#ethics of ambiguity

[philosophybits]

It is only as something strange, forbidden, as something free, that the other is revealed as an other. And to love him genuinely is to love him in his otherness and in that freedom by which he escapes. Love is then renunciation of all possession, of all confusion. One renounces being in order that there may be that being which one is not.

Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity

[yandere-daydreams]

it's a philosophy final paper open in one tab, explicit getogojo smut loud and proud in the other kind of day babes. wish me luck.

[caliblorn]

Vastarie: I don't see why Galerion would not accept my field of 'ethical necromancy'.

Vanus: that guy just killed himself in front of me and all of your students.

[searchingforatrail]

AU where Rodimus steps into his power as a Prime and takes a leadership role in Cybertron when the LL returns. Megatron is not killed but by law must spend his days under the the 'imprisonment' or supervision of the highest power, which happens to be Rodimus.

It's a lot for both of them to take in. Rodimus feels guilty because there's a selfish part of him who wants Megatron to agree, but that agreement comes with the surrendering of all of his rights and freedom under Rodimus. And while Rodimus trusts himself, he also knows how hard Megatron has fought to be free. And he wonders what sets him apart from the people who enslaved other cybertronians to begin wtih.

It's difficult for Megatron because while he does not want to live, he knows he has the potential to do more good still alive. But it's such a cruel twist of fate for that to come at the cost of his freedom, and essentially being stripped of his rights under a Prime, again. But it's Rodimus, and he trust Rodimus enough to not abuse his power.

Long story short, they live and thrive together. Their union is not legally recognized, and legally their sparklings only have one creator and are seldom recognized as Rodimus's (though he is very, very open about them), but they all make it work.

Megatron also is able to make a small income as Rodimus's secretary because Rodimus still refuses to do paperwork.

[not-too-many-eyes]

I played Scarlet Hollow and my biggest takeaway is that I would do (most things) for Tabitha.

I'm doing it for her.

[esarkaye]

"To will oneself moral and to will oneself free are one and the same decision."

[creacherviolence]

I love horror stories centered around hubris.

Sure, hopping in a death trap and taking a slow joyride to the soggy depths of hell is arguably the fucking stupidest series of life choices possible. And sure, the majority of these men spent decades hoarding wealth and said wealth made them feel invincible. They disturbed an antique mass gravesite for their own personal enjoyment. And yet, there's this sort of cognitive dissonance surrounding the conversation.

In a work of fiction, the plot would be perfectly set up for them to "have it coming." It's got all the tropes. A dangerous, spooky setting at the bottom of the ocean. Rich men with little regard for human life. Hubris, in their own arrogant assumption that enormous wealth gave them godlike invulnerability. Hubris again, underestimating the raw power of the ocean. Disrespecting the dead, whose ghosts have haunted the world for over a century in the form of a story we never stopped telling. Ghosts who were innocent victims of the same hubris: The Unsinkable's dire shortage of lifeboats and other emergency supplies. It's like it was written to be a story about bad men who get their comeuppance. It's irony layered in irony like a goddamn metaphor ratatouille.

But can anyone have that coming?

Who gets to decide what is justice and what is tragedy?

There is no author figure outside the extremely predictable consequences of their own actions. There's nobody on the other side of the plot typing out a heavy-handed morality tale. There's no intent to force the reader to decide between empathy and condemnation because this is the news and not a short story in literature class. The whole thing is built like a sick twin of some lost Ray Bradbury tale but it isn't.

And not only is it real, it's happening right now. I don't know how long an actual event needs to cook before it becomes modern mythos, but it sure as shit is longer than yesterday. Though some facts are lost to the water, the broad strokes of the sinking of the Titanic are largely known. The events in the sub are a complete mystery because Schrödinger's boxheads are still nowhere to be found.

Now, maybe analyzing the last moments of the missing-presumed-dead like a piece of literature is in poor taste. But I think the most chilling, the most compelling part of this whole shitshow, is how quickly someone can change from a person into a story. Both immortalized and already dead before they even knew they were doomed.

[mybrainproblems]

Like. On the one hand, Cameron is written really all over the place compared to every other character, like girl. You euthanized a patient and then a couple seasons later got mad at your husband for killing a dictator you previously said should be refused treatment so he'll die.

On the other hand....love a character whose morals and ethics are entirely situational and self-serving

[ozymandiasdirge]

i understand why people hate on the one piece powerscalers they are deeply annoying but they gave me the phrase useless captain midd so actually i think they should be allowed to keep doing whatever it is they do on reddit

[diableriezer]

Obsessed with the way The Academic talks about the The Protégé. "The Iron Crown had found its king. Upon your furrowed brow." this man is so scared and so in love.

[philosophybits]

No moral question presents itself to the child as long as he is still incapable of recognizing himself in the past or seeing himself in the future. It is only when the moments of his life begin to be organized into behaviour that he can decide and choose. The value of the chosen end is confirmed and, reciprocally, the genuineness of the choice is manifested concretely through patience, courage, and fidelity.

Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity

[idyllic-affections]

i have to try so so hard not to spread abundance propaganda whenever i write about aeon of creation!reader. it is not easy. /lh

[quotessentially]

From Simone de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity

[astralazuli]

So there's that D&D class quiz going around, & I took it & was so deeply offended I got Paladin.

