#ethical debate

[myfandomrealitea]

what do you think of antinatalism?

I believe that like most controversial ethical topics, there is sense and nuance.

Some people are not suitable to be parents, for whatever reason. Circumstances, ability, compassion, ect. And some people are fit to be parents, but do not live in appropriate circumstances to become parents.

As humans we prioritise our "right" to do something over other contributing factors of an action or decision. Our "right" to become parents is often placed over the sustainability of it, or the quality of parenthood and childhood.

Not to mention the wider-scale issues like pollution, industrialisation and deforestation, burning through limited resources, ect. Other humans are the only species humanity deems it unethical to implement any form of population control.

(Unless you consider quote unquote PC conspiracies like poisoned medication, ect.)

Over-all i think its a fascinating debate. And its one that is a lot bigger than many people assume. E.g; how Governments would prefer to industrialize cheap new builds over restoring existing empty properties, and how fabricated inflation markets make something like parenthood or restoring properties disproportionately expensive.

We live in a world where old rich bigots are determined to force us to continuously reproduce but at the same time are ensuring we never have the ability to sustainably support ourselves.

I'm sure more of my personal opinions would be wildly unpopular to the radical crowd, but as an over-all outlook I find it compelling.

[not-mary-sue]

It's just my opinion but I think the abortion rights conversation be far more productive if we moved on from the debate of whether a fetus is a baby and focused on the question "should a person be forced to put their life and health at risk to act as life support for another?"

[princeescaluswords]

Can I ask what a realist is? You've described theo as one and I tried looking it up but the definitions are going right over my head, so I was wondering if you could help?

I described Theo as a realist because he described himself as a realist. This is his line from The Last Chimera (5x11):

Theo: I'm not the bad guy, Stiles. I'm just a realist. I'm a survivor. If you knew the things that I know…

But to be fair, in my opinion, he is not actually a realist. He, like many other villains both in fiction and in real life, is in my view a pessimistic fatalist. Of course, I'm going to have to explain what I mean by this.

A realist evaluates events and probable outcomes by analysis of observable factors. To ground it in a common scenario, if there is a battle against hostile forces approaching, the realist will examine how many members each side has, what supplies they have, what the external environment has, the respective training each side has received, and even their morale before predicting an outcome or planning a strategy.

What a realist doesn't take into account are things such as the morality of the outcome. This doesn't mean that they won't have an abstract goal in mind, but they don't believe that those abstract goals, on either side, will have an impact on the outcome of the battle. Virtue, in and of itself, doesn't matter to success or failure, and the ethics of the tactics employed are irrelevant. Again, this doesn't mean that these things are unimportant to the realist; it simply means that they don't think they affect the outcome.

The audience can see why Theo thinks he is a realist; he believes he is aping his mentors. As he tells Donovan in Condition Terminal (5x04), "you see, these guys, they believe in numbers." And he certainly talks about practical decision making, such as when he mentions allying with the Soviets in WWII to Scott and Stiles in Amplification (5x15), persuades Malia to let him help her in The Sword and the Spirit (5x14), negotiates with Deucalion or betrays Tracy in Apotheosis (5x20).

But he really isn't. In my conception, a pessimistic fatalist is an individual who assumes that the outcome of any event or scenario will be the most negative possible unless measures are taken to prevent it. It's very popular among villains and antagonists because it can cloak wicked actions as moral rectitude: "we have to do what's necessary." For example, individuals who think this way always go for the kill, because that's the only way for them to assure a positive outcome. To them, any consideration of ethics is suicidal foolishness; ruthlessness is required for survival.

This isn't realism. A realist won't assume that all possibilities that cannot be controlled will tend toward the worst result, and thus does not include that perception in their evaluation of events. A realist doesn't dismiss the possibility or effectiveness of, for example, negotiation if it conforms to other measurable factors.

Theo believes that things will always end badly unless he makes them end well. That's how Deucalion is able to deceive him into disregarding the usefulness of Belasko's talons, because there is a possibility that the talons wouldn't work, and so Theo assumed that they wouldn't. That's why he kills Tracy after she suggests that they take a few days to recover, because throughout the range of possible actions he could take, killing her for her power and to restore himself is the most ruthless. He can't consider that he might get another chance with Tracy's help because he is not thinking realistically, he's acting on the idea that he's already lost control and thus the worst possible result is destined to occur.

