Values/Ethics in WC

[Delance]

In short, merely acknowledging that someone performing an evil act actually believes he's doing something good is not the same as using his beliefs to justify his act. And such an acknowledgement does not in any way imply the non-existence of the concepts of good and evil.

Not exactly, Quarto. I understand what you are trying to say, but my point was slightly different. Either one believes there is an objective "good" and "evil", or that all concepts of "good" and "evil" are subjective, hence, perhaps, meaningless. To explain or justify that someone did something because they have a specific notion is an entirely different thing.

The point I was reaching at is that moral relativism claims there is no such thing as an objective good and evil, and that it's all relative to the eye of the observer. The natural conclusion is that, since there's no evil, you can't claim anyone is evil. But that's another thing.

Dund, if you claim the moral relativist argument is fasle, you are kind of making my point. It's supposed to be. And it was on a similar line of the kind of rethoric normally used by moral relativists when defending their points.

 

[Quarto]

The point I was reaching at is that moral relativism claims there is no such thing as an objective good and evil, and that it's all relative to the eye of the observer. The natural conclusion is that, since there's no evil, you can't claim anyone is evil. But that's another thing.

Yes, right, but the point I was reaching is that your point about cultural relativism is kind of irrelevant here, because the person you were talking to didn't seem to be engaging in any kind of cultural relativism .

 

[Edfilho]

I don't think that there's much to debate about WC1-3. They make it clear time and again that the war was inevitable and that the Kats wanted it at any cost.

Concerning the T-Bombing of Kilrah: It is also made clear by the game that it was an ultimate necessity. If you shoul fail to rescue Severin or test the bomb, mankind simply loses the war and is probably wiped out.

It is in WC4 and Priv - as menitoned above - that the situations gets complicated. We go from the most basic necessity to survive - against an outside inevitable aggressor - to stuff like personal profit and curiosity (in Priv) and shady political maneuvering from dark forces inside Confed's structure.

The thing in WC4 is that even though your goals are clear - you must stop the conspiration and avoid a bloddy war - the MEANS you'll employ to reach that goal can be quite opposed in the ethical scale. And, as I said above, we get to see the CONSEQUENCES of the choices. Like a Space Fallout. Therein lie the true ethical conundrums of the WCU.

I won't go much into the books, because we can't choose anything in them and therefore they show us only one of the possible paths.

Many games try to convey the sensation of ethical relevance, including several RPGs and things like Black & White. Very few actually reach that goal.

 

[Moonsword]

Hobbes is a traitor and a threat to the mission. Under military standards, he is a valid target and needs to be eliminated. Vengeance, in this case, is a nice side bonus, but the real truth of it is that Blair has to kill him because he is attacking Blair to prevent Blair from attacking Kilrah.

That, under most rules of engagement, is not only not illegal, but necessary. Even the Vietnam War acknowledged that particular reality and those were some of the most restrictive rules of engagement in history.

Speaking as a historian, I have to make this point: very, very few people believe themselves to be evil. Hitler did what he did because he thought it was the right thing to do. I am emphatically not condoing what he or any other dictator has done, but people do what they do for their own motivations.

Neither did Tolwyn view himself as evil, in some ways. He knew what he was doing was wrong. He also thought it was necessary. That the ends justified the means. I feel that is completely wrong, that there are some objective standards of behavior. The conspiracy was a tragic means to an end. Stopping is a clear goal, but you can do it through a variety of means. Some of them are better than others.

 

[Edfilho]

...And that was just my point

 

[Moonsword]

I was actually responding to someone else, further up, not you, Ed. Probably should have made that clear.

 

[Dundradal]

Yes, right, but the point I was reaching is that your point about cultural relativism is kind of irrelevant here, because the person you were talking to didn't seem to be engaging in any kind of cultural relativism .

Thank you.

Cultural Relativism is, "the concept that the importance of a particular cultural idea varies from one society or societal subgroup to another, the view that ethical and moral standards are relative to what a particular society or culture believes to be good/bad, right/wrong"

I was not discussing CR, I was focused more on biological/environmental differences between species. As of yet, humans are the only species that we know of to exhibit a complex culture. Some primates (notably chimps) exhibit what some can argue to be culture, although it can be said that they are also just exhibiting learned behaviors.

 

[Nemesis]

Either one believes there is an objective "good" and "evil" . . .

What would you call such a state of mind exactly–an “objective subjectivity”, or a “subjective objectivity”? Just curious.

. . .or that all concepts of "good" and "evil" are subjective, hence, perhaps, meaningless.

Please don’t confuse relativism with nihilism.

 

[Delance]

Yes, right, but the point I was reaching is that your point about cultural relativism is kind of irrelevant here, because the person you were talking to didn't seem to be engaging in any kind of cultural relativism .

