussion will serve as your audition. TAs are expected to prompt discussion and challenge other students to analyse their own responses as well as the tasks expected of any other student. If you are interested, please say so on your paper, or see me after class."

[OOC: Class will be open for responses for the next week, for those who need to slowplay. For those of you who read Friday's class, this speech is not directly cribbed. That would be totally irresponsible. I made two changes.]

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"I'm not looking for whether you could, Angela, only whether you would. What constitutes self-defence? Would it need to be in response to a direct threat to your life, in the heat of the moment? Or if you had warning in advance, could you kill someone with premeditation?"

She cocks her head, thinking about the zombie question. "Did you consider the zombie to be a person, with a life and desires of its own, and friends that would mourn its passing?"

Angela shakes her head. "Only if there was a direct threat right then. If I had advance warning, I would have time to go to the cops."

She chews on her pen thoughtfully. "I mean, I guess if I was in a situation like what Callisto described, where the police weren't an option and I couldn't run, I might feel that I had to. But ... there's 911 in my world, you know?"

"And the zombie wasn't a person to me. It was just this thing that wanted to hurt me or my friends."

"Well done, Angela. You've found two situations where you'd kill someone - if it was their life or a loved one's, and when you don't believe the one you're killing is a person. Two questions to follow on from that, then. First, is the life of a loved one worth more than the life of a stranger - and would you kill to save a stranger's life? Second, what constitutes personhood?"

"I think a stranger's life is worth just as much as that of a loved one, ethically. But I don't know if I could kill to save someone I didn't know. I like to think I would, though I really hope I'm never in that situation."

"And as for what a person is ... I think it's a human being with its own thoughts and desires. Zombies didn't seem to think, they just kind of lurched around trying to eat us."

Tara nods at the first answer. "Absolutely. There's a difference between what's objectively right and what we're willing or able to go through with. Well done." To the second question, Tara lifts a finger. "A human being? Thoughts and desires, I'll agree with, but I'd be careful about your wording in this school." She thinks for a moment. "Angela, the definition for sentience is self-awareness, a means of communication, and the presence of desires. Did the zombies have any or all of these?"

Angela flushes. "Sorry. I didn't mean to use, um, biased lanugage."

She considers.

"I think Chiana is right, the zombies did have the desire to eat us. But I already said I would kill to protect myself or those I cared about, if there were no other options. And there definitely weren't with the zombies, whether they're people or not."

Ignoring the "human being" part, wasn't "trying to eat us" a desire? I mean, they really *really* wanted to eat us.

"Also, why make having someone to mourn a requirement?" Angelus asked. "Plenty of people die every day without anybody knowing about it or caring. Does that mean it's okay to kill them?"

"Small steps, Angelus. Angela specified she'd kill to protect a loved one, as have a number of other students. A person becomes more real if there's someone to miss them - although it doesn't necessarily mean they have any more right to live."

She grins. "Why don't you answer your own question? If the cumulative suffering that a death causes is less, does that lessen the evil of causing that death?"

"Depends on the death and the evil," Angelus said. "Take a baby. If I - I mean someone killed a baby just as it was born that'd probably cause a lot of suffering for the parents who were experiencing a moment of pure joy. Big difference between that and the death of a baby put out on a hill because nobody wanted it.

"But on the other hand, there's those that'd say it's evil to have a world where children could die on hilltops and nobody gives a damn."

Yeah, 'cause if having somebody to mourn you is a requirement, I guess it's not really all that evil to...to blow up an orphanage. They don't have family to miss 'em, right?

Well, I imagine whoever's running the orphanage might miss them.

"I didn't say having someone to mourn is a requirement," Angela says, annoyed. "We're talking about when we would kill. I said that it would be easier for me to kill to save someone I cared about than to save a stranger. I'm just being honest when I say it would be a hard choice for me to make -- especially if by trying to help the stranger, I'd put myself in danger."

She looks from Callisto to Chiana. "Would it be easy for you two?"

I don't really have any problems with killing to begin with, and everyone I ever really cared about died a long time ago, so, for me at least, the question's moot.

"That would make the whole thing really different," Angela says, feeling oddly sympathetic. She looks down at her notebook, not sure what else to say.

Nobody's saying you did, sweetheart. The teach said "friends that would mourn its passing" in her list of things that might make a zombie a person. And if you wanna know, yeah, it'd be easier for me to kill to save somebody I cared about than a stranger too. It'd take an awful lot for me to put myself in danger for somebody I didn't know.

"Okay, thanks. I think Angelus confused me." Angela shoots a grateful smile at Chiana.

Angelus confuses a lot of people. ~~Especially when supply closets and necking are involved.~~ I think he gets off on it.

Angela glances at Angelus, unsure whether he's following her conversation, or how to respond. She settles for another smile at Callisto, then goes back to listening and staring at her notebook.

"I'm so often a victim of misunderstanding," Angelus said with a smile. From the angle of his gaze it was hard to tell if he was replying to Callisto or to Angela.

Flustered, Angela goes to fiddle with her bookbag. She's absolutely not doing it so she doesn't have to confront those dark brown laser beams.

Her nervous hands are slippery, and a piece of paper jets out and across the floor to where Angelus is seated. It reads, "1753: IRELAND -- whole village; 1860: England -- nun -- religious fetish? 1898 -- Romania; curse; vanishes.

We are so dead."

Angelus stopped the piece of paper with his foot. For a long, agonizing moment, it looked as though he was going to be evil enough to not help a fellow student in need.

Then he reached down to pick up the paper while keeping his attention on the students talking around him.

As he sat back up, his eye fell on the page.

He stopped.

He read.

He stared at Angela.

After noting Angelus' reaction and taking a quick census of her bookbag, Angela realized *which* piece of paper she lost.

She spent the rest of class sitting frozen at her desk, not moving, not speaking, just hoping, somehow, she had written in a language Angelus couldn't read. Or that he was dyslexic. Or that he was oblivious.

She knew none of those things were likely.

Taking a deep breath, she rises quickly and walks to the door just as quickly at the end of class, not even looking in Angelus's direction.

Angelus folded up the paper and tucked it into his pocket. He watched Angela, but did not follow.

[OOC:Doh!]

Re: Second Hour

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Re: Second Hour

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