Theo's story isn't the first time that pessimistic fatalists have become villains on Teen Wolf. Derek's villain arc in Season 2 is entirely fueled by this perspective, look at the exchange with Scott on the lacrosse pitch in Venomous (2x05). Scott was wrong in his analysis of why both Lydia and Jackson survived and didn't turn, but the facts remain the facts. Derek doesn't know why this happened, and one of them may be the kanima, and a realist wouldn't plan strategy on what they don't know. But Derek is motivated by fear, not reason, and when he ends up shouting "I can't let her live!" even though he has no rational basis for that decision, he's exhibiting pessimistic fatalism.

Scott McCall, on the other hand, isn't a realist either. He's what I like to call an optimistic pragmatist. He does allow concepts of right and wrong to influence his decision making, but he does it without denying objective reality. That's why he's willing to replace Gerard's medication with mountain ash as a fail safe in case he can't stop Gerard from forcing Derek to bite him. It's why he's willing to work with the Alpha Pack to stop Jennifer, because "I don't think I can stop her without them." It's why he plants Deucalion in Theo's camp, and why he uses the dead bodies of the deputies in an attempt to save Jiang and Tierney. There were more practical decisions in each of those scenarios, decisions a realist would have taken, but Scott will not reject his core principle that all life has value.

It is this optimistic pragmatism that makes Scott less popular than he should be with the fandom, because pessimistic fatalism tends to be a very popular point of view, especially in power fantasies. When confronted by enemies, many can only see the worst possible result, and so, to them, the only rational response to a threat is war-to-the-knife, lethal and final force. That's why it often appears in fan-fiction that the author has their mouthpiece despise Scott for giving "second and third" chances to their enemies, even though these are enemies that Scott has beaten repeatedly. For example, a realist would see that is Scott has out-thought and out-fought Gerard repeatedly, then there is a chance that he will out-think and out-fight him again. They would not automatically jump to the idea that it's only a matter of time before the threat of Gerard destroys them all.

I hope this answers your questions. Feel free to ask follow ups.

[scripttorture]

Hi! Do you think it would be unrealistic/problematic for a guard in a prison where torture is practiced to be nice to/try his best not to harm a particular prisoner (someone he used to know and admire in the past who is now - years later - in prison for his involvement in a rebellion)? The guard is still quite conflicted about it, thinks the rebels are Bad and deserve to be arrested/tortured and treats the other prisoners badly. [1/2]

[2/2] Even with the prisoner he knows he mostly does small things that don't involve any risk on his side like giving him extra food, and refuses to talk to him/is overall more concerned about the internal conflict and guilt this is causing him than the guy's wellbeing.

-

So let’s start with a bit of a disclaimer that I think is relevant here: unrealistic doesn’t necessarily mean something is torture apologia or otherwise problematic.

 The problem at the moment isn’t that fiction is unrealistic. It is OK for fiction to be unrealistic.

 The problem is that we’re in a situation where accurate information is hard to find and fiction which is unrealistic in ways that support torture is presented as realistic.

 I will always talk about how realistic something is because I think it’s important to understand the reality when we’re talking about complex, emotive topics like torture. You need that understanding to choose when to break with reality.

 There isn’t anything wrong with fiction being unrealistic. If it’s unrealistic and torture apologia then… yeah I don’t think it’s a good idea to write that. But not all breaks from reality are going to support torture.

 I did a review of Persona 5 a while back and I talked about the fact that the characters all recover from abuse much much more quickly and positively then people do in real life. That’s in the context of a story that’s focused on the positives; on the fact that survivors go on living and can live good, fulfilling lives. There’s nothing dismissive about that message. It’s a fantasy, but it’s a fantasy that’s in favour of the survivors.

 It isn’t entirely clear from the context if this character is a torturer. I’m assuming that he’s not and he’s turning the other way on torture rather then directly torturing anyone.

 But those are two very different scenarios. The chances of a torturer holding back or trying to be ‘kind’ because one of the prisoners is someone they knew is… vanishingly small. It’s unrealistic. And I think that could easily be incredibly problematic. Because it implies a level of control, compassion and self reflection that torturers just don’t demonstrate.