Yes, but I had a broader point was about moral relativism, which was made even before that message, and is fairly relevant to this thread, or any discussion about ethics.

Please don’t confuse relativism with nihilism.

There's a pretty strong case that they very similar. If everything is meaningless, there's no good or evil. Also, if there's no good and evil, things tend to start to get pretty meaningless.

Speaking as a historian, I have to make this point: very, very few people believe themselves to be evil.

Excellent point. Since everyone can pretty much think themselves as "Good" from their POV, then you really can't claim anyone is evil. Therefore, good and evil don't exit.

Debates like this tend to go in circles, but it gets down to this.

It comes down to this: You either choose to believe good and evil exist - and that you can choose between them, or you don't.

This doesn't mean every situation is black and white. Ella, on WC4, isn't. You bomb civilians to save millions, or you risk everyone's lives. There’s not a clear cut right answer.

 

[Moonsword]

Delance, would you please not ignore the rest of my post in favor of the part that supports your argument? That, both as a scholar and as a person, I find exceedingly annoying and in poor taste in a serious discussion.

If you read the fourth paragraph, you see that I share views with *you* on the subject of objective standards of behavior.

My point was solely that to understand the actions of people, we have to look at their motivations and beyond our own judgements of what they did. Many of these motivations are from a warped if not outright perverted world view, but most people believe they are good. I never said anything about the moral validity of those motivations beyond some criticism, and severe criticism of the actions of the two provided examples. In the discipline of history, as well as others, understanding 'why' can often be as if not more important than 'what'. Do not read more into this than that. That's all there is. Period. End sentence, end paragraph.

I happen to agree with your overall point that there is an objective standard of behavior. This was a criticism of the methedology involved in arriving there.

 

[Nemesis]

There's a pretty strong case that they very similar.

And yet still not the same apparently. So please stop using them that way. (And in fact, they are not “very similar”.)

If everything is meaningless, there's no good or evil.

Nor, perforce, would there be any functioning (human) brain.

Also, if there's no good and evil, things tend to start to get pretty meaningless.

Yeah, because those proverbial shades of grey are just a “dead zone” when it comes to things like ethics, values, judgment, etc.

No, wait . . .

 

[Delance]

Moonsword, that part my post was not really about anyone in particular. I didn't mean to imply you held that position, or that I was not reading more into anything. If it looks that way, it wasn't supposed to. I was not really disagreeing with you, and that's why I said you made an excellent point.

You also made a good point with the problematic of ends justifying means. It's easy to agree that a reasonable mean, like defeating Seether and flying to Earth, and possibly breaking some senate regulation, justify the overall end of stopping Towlyn's plan. But it gets trickier for the good guys on situations like Ella.

And yeah, it's clear Tolwyn didn't saw himself as evil, even if, on some level, he felt he was doing what was necessary. But at some point he's quite enthusiastic about the prospect of separating the wheat from the chaff, so there's an indication he felt that was a good thing.

 

[Delance]

And yet still not the same apparently. So please stop using them that way. (And in fact, they are not “very similar”.)

Even tough they are not the exactly the same, they have similarities. Moral relativism claims there are no moral rules correct for everyone, since each one have their own set of rules, which is right for them.

Nihilism claim there's no moral rules at all.

Both claim there's no objective set of moral rules. Both maintain there's no good or evil for everyone.

Both positions simply cannot classify the Kilrathi as evil. Nihilists can't because they don't beleive "evil" exists, and Relativists because the Kilrathi were not evil by their own standards.

Even someone who claims that moral relativism is "true" can state this. It's amusing when someone defending moral relativism try to impose the inexistence of objective truth as an objective truth.

Yeah, because those proverbial shades of grey are just a “dead zone” when it comes to things like ethics, values, judgment, etc.

There can be no shades of gray, plural, if there's no good and evil. Gray is composed of both good AND evil on different proportions. If there's none, then there's just one shade of gray.

 

[Bugrof PizzAnt]

Another means of classifying gray would be to say that a "Gray action" is actually comprised of multiple similar yet distinct actions; some of which are black and some of which are white.

To give an oversimplified version and common example:

Is it Ok to cut someone? No (Black).
What if you are a doctor performing an operation? Yes (White).
What if you are in a concentration camp, performing an experiment on an unwilling subject? No (Black).

etc.

Thus you can end up with an action being considered gray, but can actually be classified into smaller situations or circumstances which can individually be classified as white or black respectively.

 

[Quarto]

Yeah, because those proverbial shades of grey are just a “dead zone” when it comes to things like ethics, values, judgment, etc.

Without black and white, there ain't no gray.

