fandomhigh | Ethics [Thursday, October 29, 1st period]

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Ethics [Thursday, October 29, 1st period]

Judging from what Raven had told him about Tuesday night and what several members of his class had seen, Anakin believed that this lecture probably couldn't have come at a better time.

"Today we talk about diligence, temperance, and forgiveness," he said quietly, "and we're going to use examples from the midterm exam to do so."

He flipped the hologram to life with a wave of his hand and it focused in on a shot of Palpatine's face. "The goal was to save this man, the democratically chosen leader of your galaxy, at the cost--if necessary--of your own lives. After the Sith Lord arrived, you certainly had the option of retreating and leaving the mission for someone else to complete. A Sith's job, after all, is to kill Jedi, and there were only two of you against him. When does diligence turn to foolhardiness?"

The holocam switched to footage of two Jedi, blue blades flashing, taking on an older man wielding a red lightsaber. The battle was moving at least three times as fast as the exercise had. The older Jedi went ricocheting into a wall, then the second one, fire in his eyes, closed in on their opponent. A few moments later the Sith dropped to his knees with two lightsabers held to his throat.

The Jedi wielding the lightsabers looked an awful lot like their teacher.

"Temperance," Anakin said softly. "Do you kill him now? He's dangerous. He held the head of a galaxy-wide government hostage. He injured your partner. He certainly tried to kill you first. Or do you capture him and leave him to the whims of the courts?"

He shook his head. "Finally, forgiveness. You save the chancellor, at great personal expense, only to discover he's not the kind of man you thought he was. Your act of heroism has managed to make the situation at home much, much worse. How do you forgive yourself for it? Can you forgive the others who put you into that position?"

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The man was old, definitely evil, and pissing you off. Kill him?

"Killing people because you think they're bad is wrong," Hayley said, with extreme vehemence. "Very, very wrong."

"It depends on what they've done to earn that evil," Karla countered. "And why you think so. Do you think they're evil because it's what you've heard or because you don't like something about them? Or do you have real, first-hand knowledge of what they're doing? I think there are some times when it is right and proper to kill in the name of justice."

Hey Karla. Way to set back all of Hayley's progress there. Good job.

Hayley was so conflicted. On one hand, she still hated what had happened that night. But she could hardly bear the thought of disagreeing with Karla. Her face twisted and contorted, he mind wracking painfully in thought.

"...but you're not supposed to just drown people," she said. "No matter how many acrobats they killed."

Oookay. Clearly Karla wasn't the only person looking at this through an intensely personal lens, unless Hayley'd just decided that 'drowning' and 'acrobats' made for an understandable example.

Hell's fire, in this world, maybe it did.

"I'm not saying there aren't other options," Karla said, trying to steer away from sounding all righteously vengeful. "But among my people, we believe that everything has a price. ~~It's practically a canon mantra~~ By killing however many acrobats, that person basically agreed to pay whatever price that would be exacted for their deaths. Drowning might not have been the optimal solution, but did the drowned person keep 'optimal solutions' in mind when they killed those acrobats? And depending how and why those acrobats were killed--sometimes people turn into mad dogs. You can't reason or argue with mad dogs. All you can do is put them down before they destroy something you love."

"...but she was the one I loved," Hayley said, quietly, and out loud for the very first time. She had tears in her eyes, and it twisted her stomach to admit what she'd just said. She thought such different things about it, and she didn't know which side to believe.

Whoa. Yeah. Definite personal lens, there. Another time, Karla would have backed down a bit, reiterate that there were other ways. But she just couldn't not right now.

That didn't stop her from reaching for one of Hayley's hands, from offering warmth and friendship even as she made her point.

"How does your love differ from the love of the friends and families of the acrobats? Why does your love offer protection and absolution when theirs did not?"

She sighed, raking her fingers through her hair. "You don't have to believe me, Hayley. I'm from a different world, with different morals and laws and viewpoints. My ways are not your ways and what's right for me in my world might not be right for you in yours."

Re: Answer the discussion question: temperance

onlysmokesnics.livejournal.com - 2009-10-29 12:24 (UTC) - Expand

Raven...really didn't want to answer this one, considering what she had done in Briarwoods.

"Kill him," Rose answered. "You don't hesitate."

There would be a time in the next year or so when Rose wondered why she never really learned that particular lesson, yes.

"No," she said, "because if you kill him, you've become as bad as him."