 It also ignores the fact that torturers don’t function in isolation. There is considerable pressure not to show any mercy or kindness. And since that ‘pressure’ is coming from other torturers it can mean anything from workplace bullying to violent reprisals.

 For a guard in this situation who isn’t a torturer I think it’s complicated but not necessarily impossible. It’s still pretty unrealistic/unlikely, but it has happened in very rare instances.

 I’ve talked a little about the kinds of sub-cultures torturers create in organisations before. The brief version for the sake of this story is that they act like arrogant wankers. They tend to have a very inflated sense of their own self importance and they tend to believe (or at least claim) that they’re the only people ‘doing real work’ in the organisation.

 And that means they can be very dismissive of ordinary guards or cleaning staff and the like. They tend to see them as weaker, less worthy people.

 This has the advantage that a lot of the stuff these people do can fly under the radar. Torturers seem to spend less time with them and scrutinise them less then other torturers. So they can ‘get away with’ behaviour that might get a torturer beaten by their co-workers.

 Generally I think the approach you’re describing sounds in keeping with the attitudes/culture inside these types of organisations. There’s an edge of self-centred-ness to this guilt that feels very true to life.

 And that more then anything else makes me feel like this idea is worth attempting. Perhaps even if the character is actually a torturer.

 Because it sounds to me like you’re trying to tackle the messy complexity of people… trying to balance the things they’ve been taught by society (in this case that the victims deserve torture) against the natural, innate human empathy that’s wired into their brains.

 I think that’s worth writing about. It is at the very least worth the attempt.

 It will probably be difficult and it might not work. Because it’s messy and complex.

 But it sounds like a very different take on a popular fictional scenario. Not a redemption story but a story about why people continue to make decisions they know are wrong and how they try to justify that.

 The big thing to watch out for is whether the narrative ends up excusing this character’s actions. That’s something that’s a lot easier to judge from the finished story then it is from a summary. From your question and summary I can see it isn’t what you intend. Execution makes a difference though.

 My advice would be to try it. Find a writing group (a lot of them have moved online) and a group of people you trust to give you good feedback on how your work is coming across. Be prepared to do a lot of editing. Be prepared to have to change elements or characters that aren’t working the way you want them to.

 You might get partway through and decide it is straying in to apologia. You might get to that point and not see a way to fix it.

 Take breaks. Stepping away from a story for a while can sometimes make it easier to see a solution.

 And if you get to the end and decide it didn’t work that is OK. Not everything we write works and not every idea comes out the way we’d hoped.

 It’s still worth the attempt. Because even if this story doesn’t work you’ll have learnt a lot that will help as you write the next story and the one after that.

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[space-dorks]

Ethical Debates, what's your stance?

In Voyager, season 5 episode 8, Nothing Human, an alien attaches itself to B'elanna in order to keep itself alive. In a desperate attempt to save her, the doctor summons up a recreation of a Cardassian exobiologist to offer his knowledge on the situation. The doctor is horrified to find that this Cardassian was Crell Moset, who experimented on and basically tortured people as his research. The violent repulsion of his Bajoran crew mate brings up the question of how to handle the simulation. A lot of the Maquis crew demands it be destroyed. The hologram itself does not contain any information about the crimes committed by the man he was based on. I find my mind returning episodes where characters push on, saying that if they give up, those who died for the objective would have died for nothing if it is not completed.

What do you think? After so many died at the hand of this monster to discover new treatments, would it make more sense to use those treatments for good? Or will those deaths mean more as a statement against unethical treatment of other human beings, destroying any good that comes from that type of behavior?

[tardis-to-bakerstreet]

Abortion from my ethics teacher

I'm too tired rn to even deal with this. Three more exams to go. Tumblr can have it's fun while I try and remind myself the world can be good. I'm not even going to add the replies in my discussion bored because if I cried I don't want to pass that along.

"K--, you have presented only one side of this issue. You have ignored the main brunt of the ethical issue surrounding abortion: responsibility. The sexual act is specifically designed for procreation. To engage in this act is to consciously desire procreation. To engage in the act merely for recreation shows a callous disregard for both human life and for the necessary partner in the action. When you argue that the woman is burdened by the result of her (and her partner’s) passion, you ignore that the woman put herself in the position of possibly becoming pregnant. This is what you have not addressed.

