fandomhigh | Ethical Dilemmas, Thursday, (Per 1)

Rather than teaching in a classroom this session, everyone in class had been instructed to make their way to the ~~creepy mansion in the woods~~ Professor Vess's home, and to follow the path around the house to the back, where a long glass room ran almost the full length of the house. This was where their class would be held from now on; at least until specified otherwise. It was not difficult to find their professor, she was in a wide open area with a number of different seating options arranged in a circle: a couch, several loveseats, a scattering of arm chairs (probably? none of them were murderous?), cushions and blankets, even a few hanging chairs, and a papasan or two. Look, there were sixteen of you, everybody should be able to find somewhere comfortable to sit. There were trays and tray tables, so people could help themselves to the breakfast charcuterie boards, courtesy of Professor Scientia, that were sitting on a low table in the middle of the circle, along with a selection of juices, teas, and (of course) coffee.

"Help yourselves and choose a place to settle," Liliana said. She was sitting on a chaise, though not currently reclining, stirring honey into her tea. She gave everyone a few more minutes to grab what they wanted and find a spot, and once people were squared away, began. "I am Professor Vess, and welcome to Ethical Dilemmas," she said. "I know that the first week is usually devoted to introductions, but we have far too much to discuss to waste an entire class period. Instead, this week I will be outline the structure of the course and explaining how I expect classes to go, along with a little bit of background and context that will make future classes go more smoothly." She took a sip of her tea and then set it aside.

"This class will generally be using the terms 'morals' and 'ethics' interchangeably, but there are differences between them. At its core, morality has to do with one person's beliefs about right and wrong. Morality is deeply personal, grounded in individual beliefs, experiences, and preferences. Since it is broadly subjective, morality is not necessarily determined by the behavior's impact on others, but on how it impacts your sense of self and identity. Ethics, on the other hand, are more practical, focused on maintaining fairness, safety, and accountability in collective settings. It's one community's rules of conduct, and often operates in a formal or professional context. Ethics emphasizes the consequences of behavior on others, organizations, or society," Liliana continued. "For example, in most of our interactions, if I lied to you, it might be considered immoral, but not unethical. If, however, I lied to you while selling you something from my store, then it becomes unethical. In that case, the focus is not on my own integrity, but what the consequences are for you, the customer. Morality looks inwards, ethics look out."

"I truly intend that to be the last time I provide you with simple facts and definitions for you to learn. As I hope was made abundantly clear by the setting, I am approaching this less as a formal class and more as a casual symposium. I am not attempting to teach you ethics, as hilarious as that idea might be. Instead, I will be positing a dilemma every week and then asking you what you would do--and also why you would do it, among other questions. My job isn't to tell you what a bunch of stuffy dead philosophers decided ethics are, but to facilitate discussion on what ethics mean in your daily life, how they've been formed, and what they mean. This is not a class that accepts tautologies; there is no 'this is the right thing to do because it is right' nonsense. You can come up with rules for yourself - this is the right thing to do because I believe X - but expect to be mercilessly questioned on the whys.

"Because of the way this class is - loosely - structured, I'm going to lay some ground rules. First and foremost, answer the scenario as given, not as you'd like it to be. Yes, yes." She waved a hand and rolled her eyes. "You're all impossibly powered and incredibly brilliant and, left to your own devices, you could easily solve the scenario and bring about a happily ever after. Wonderful, I'm very proud of you, and I will make sure there are gold star stickers by the door so you can grab one at the end of class. But solving these scenarios in not what this class is about. It's putting you in a terrible position and seeing how you respond when all of your options are bad. It's up to you to decide which of the given bad options you choose and why. Furthermore, the refusal to choose is also a choice, and you will be expected to explain why you chose not to make a decision.

"Now, our ethics and morals have been shaped by many things, including the societies we've grown up in, the political, social, and ethical structures that have shaped our lives, our general position in society, and our personal experiences. Most of you come from vastly different times and places, and have lived through incredibly different events. I expect there to be an array of answers to the scenarios I'm putting forward; if you all agree, I'm going to assume that you're all in some kind of expressed virtue-off and I'm going to be vastly annoyed. This brings us to the next rules two rules: I expect you to answer honestly, and to think about the answers you give, and rule number three is that you do not get to attack a person for their answers, regardless of how personally repugnant you may find their answers. Argue with their conclusions or their logic all you wish, but you will stop short of personal attacks. Honesty cannot exist where fear abides, and I care much more about someone's honest answers than I do your personal belief you get to sit in judgment."

Not that she wasn't saying there was anyone judgy in this class, but, you know, just in case there were.

"Now, a word about the scenarios. As I said, they are meant to put you in difficult and ugly situations. For some of you, these situations may hit uncomfortably close to home. If you find yourself emotionally compromised by a day's scenario, you're always welcome to leave the discussion, whether it's for a few minutes or for the remainder of the period. Lastly, my office hours are on Fridays, if you would like to discuss topics pertaining to class. Any questions or concerns thus far?"

