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Ethics, Tuesday

There was no particular set-up this week; just your usual view of two grown men in robes the likes of which certain types of hippie would fight for. "A classic topic within the realm of ethics is the notion of the ends justifying the means," Obi-Wan said. "There are schools of thought that consider the means true as long as the end is just-- intention being more important than the actual consequence."

Anakin, who'd spent a lot of time with Atton recently, pursed his lips at that. "And then there are those who think that sounds like 'just think happy thoughts at the problem; instead of, you know, fix it."

Hard to believe this guy fell to the Dark Side, huh? Mmm, impulsiveness.

Was that a sigh? ... Yes, that was a sigh. Anakin.

"Or, at the other extreme, it might end in extreme and harmful actions taken for some hypothetical future gain," Obi-Wan said. "There is a middle road, of course: one can commit to some less than savory options for a common goal..."

"...and then deny ever having done so to maintain the moral high ground," Anakin finished, nodding.

...Obi-Wan turned to him and shot him a look. "No."

"So explain it to the class, Master 'I Faked My Own Death'," Anakin retorted.

"Are you still sour about that?" Anakin, really. Your ability to hold grudges... "Yes, I faked my own death. So I could disguise myself as a criminal and stop a Separatist plot that, we felt at the time, could cause immeasurable harm." He took a deep breath. "Anakin here is still upset because I didn't tell him, which is hardly the level of consequence I was attempting to describe."

Anakin rolled his eyes. "Every consequence doesn't have to have galactic ramifications," he said. "Hurting people's feelings is still a consequence you need to take into account." Another sour look Obi-Wan's direction. "Even if you didn't mean to."

"Your reaction is what sold my apparent death to the galaxy in the first place," Obi-Wan said. He shook his head before he got mired in this entirely. "...But, yes, let's discuss. Does intent ever excuse one's actions? Is there an end that justifies any means? If the answer to the first question is 'yes', and to the second is 'no', then how far do you believe someone may go and still remain in the bounds of the acceptable?"

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With the ends, or the means.

Will there ever be an ethics class without sniping again?

Does intent ever excuse one's actions? Is there an end that justifies any means? If the answer to the first question is 'yes', and to the second is 'no', then how far do you believe someone may go and still remain in the bounds of the acceptable? And if your answers are different, why do you think that way?

It was only one faked death, Anakin, come on.

The Obi-Wan-as-Rako-Hardeen episodes are some of the best Clone Wars has to offer, if you even remotely like these two knuckleheads.

Even so, Obi-Wan, that was a bit of a dumbass move, honestly, have you met Anakin?

All right, so in retrospect, that episode hadn't fostered a great deal of trust... but still.

Obi-Wan was there, observing the class.

Anakin was there too, ~~sulking~~ brooding behind his coffee mug. As you do.

Garik Loran

Face hoped not, it'd be kind of boring after all this.

Also despite being a member of the 'Faked Your Own Death' club, he was kind of on Anakin's side here.

Elsa of Arendelle

"I don't know if I would go so far as to say that intent excuses a person's actions," Elsa ventured. "If you're making a choice, a deliberate choice, and you've taken the time to consider the consequences before doing so, then you're still doing so knowing that there might be some damage along the way. Saying the end result excuses your actions almost sounds as though you're washing your hands of responsibility for the damage caused by the choices you made, just because something bigger turned out alright in the end."

She shook her head.

"I don't like that. Even if the end justifies the means, you're responsible for those means, and the damage caused. Nobody should get to pretend that they didn't break things along the way for the sake of some bigger picture. It's your mess. Go back and face the consequences of making it once the larger problem is out of the way."

"What if you don't know about the damage that happened?" Anakin asked. "Say your rebel alliance, oh, blew up a huge, planet-destroying weapon of mass destruction. Clearly this was a good thing, but you've now fled because someone is really, really ticked to have lost their weapon. Meanwhile, the bits of destroyed superweapon fall onto a moon's surface and destroy the ecosystem, but you're not there to see it."

"Being ignorant doesn't make me any less responsible for what's happened," Elsa pointed out. "That mess is still my mess. I caused that mess. I broke that ecosystem."

Funnily enough, Elsa would one day down the road become aware of an ecosystem that she sort of accidentally broke and ran away from without stopping to realize what damage she was causing, too.

She'd probably remember this discussion.

