fandomhigh | Ethics, Wednesday, December 18, 2019

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Ethics, Wednesday, December 18, 2019

"Welcome to your final, everyone," Anakin said, putting exam papers onto everyone's desk. "Of all of my many ethics classes, you have been one of them."

Thanks for that, Anakin.

"Enjoy your holiday break. Try not to be unethical now that you've had this course."

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Ready for the year to be over.

Nina Argentum

Tisarwat

Lana Beniko

Nell Ingram

Keyleth

A rebel who has threatened to explode several bombs in crowded areas has been caught. Unfortunately, she has already planted the bombs and they are scheduled to go off in a short time. It's possible that hundreds of people may die and the authorities cannot make her divulge the location of the bombs by conventional methods. In exasperation, some high level official suggests torture. This would be illegal, of course, but the official thinks that it is nevertheless the right thing to do in this desperate situation. What do you do and why?

a) Torture her to get the information. There's no time left to be reasonable.
b) Torture her and her family to get the information, then blow up her planet. If you're going to do something illegal, might as well be really, really thorough.
c) Continue working through the the legal structure of the judicial system and hope for the best.

Nina considered the question. Torture was, of course, an option but she really didn't think this warranted it… so she selected:

c)

and then under that added:

d) evacuate the public areas that were threatened/are most likely to have a bomb in them, obviously???????????????? and send out a city-wide warning so that everyone not in the area knows to stay away and those that who have no choice but to enter the area should be briefed on what to keep an eye on and have the military/police canvass the areas for security cameras as, like, one of them might have a clue to the bomber's movements!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lana shrugged and chose a. Obviously.

You have a friend whose homeworld has long since been embroiled in a civil war. The war has gone on for generations, and there appears to be no end in sight. However, your friend and some of their companions back home believe they can put a stop to it by getting in between the warring factions. Since you have powers or skills that they do not, they ask for your help. Do you intervene, despite having only one, biased, second-hand account of the war and what might be fueling it? Or do you refuse, and potentially abandon your friend to a very dangerous situation?

a) You go and fight. You're loyal to your friend, and don't want to see them or their world suffer. You'll sort out the complexities later.
b) You go, but you only provide support, such as setting up a hospital or attempting to mediate between the factions.
c) You try to reason with your friend. Are they sure they can simply fix something that has been broken for so many generations? Perhaps they need to take a step back and find another way to solve the problem.
d) You refuse to intervene at all. It isn't your fight.

Nina raised her eyebrows speculatively at Bus Dean since, like, that was sort of what she was doing?

Though she was pretty sure she had more faith in the war ending than anyone in Insomnia did. The war sort of just… existed to most people there. Like the wall around their city.

But this wasn't the time for a diatribe about that war.

e) you go and do your own damn research before you make up your mind

And, like, ladies didn't usually swear but she had opinions on this sort of thing.

A, Lana wrote, and investigate while I'm there.

You're involved in a conflict of your own. There's a time limit: if you don't do something quickly, the entire planet, or even galaxy, might suffer. But your mentor insists on stopping and helping every single lost soul he comes across along the way. Do you:

a) Support him in this: you should help on the small as well as the large scale, after all.
b) Go along with it, but make your disapproval very clear and try to speed things up.
c) Argue with him loudly and provide an incentive to stop doing it.
d) Abandon him and all of his lost causes and go save the planet yourself.

d) because it's important to save the individuals as well as the planet and if my non-existent mentor can save the individuals then that frees me to go and save the planet???????????????? it's not abandonment if I'm like 'hey, this is cool, but I'm going to go do this, okay????????????????'

It got more complicated than that, of course, but that was the gist of her opinion.

Lana sighed. B. There was proper hierarchy, and then there were limits.

One day, Zakuul might thank someone.

You're a part of an Order that wields great physical and mental power, which seeks to do good in the universe, and as a result, they have very strict rules about emotional entanglements. Yet one day, you meet someone who moves your heart deeply. What do you do?

a) you understand that the rules were designed as such for a reason, so you quit the Order before beginning a relationship with this person;
b) you understand that the rules were designed as such for a reason, so you quietly extricate yourself from the other party's life so you can focus on doing great good elsewhere;
c) you don't see the rules as having any value, and continue to quietly see this person on the side while continuing your work.

Oh. Hey. She recognized parts of this from Bus Dean's romantic love story!

d) challenge the system! when were the rules last reviewed and what was the situation at the time? is it feasible to rework them to allow for love????????????????????? Love is, after all, the most powerful force of all.

And Nina meant that last sentence. Meant it with every fiber of her being.

Lana rolled her eyes. Jedi, honestly.

D, she wrote. Join another order.

What particular vice or issue do you believe is your greatest stumbling block in making ethical choices? Do you consider this a 'bug', or a 'feature' in yourself?

She frowned at the last question. Frowned at it a lot. Normally she wouldn't, like, answer it with anything even vaguely approaching the truth but this was Bus Dean and he was her favourite teacher and, really, the closest thing she actually had to a mentor.

Pride and a combination of being selfish enough to think I know better and not being selfish enough to think my life is worth fighting for as hard as I'd fight to protect someone else's life.

And there were a lot of reasons for all of that but she wasn't going to write them down.

But. Hey. It was the truth. That was more than any other teacher would get out of her.

If you like to do that!

The comm tells me this is the 340th tagged Ethics post. That seems like a LOT.

One more semester of Ethics classes and you'll have an entire YEAR of Ethics posts!

... that's kind of terrifying, honestly.

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Ethics, Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Sign in 12/18

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Question #1

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Talk to Anakin

OOC

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