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"It was punishment. And a reason for them not to do it again." Quinn shrugged. "I know I'm not better than them. There's something wrong with me." This was said very simply. A fact, and one that she was emotionally unattached to. "My friends, the other survivors, they found peace. And I'm happy for them."

She almost -- almost -- sounded like there might be happiness in her somewhere. (Maybe more like she wanted it to be there, somewhere.)

"That's just not what I chose to do."

"I'm not asking if you're better than anybody," Liliana said. "Darling, I don't have a personal stake in your emotional journey. I'm asking you to assign relative moral weight to these actions. Some people will argue that killing is the absolute worse thing you can do to a person, because it robs them of future growth and potential to change. Others will argue that death is not a particularly terrible thing, and that there are far worse actions you can take. Personally, I'm in the latter camp." A casual shrug. "But you say that people deserve to die who kill others for no good reason. But killing for good reasons is acceptable behavior? What about other avenues of considerable harm? Where do they fall? If you had to put them on a spectrum of 'badness', how would they be ordered?"

Quinn thought about that for a long moment.

“Convincing other people to do your killing for you, that’s the worst,” she decided. “Then killing for no good reason. Killing with reason isn’t great, but it’s not as bad. I think that’s probably about the same as permanently maiming someone. . . . I don’t know if ‘the ends justify the means’ is always true; but it’s definitely sometimes true.” She tilted her head. “And I’m not arguing that what I did the last year is good. It’s just what I needed to do.”

"I also have no intention of arguing what you did last year is good or not," Liliana said. "I don't know what happened, I don't know what you did, and I most certainly don't share the same ethics and morals as most of the rest of the class. But do tell me, why is convincing other people to kill on your behalf the worst thing?"

"If you think someone needs killing, you should have to do it yourself. Making other people do it is the coward's way out. You get to pretend to stay clean while corrupting the people around you. Poisoning your society."

"You keep returning to society and community," Liliana noted. "Do you think that harm done to a community is a greater sin than harm done to a single person? Simply because there are more people involved, or...?"

"It's a lot more people. And if you're part of the community, it's hurting yourself, too. And you're just --" Quinn didn't know terms like "social contract" -- she'd been a jock, before she ended up on the whole vengeance trip, and while she wasn't a bad student, classwork had never been her number one focus. "-- You're breaking a promise, I guess. People have to work together to survive. If you're able to talk people into doing something, you should use that for everyone's benefit, not just your own."

"So, to summarize, you believe that by joining a community, you're taking part in an implicit promise to assist one another - or, at least not be an active detriment? And people who are capable of convincing others to do great harm are actually worse than the people who do that harm, both because they are deliberately breaking that promise, and because they're proving that they could benefit the community with their skills but have chosen to do harm instead?"

Assuming she did have that right, her follow-up questions were very simple: "Where are the lines? How much must we do to benefit our community? How much can we do for our own benefit before we break our promise to it? You have said killing and convincing others to kill for no good reason puts you outside the acceptable standards of community, but what else?"

Quinn was getting very tired of this conversation, and it was starting to show just a little on her face.

"I don't know, I'm not in charge," she said. "People should just -- not be shitty to each other. You wouldn't think that's hard, but it is, and that sucks."

Welcome to class, Quinn.

"What does being in charge have to do with anything?" Liliana asked. "You are the one making these statements and therefore I'm asking you the whys and hows of your beliefs. People shouldn't be shitty to each other is a nice beginning, sure, but when everybody has a different idea of what 'shitty' means, it quickly falls apart. You think people shouldn't kill somebody for no good reason; well, most people feel fully justified in their reasons for killing. So you're using your definitions of what is a good enough reason to justify your own choices to kill. And, honestly, that's fine. That's what pretty much everyone does. They decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong and that is how they view the world. That is how they measure the behavior of others.

"But," Liliana's voice sharpened, "if you're going to have these morals and, more importantly, you're going to act upon them, then you have a responsibility to interrogate them. I don't care why you do something, but you should know. Right now, it sounds like the morals you live and kill by are vague and amorphous and mostly revolve around the things that happened to you. And that's not good enough. If you've decided you're willing to be judge, jury, and executioner, you owe it to your community to have a clear idea of what your morals are and why, so that you don't start assuming your whims are the same as your morals." She waved a hand. "Most of the people in this class will tell you murder is a slippery slope. I disagree. Murder without a clear ethos and praxis is. And right now, that is what you are lacking."

Quinn stared back at her, feeling her nostrils twitch in anger. "I didn't do what I did on a whim," she said. "And I didn't choose to be in this class. So I think I'm done answering questions today, thanks."

She was missing the public schools where she was able to just blend into the background. Or, well. She missed Kettle Springs High School, where her classes had ultimately had like ten people in them at the max, most of whom were too shy or quiet to have gone to the party where the massacre had happened, and they knew enough to leave the people who had gone and survived alone.

(She missed spending 90% of every day all alone in her car, not having to answer to anyone but herself.)

"I didn't say you did," Liliana said. "But you're kidding yourself if you think that righteously killing someone then means you will always do so. But that's your choice to make."

And with that, she moved on to grill someone else.

Ethical Dilemmas, Thursday, (Per 1)

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