"A lack of awareness doesn't change the fallout of my actions. I'm still just as guilty of causing it." There was a pause, and then she added, "Though it's still good that the weapon is gone, of course. And in that particular case, I might consider holding those responsible for building a world-destroying weapon responsible for cleanup later, because who does that!?"

Anakin pressed his lips together and suggested, "Evil people?"

That he used to be. Ahem. Oops?

"I'm sure they'd get right on ecological damage control," he said dryly. "Or maybe just blow the whole thing up."

Karina Lyle

"I'm not expecting they'd do it out of the goodness of their own hearts," Elsa replied, just as dryly. "Somebody who creates something like that clearly has the intention of using it. But rebels generally rebel because they want to see justice. If they can't get in safely to clean up the damage themselves, then assuming those evil people are eventually taken to task, picking up the pieces again ought to be part of their punishment. I feel like that sort of person would have a lot of damage to pick up after, in the wake of something like that."

A beat, and then she lifted her chin a little.

"Though I'm certain whatever their end goal was, to them, it justified the means, as well. Evil people aren't terribly big on accepting responsibility for their actions, either. That doesn't make them any less at fault for it."

If Elsa had any idea that Anakin had been using a real scenario as an example here, she'd probably go crawl under her desk for a while.

"I don't think intent excuses peoples' actions once they're past, like, the age of six, maybe eight," Karina said. "After that, it can explain their actions and even re-contextualize them, but excusing them is... oh, I don't know, like going 'oh, sorry!' and laughing like that fixed everything when you made someone cry because you chose to stand them up to go out with someone else."

You know, to use less world-endingly terrible consequences here.

"Like, in that case, just suck it up and properly apologize and make amends, if they actually matter to you. If you don't, you're the jerk, and I definitely think that goes for bigger situations too. If you care about the consequences that happen because of your choices, then it's up to you to do something about them. I don't think saying the ends justified the means helps anything, except your own feelings, which aren't the important ones in the fallout because, for better or for worse, you're the one that made your bed and chose to lay in it. No one else got that option, or will get that option, until they make their own choices and have to deal with their own consequences."

Edited 2015-02-03 13:25 (UTC)

Goodness, Karina. If Elsa was any more modern, she might have attempted to solicit a high-five from you for that response.

As it stood, she was going to turn an approving smile in your direction and give a nod, instead.

"Leaving other people to deal with the fallout of your own actions and acting as though it doesn't matter just because the end result suits you is so... selfish," she offered. "We're all responsible for the choices we make, and it's up to us to be aware of the smaller consequences of our actions and to accept that we were the cause of those consequences, regardless of our final goal."

Well, hey, Karina was going to smile back.

"Yeah," she said, her smile turning a bit wry. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure we're all selfish sometimes and that all of us have screwed someone over, big or small, by making a choice and not giving full consideration to someone else. And sometimes full consideration is given and then we go ahead anyway. The thing is, if you do that, you can't get upset at them for being upset at you."

Ronan Lynch

"You can't expect other people to forgive and forget something you did, just because the end result was favorable, unless you're willing to take responsibility and try to repair the damage," Elsa agreed. "That isn't how people work, or it shouldn't be. I don't think anybody should have the right to tell me how I ought to feel about something that affected me, especially when I didn't have any say in what happened, myself."

She fully understood that her sister had every right to be upset at her for avoiding her for so long, even if it was to keep her safe, because avoiding Anna had still been Elsa's choice. She wasn't going to deny that the residual damage was there or that it was her own fault. She wasn't going to tell Anna to get over it.

That wasn't how it worked.

It really, really wasn't.

"Sometimes it'd be nice if it worked like that," Karina confessed. "Like, it's a pain in the ass dealing with people dealing with what you did. But, at the same time, they get that chance and that's a pretty important chance to have."

"What if you don't believe you did anything worth apologizing for?" Obi-Wan asked. (He wasn't talking about his own little spat earlier; this was purely hypothetical.) "In a situation where someone might consider the 'ends justifies the means' explanation, that person may believe there was no other way to do it. Can you make honest amends if you are certain you would repeat your actions?"

"In that case, from the other person's perspective, you're just a giant jerk," Karina said, shrugging a little. "And, if that doesn't bother you, carry on being a jerk. It just means that, even though you're fine with what happened that they don't have to be and expecting them to be isn't right."

"We can't deny it to other people and then expect to be given that chance ourselves," Elsa agreed with a little nod. "As much as I would like to always have my way without consequence, expecting that to actually be the case and then proceeding as if it was would be... horrible. It would be horrible."

What sort of queen would that make her?

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