 

[criticalmass]

Well, maybe we should take a step away from the theoretical thinking - because if we prove that there ain't no good or evil, no black and white, then I will stop to bother if I need to switch on my headlights in the evening.

Can we collect some facts? I'm not the canon specialist (sublime call going out to Loaf, Chris, Hades... - anyone not mentioned please call my lawyer), but maybe we can shed some light into the conundrum if we analyze the fictional facts.

Human culture in the 27th century is, more or less, based on what we have - and given that WC rather builds on a Western culture, it goes down to the moral concepts laid down in something like the 10 commandments: Don't kill, don't cheat, don't steal, don't bulldoze your way over others, respect your elders, and try to solve conflicts without violence. Everything above that is considered "bad", although necessary under certain circumstances (war), but even then there is still the personal conscience to overcome (take Archer in WCA).

Kilrathi culture (and here I start to walk out onto thin ice) cis based on the teachings of Sivar, so there's also a spiritual/cultural base to it. But Sivar teaches different things: Personal success is above everything, and the means are violence, cheating, killing anyone who's in the way, dominating anyone who is clever enough to submit. In addition, there is the clan system that regulates civil war breaking out all the time. Compassion, surrender, mercy etc. are regarded as weak, and therefore as "bad" - and there are no general circumstances that allow to go that path of action. But for personal decisions, it seems the other way round - and I'd like to take Hobbes as an example. He turned away from the action of his people because his personal interpretation regarded them as "bad", but he turned back to them when his homeworld was in danger, because his personal morals now regarded the humans, and even his best friend, as "bad".

And I won't say much about the Nephilim, because I don't know anything. Just somewhere earlier in this thread, somebody said that the humans are the only culture we know of to have built complex social structures; and I thought, 'well, disregarding insectoid cultures, it's true'. Here we have an insectoid culture - whose value systems we can only guess at.


So, who's bad? My personal value system would point towards the Kilrathi and Nephilim, because their actions are "bad" in my eyes.
But what is the WC Universe telling me then? There are evil forces afoot, and you'll need to be prepared to react anytime, strike back at the first aggression, stick only to people I know and suspect everybody else? Hmm, my little moral guidance system says, I can see some Kilrathi traits in there...

But maybe these facts all got jumbled in my mind and somebody can help me figure them out. And again: I'm not trying to be a cultural relativist, whatever negative connotation this may carry at the moment.

 

[69sofine]

Values? Ethics? Its a SPACE SHOOTER, point shoot Kill. If a wingman pisses you off, kill him too

 

[Moonsword]

Values? Ethics? Its a SPACE SHOOTER, point shoot Kill. If a wingman pisses you off, kill him too

Shut up, please. This is a serious discussion on philosophy and the nature of morality.

Delance, I see your point now, and the reasoning behind it. My apologies for the misunderstanding.

Criticalmass, you just kicked over an ant hill...

 

[criticalmass]

Moonsword, sorry for any inconvenience - I have read posts up and down across the forum, and the topic has indeed been mentioned a couple times. Or a couple hundred.
But it was more a cursory remark here and there than a full discussion - and from the range of views we have accumulated so far, I'm impressed; and I have the notion that some people enjoy it... [which is to say: If everybody rolls over groaning and screams "stop it!", I'll be meek as marshmallow from now on and only ask questions about durasteel ]

As for 69sofine's commentary: Shows a totally different set of values for himself. And as for his new rank - our administrator have figured out that he's someone who's been banned before and now tried to get in again, with not very constructive intentions.

 

[Edfilho]

Criticalmass: Hey, there are no Bulldozers in the 10 commandments! Seriously, I think that the fact that the Kats have their reasons for murdering every other race in the galaxy doesn't make them less evil in the eyes of every other race in the galaxy...

I mean, whenever the ethical debate gets too academical, the simpler definition of good and evil is "doing something in the greater interest"/"doing something in the personal interest AGAINST the greater interest".

For instance: The kats did what they saw as "normal" and good: conquering, enslaving and killing all other species the met. Only that was not a good thing for those species, therefore we can see them as evil...

What I meant in the first place is that they're not disciples of some evil twisted god/sect like the Emperor is in SW. Palpatine is Evil and damn proud of it. The kats are evil (lower case) to everyone else, but they're just being "normal" at their own POV.

This subjective look does not mean that the Kilrathi are justified in their actions. And does not mean that they're nice guys.

The abovementioned Nazi example is also clear, Just because Adolf believed that he was acting in the best way to help the only true humans to reach their promissed reign over the earth, it doens't make him less evil to the rest of mankind.

Delance, you always seem too paranoid with this relativismVSnihilism thing... And your mix up lots of different stuff, like "there's no hierarchy between cultures" and "everything goes"...

I know how to make beatifull, well written posts, but I'm too hungry for that right now