I can see that you are quite adamant about a woman having control over her own body. But the whole point of ethics is that we are not here as an island unto ourselves, but we are part of a community. When you say that this is only an issue for the one woman involved, you are ignoring the rest of her society: the man with whom she freely joined; the infant that the two of them gave life to; the parents of both the woman and the man; and the larger social group of which they are members. What role does the larger social group have? At the very least, if the woman kills her child, the group is lessened; the group is scandalized by the cheapening of life; the young people see that their own lives are of less value by this very act.

If you want logic, then let this logic sink in: human life in all its forms must be held sacred, or else human life in any form is no longer sacred.

At the very least, Katelyn, address the issue of responsibility: if one freely engages in an act which in all likelihood will bring about such and such a result, what responsibility does one have for the consequences?"

[princeescaluswords]

Peter said he wasn’t a bad uncle to Derek, and yet we saw otherwise. Gerard said he went to meet Deucalion under the guise of peace, and yet we saw otherwise / Just like when Scott said that he wanted to protect the chimeras because they were innocent victims but them plotted with Deucalion to assassinate Josh and Tracy just because their deaths benefitted him. Because not only is Scott a true hypocrite, but a true POS as well

Today, readers, we're going to talk about proof by assertion, an informal fallacy where an individual argues the same point again and again without providing evidence and without refuting counterarguments. The debater simply repeats the same statement again and again and again until either the other side gives up in disgust or exhaustion or the audience excepts the premise because the debater in question will not allow any other outcome.

It seems, on the surface to be particularly juvenile, but its merit as an unethical tool for achieving outcome should not be underestimated. In a space such as fandom, the easiest way to getting your way is to make sure that there are no opposing voices. Why get involved in answering your opponent's counterarguments when you can just shout them down like the sheep in Animal Farm: "Four legs good, two legs bad!"

This isn't the first time that the Asshole Anon has presented this ridiculous claim, one for which he can quote no scene and has no proof that the end goal of Scott working with Deucalion was to kill the chimera pack. And this isn't the first time I've listed the logical holes in this argument that are so big the Beast could run through it without ducking his head. Here is my summary of the counterarguments in Chimera Treachery Logic.

The sheer fraudulence of this argument is enormous, yet the most hilarious point is -- if by their repeated assertion they believe that any death that results from a conspiracy was intended by all the conspirators, Peter is guilty of trying to kill Derek in Smoke & Mirrors. Yet the Asshole Anon and their supporters will never admit that there is just as much evidence for that statement as for the one they made above, that is, none whatsoever.

The goal is to repeat it enough times until either I give up or it becomes another widely-held fandom absurdity such as Scott is a Bad Friend or Scott Never Listens to Stiles. The first alternative will not happen.

[scripttorture]

How much did the US govt know about torture not working in the early 60's? Information isn't the point here - convincing/coercing a rebellious superhuman raised since he was 3 to be a super-soldier to do as he's told is the goal. Military upbringing kept him cheerfully obedient for 20-odd years, but now the plot has hit the fan and he's killed several people in a bid to gtfo. So the brass is obviously freaking out. Would they have known torture was a Bad Plan? Or were we still figuring that out?

That’s a genuinelyinteresting question.

 I think it isn’t justabout the information that was available at the time but who would have accessto it and who would read it. It also depends on whether we’re talking about scientific data or anecdotal accounts.People have been saying torture doesn’t work for literally hundreds of years.But it’s only within the last 100 years or so that we’ve had systematicscientific experimentation back that up.

 There’s also thesignificant issue of whether anyone would listen to information they didn’twant to hear. There have been severalscientific studies which strongly suggest we as a species are very bad at listening to data thatcontradicts our strongly held beliefs.

 Which means that ifthese characters strongly believetorture is effective they will probably argue for torture whether they’ve seenevidence to refute their belief or not.

 And converselycharacters who strongly believe thattorture doesn’t work will argue against torture whether they have evidence ornot.

 Some of the experimentson sensory deprivation would have already been conducted by this time, but I’mnot sure how widely available the results were within the military. I’m notsure how much effective communication there was between high rankingindividuals across departments.

 There had been analysis of Soviet‘brainwashing’ techniques by that time, with the conclusion that the torturesused were not unusual and indeed had been used by the Chicago police force fordecades. I’m not sure how many people in the military will have had access tothat report though.