"Is that true?" Karla asked. "What if by killing him you're saving tens or hundreds or even thousands of innocent lives? What if you know that he's hurt and broken and destroyed the lives of others and now you have the chance to make it right? I think the 'why' you are killing him is more important than the 'are'. Killing someone for pissing you off is wrong," which was why the Blood had Protocol, really, "but killing someone to protect other or to bring about justice is good and right."

"I disagree," Maron said, frowning. "If you are going to call a death justice then there is cause enough to allow the law to handle it--let you be the one to bring it to their attention, but allow the law to administer the punishment rather than lowering yourself to the level of a murderer."

"The why doesn't change the how. If you do it outside of the law then you are a murderer. Vigilante justice causes as many problems as it solves; no one wins when you protect others through violence and unlawful means."

"First, you're assuming the law is always right and on the same side of the law as justice," Karla countered. "If this Chancellor is evil as Professor Skywalker says, then there's no guarantee that justice and the law haven't already been perverted. So you do what you are supposed to and he goes free and continues his evil. Let's say later you capture him him again--will you just give him back, knowing that the scenario will just repeat itself? How long until you become part of the problem, since your actions lead directly to him being able to commit further depredations on the innocent without punishment?"

"Doing the right thing is never wrong," she said, glancing sideways at Karla. "Doing the moral thing isn't either. Even if people who govern the laws are corrupt, the laws themselves are not, and never are all of the people who deal with them. Taking things into your own hands, making yourself the 'god' of the situation--who are you then, to decide who lives and dies? how are you 'better' and 'able' to decide that? you're just as fallible as anyone else--a bad person will twist the law or ignore it."

"A good person will follow the law because the laws are done for a reason and that reason is to bring order to chaos."

"The big difference is that I was raised to believe that the moral thing is protecting those who can't protect themselves and to whom I am responsible for," Karla said. "His death accomplishes this. Handing him over to corrupt authorities does not. By my people's code, killing him is the moral path." She shrugged. "That may not be relevant for this scenario, but it's the position I'm arguing from. A good person will do what was necessary to protect the innocent and be willing to face the consequences of his or her actions. "

Re: Answer the discussion question: temperance

gods-gymnast.livejournal.com - 2009-10-29 13:11 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Answer the discussion question: temperance

life_inshadow - 2009-10-29 13:53 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Answer the discussion question: temperance

gods-gymnast.livejournal.com - 2009-10-29 14:09 (UTC) - Expand

This was the question that always got Karla in trouble. "My people have no laws against murder," Karla said very quietly. "Everything has a price and killing this male may incur a debt you may not want or be able to pay, but my people have no laws against it."

She raised her eyes to Anakin's briefly. "And some people deserve to die."

Succinct Katchoo was succinct. "Kill him," she said flatly, without elaborating further.

"I don't kill people," Bobby said firmly. "Can't speak for anyone else, but I don't. Hand him over to the proper authorities, yeah, but never kill."

"I couldn't kill anyone no matter what they'd done," he said, looking down at his desk and seeing his father. He'd only seen one Release but it was his own father and he'd never forget that. Knowing that so many other people had had the same thing happened just made it worse.

"Law and Justice seems like it would be the best way to handle someone who has broken so many rules but I couldn't kill him."

"In this particular instance, death might be too kind," Emma replied coolly. "There are other options than just killing someone or handing them over to a potentially corrupt justice system."

"No," Tara said firmly. "Life and death are huge things. You shouldn't mess with them unless there's no other option."

Edited 2009-10-29 14:02 (UTC)

"No," Francine said slowly. "Not in that situation. I don't even agree with the death penalty in this country. But there's people who... I don't even know if you can call them people anymore. I don't know what I'd do if you asked me the question about them."

"I could never kill anyone," Ellie said simply. "I'd turn him in to proper authorities and hope justice would find some way to prevail."

She wanted to be a doctor someday. She was meant to save lives, not take them.

"Only if it was necessary," Kyle said firmly. "If I could, I'd take him to my commanding officer. It's his place to decide, not mine, unless there was an immediate threat and no way to get him to where he needed to be."

"If my orders are to kill him, I do," Elena said, not sounding very upset by the prospect. "If my orders state he is to be taken alive, then I take him, so long as I'm assured that he's no longer a threat to myself or my partner, or our ability to deliver him intact."

If ShinRa wanted someone alive, it wasn't out of mercy or justice. They usually had a very, very good reason for wanting that person alive: information, torture, setting an example. Elena was not going to kill someone capriciously in that circumstance.

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