fandomhigh | Philosophy Classroom, office hours

Maia looks at Tara questioningly, she shifts in her seat uncomfortably. "Uh." She thinks for a few minutes. "I think if they were going to hurt someone I cared about. If there was no other option avaliable I mean."

Tara cocks her head, pressing the point but keeping her voice soft. "How badly would that hurt have to be for you to justify killing them? Death? Rape? Torture?"

Maia bites her lip thinking. "Um, I think torture or rape would, would be enough for me I think to want to kill someone. I think if they violated someone I cared about in any way really would justify it for me." Maia twisted her hands together slightly in her lap. "What would it take for you?" She said finally looking up into Tara's eyes.

Tara lets out a brief huff of laughter. "You know, you're the first person to turn the question back on to me." She thinks, closing her eyes. "I would kill to spare someone pain and suffering they stood no chance of recovering from. I would kill the torture victim, to release them, but I don't think I could kill the torturer. I would kill to save the life of someone I loved, but only if they had not provoked the attack. I would kill if I could guarantee that that death would be for the greater benefit."

Maia stayed looking at Tara. "Would you kill who did that to you?" Maia's eyes flicked to where she knew Tara's scar was. Maia returns her gaze to Tara's eyes barely breathing, treading carefully to keep Tara from being hurt.

Tara looks back into Maia's eyes, her own sad. "No. I would not."

Maia's eyes seem to blaze. "I would." She said simply, she was sorry to have been the reason Tara's eyes looked so sad. "He deserves it."

Maia sat quietly for a moment thinking back to the day in the park when Tara had cried. Maia suddenly felt awful for even questioning Tara. "I'm sorry Tara, I-" Maia cut herself off and just watched Tara. She remember the pain in Tara's voice in the park, the bits of words that she had spoken (http://www.livejournal.com/community/fandomtownies/168175.html?thread=5553135#t5553135) that didn't really make sense to Maia but made sense to Tara.

"No, sweetie," Tara shakes her head. "He didn't deserve it. He was angry, and scared, and lost. He needed help, not death." She drops her head, trying to find the words to explain.

"Maia, people don't just kill people. If it's not mercy, or self defence - there's still another reason. Killing them doesn't help them, and it doesn't help the person who does the killing. And once you've taken a life, it changes everything. Everything."

Maia looked sad, she had seen people over and over again killed in her dreams, in her thoughts, she did not know them and after a while she did not feel for them. She tried to picture Tara dying, Phoebe dying, her friends the people she cared about..

Maia shook her head. "I think, if someone killed somebody I loved and cared about, I don't think I would think about the consequences I would just want to kill them for causing me to lose someone I loved. I would not care about their reasons." Maia had not taken her eyes from Tara. "The man who killed you, someone killed him for what he did to you?"

Tara nods, setting her jaw. "Yes, Maia. Someone did. And in the process, she destroyed everything I loved about her. She died when she killed him, and left someone I don't know walking around in her skin."

She sighs, rubbing her hands over her face for a moment. "What you're talking about it revenge. It's for you, not for your loved one. You can't bring them back, you just want to visit pain upon pain. It's a normal human reaction, but there's nothing noble about it."

Maia frowned slightly. "I don't think I would be able to let someone live that did that Tara." Maia looked sadder. "Does- does that make me evil? That I would not care their reason, that if someone right now would walk in this office and shoot you I would take their gun and kill them without even giving it a thought? Does revenge make me evil?" Maia had a worried edge to her voice now.

Tara shakes her head. "We talk about good and evil in class, Maia, but I'm not sure evil really exists. But it doesn't make you good, and I wouldn't thank you for it. I mean, I'd be dead - again - so I couldn't thank you, but I wouldn't if I could. And you should give it a thought." She sighs. "Maia, have you ever killed before? Deliberately ended a life, even an animal's life?"

Maia looked sad at the thought of even a hypothetical situation in which Tara would be upset with her. "No I havent actually." Maia looks thoughtful for a moment as though weighing something out. "No I havent deliberately ended any life." She looks up at Tara "Have you?"

Tara nods. "I have. Just once. There was a demon trying to kill my girlfriend. I stuck an axe through its back. I'd do it again - its life meant nothing next to hers, even though I'm sure it had a family that loved it and a partner who would mourn for its death. But it changes everything, Maia. There's an innocence that is taken away, and you can't get it back."

Maia looks surprised at this revelation and Tara's reasoning. "So even though you would lose that innocence and know that it changes everything, you would still do it." Maia says more like a statment then a question. "Just like I wouldn't think twice about protecting someone I love or have revenge on something that hurt someone I loved." Maia ponders this for a few moments. "Is there a difference then in my feelings and yours?"

"For me, yes." Tara shrugs. "There's a difference between acting to save a life, and taking revenge for something that's already happened. Whether your loved one is dead or just hurt, it doesn't benefit them for you to take revenge. That's a purely selfish reaction."

Maia rubs her face for a moment thinking about everything Tara was saying and weighing it all in her mind. It made sense but she knew deep down her reaction would be to want to hurt the person who hurt one of her loved ones. "What if-" Maia stops then nods knowing that no matter what avenue she stated it, it was still selfish. Maia sighed. "What if you save one life and lose another and you save that life knowing the other person will die because you have done that. Is that selfish as well?"

Tara cocks her head, thinking. "It's a horrible thing to have to decide who lives and who dies. Is it selfish? I guess that depends on why you make the choice you make."

"Simple you base the choice on the fact that you save the one that you love and the other person is a total stranger." Maia said matter of factly.

"Then yes, that's selfish. The total stranger has people who love them, too."

Maia sat staring bewildered at Tara. "But you killed something to save someone you love and would do it again...Do you classify that as selfish as well?"

Tara nods, smiling sadly. "Yes, Maia. I do. I didn't do it because it was right, or because I weighed the value of one life against another and found my lover's more worthy. I did it because in that moment, there was no other choice for me. Because I didn't want to live in a world without her. That's selfish." She shrugs. "Everyone has moral limits, Maia. That was mine. It didn't matter whether it was right or not; I couldn't stand and watch her die."

Maia smiled back looking a little relieved. "My limit was seeing Diana get shot protecting someone." Maia glanced down at her hands. "I told her not to do it because I couldnt stand losing the only mother I've ever really known." Maia shrugged. "That was selfish and I struggled with it a long time not telling her what I saw but finally in the end, I couldn't lose my mother you know." Maia looked back up to Tara, "I couldn't stand to watch her die either." Maia finished with a sad smile but there was not regret in her eyes. "Are there any more questions for the classes I've missed?"

Has Maia answered all the questions? I do enjoy the questions a great deal they are very interesting. Cant wait for Maia to enjoy another ethics class. *grins*

*facepalm* Sorry, I totally lost track of that thread. Yes, she's all caught up. *grin*

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Philosophy Classroom, office hours

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