 And the report itselfis not exactly ‘anti-torture’ or even really saying that torture doesn’t work.Just that Russian torture at the time was neither unique nor unusual.

 What keeps coming tomind for me is actually medical ethics.

 One of the experimentsthat comes up in The Immortal Life ofHenrietta Lacks was doctors injecting live cancer cells from Henrietta intopatients without telling them what the injections were or why they were doingit. Doctors administering the injections were instructed not to tell patients and most of them went along with it.

 Until the headresearcher Southam made an arrangement with the Jewish Chronic Disease Hospitalin Brooklyn in 1963 to use some of their patients in his experiments. ThreeJewish doctors refused to inject anything in the patients if they couldn’t tellthe patients what it was.

 They cited Nuremberg.

 When the hospitalcarried on with the experiments the doctors sent a resignation letter to theirboss. And the papers.

 Now both Southam and the hospital director claimed they’dnever heard of Nuremberg.

 In 1963 two people at the top of their field in the US who were bothheavily involved in experimental research on humans said they had not heard of the only ethical guidelines forexperimentation on human beings. And otherdoctors backed them up.

 What I’m driving athere is that I’m not sure it matters for your story whether the researchexisted or not. Because there is a lot of precedent for people in positions ofauthority being unaware of or ignoring things they thought might be detrimentalto them.

 Which means that Ithink this question basically comes back to making a decision based on what’sright for the story.

 Do you want this character to be tortured? Andif so why? How would it affect the story you want to tell? Not just thecharacter or the plot or even the relationships between the characters but the mood and atmosphere of the story?

 How comfortable are youwith writing it?

 I don’t mean the gore.Gore is easy. How comfortable are you getting inside your character’s head whenthey are suffering? How comfortable are you getting inside a torturer’s head when they hurtingsomeone? Because believe me that is not a very pleasant thing to have floatingaround your brain for the days/weeks/months it takes to write something.

 How comfortable are youwith introducing something that would leave a mark over the rest of the book?Because done well, this isn’t just a one-off incident that the character canthen walk away from; it’s something that will affect them for the rest of thetime you write about them.

 Keeping in mind thatreferencing and having a conversation within the story about torture is verydifferent to using torture.

 It sounds like whateveryou pick that conversation is going to come up in your story. I’d suggestmaking it a debate and giving the audience some insight into who wants what tohappen and why. Whichever side ‘wins’ having the discussion in your story willprobably help the story.

 Going back to specificexperiments: Shalev references the isolation prison systems of the 19thcentury as providing clear evidence of the damaging effects of solitary confinement.I get the impression that the information was either not well known or ignoredin the US because solitary became a large and integral part of the US prisonsystem. This is despite the fact some of these historical prisons were in the US.

 Donald Hebb’s ethical experimentson sensory deprivation took place in the early 50s. Baldwin was discussingsensory deprivation with the CIA in 1955 and Lilly quit his work on sensorydeprivation in 1958 in part because of how CIA officials wanted to use hisresearch.

 So the CIA knew about the damaging effects ofsensory deprivation in particular in the early 50s but were still pursuingunethical experiments on the subject in 1958. Which does not, in my opinion, showa great ability to pay attention to results.

 The report on Soviet ‘brainwashing’by doctors H Wolff and L Hinkle began in 1953. It was handed in to the CIA in 1956.

 The Wickersham commission,a report on torture by US police, was conducted in the 1920s.

 I do not know howwidely available the CIA reports would have been to the US military. They don’tseem to have been public knowledge in the 60s but high ranking militaryofficials might have been able to read them, since I know very little about theway the US military works I don’t know.

 The Wickershamcommission however was public knowledge as were the reports by individualisolation prisons.

 So there were a good number of reports that yourcharacters could potentially reference and draw on for information.

 My suggestion? Have thedebate in the story. Have the military characters discuss whether they think ‘tougher’tactics would work, whether they’re ethical and whether it’s worth the risk. (Because it is a risk, they risk losing their supersoldier)

 Have the charactersdraw on the reports I’ve mentioned and have them draw on their own experience as well. Because the men you’re talking aboutwill probably remember the Second World War. Some of them will have been inEurope and seen the liberation of thecamps.

 Use that. You can getone helluva an emotional scene out of this, whether it leads to torture or not.

 I hope that helps. :)

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