& so I have had conversations with both Bestie & Birdfriend about this grave insult & they both were like, "Well... They have a point?" & informed me that my desire to absorb hits meant for others & deep drive to help whenever I actually can & strong convictions make me a bit Paladin-coded.

& I am just so... Idk. It's just interesting to get glimpses of yourself from other people's POVs. To be told that my defining characteristics are protecting & healing others & being incredibly fighty about the things I care about... Especially as someone whose brain specifically fixates on whether I care enough, do enough, give enough... Yeah. It's just kinda wild.

Anyway, I'm now adjusting my self-perception to include the fact that if I were a D&D character, I would be an Oath of the Ancients Paladin & not a wizard & that actually that's okay.

[philosophybitmaps]

[theomnicode]

How would you describe saitamas morality? I've seen him placed all over the moral "scale" when the topic comes up (though i cant say i understand the "lower" placements), so I'm interested in others thoughts on it

I'd say Saitama is a person with high morally good values and integrity.

Warning: long ass meta ahead about morality.

--

One of the ways Saitama's morality and his values are illustrated is in the dream which Saitama has, directly after Beefcake basically killed thousands of people and he did not bat an eye, because he was losing his capacity to empathize with people. Then he squished his own brother and Saitama again, did not bat an eye. On the contrary, he found malicious humour in it instead.

This fact started to bother him when he realized what was happening to him.

After he recalled the time when he started out as a hero and Beefcake incident, it subconsciously bothered him so much it manifested as dream where 70% of the population had died and someone he knew more closely had also died, because he had just been callous and feeling like he failed to act on his high sense of moral virtues and deserving some kind of punishment. Practically a Lucid dream based on his intuition alone that something was wrong. Not only that, but I believe it was his subconscious also showing him that even if he let go of his inhibitions and showed some actual emotions, his emotions would not steer him wrong towards his goal of being a protector, something he is afraid of.

And wouldn't you know, the first thing he did was punt the subterranean boss in the head. Then he went out and saved Genos.

This feeling of caring for people a lot and yet failing to act on his high moral virtues that he demands of himself once again rears it's head in the Saitama vs Garou fight where Saitama dumps his virtues in the trashbin, to not kill other humans by choosing to serious punch Garou.

The moral ambiguity moment comes from the fact that we do not actually know the outcome of the serious punch squared. We also have Blast as an example who's first priority was to get everyone else to safety, as a neat little counterpoint to Saitama's actions in the heat of the moment when he wasn't thinking clearly anymore.

Saitama acknowledges this wanting to punch Garou to smithereens as a moral failure on this part. Yet letting Garou just go around free is also not morally correct thing to do because he basically murdered people and would continue down that same path, so it is a moral dilemma for Saitama who has high sense of moral values.

It is further moral dilemma that he ends up destroying Jupiter and I.O when he tries to stop Garou though, one that he does not have a good justification for, because he was showing off with little care at that point. He was relying on his ability to show superiority to make him back down, but they did intentionally destroy the moon and Jupiter.

"For the greater good" is a slippery slope.

But the facts that he can question whether or not he is morally right or wrong and is highly critical of himself, is what makes him truly a high moral person in the end. If one never questions themselves, their sense of right and wrong and remains rigid in their interpretation without considering the circumstances, then sense of morality can end up becoming very black and white. More rigidness can mean less empathy if morality is cut and dry.

Saitama is always trying to improve himself as a person too, this includes his sense of morality. So in this sense, his moral code may change and/or improve when new evidence emerges.

True morality is not bound by ethics either, because someone can violate ethics all the time while thinking they are morally correct in doing so.

Saitama does not let societal rules, ethics, determine his sense of right and wrong. Ethics are a social construct that people often follow, such as law and culture and in this case, the ethics of killing monsters in world of OPM, but Saitama follows his moral compass without being bound by the expectations of the society he lives in and what is considered ethically acceptable and unacceptable.

Not to say he's ethical or unethical just because ethics and morals are different. Ethics and morality often go hand in hand, but distinction has to be made.

So when it comes to moral values that Saitama has, they are very high moral values. He's far from flawless, but he's always trying to do the right thing based on his set of moral values.

One of the ways to evaluate the person's type of moral values and integrity is when they uphold said values even when nobody is looking or holding them back.

Saitama has all the power to just get what he wants like punch the soda machine, even a little bit, just to get the soda he wanted, grab all the cash he wants when the car got wrecked and nobody would know. He would never have to be poor again. He has all the power in the world to do whatever he wants and infinite growth potential to boot and nobody would be able to oppose him.

But he won't. What he chooses to do instead is pick up litter and save a little kid held hostage. That would make him a morally good aligned person with high integrity.

--

Saitama at his core, believes in the good of people and that everyone can change if given the chance to do so, like he himself always strives to change himself to be a better person.

Which is one of the reasons why when Saitama thought he had Garou figured out, that Godrou dealt Moral injury on him.

Among other kinds of mental injuries he suffered like high emotional damage. Saitama was already moderately to highly stressed from everything that had happened before that and was relying on his dominant cognitive function, introverted intuition, to get him through the Garou fight as a stress reaction.

It was a Full KO in that sense.

Moral injury is defined as harm that is done to an individual when their most deeply held beliefs and values are violated.

Saitama could not believe that Garou could have done something as heinous as kill other people in cruel blood, just to taunt him and make him give his all because he instantly understood the motive behind it. That is the dark side of the personality type, capacity of understanding even if someone acts in completely heinous ways.

His willpower to maintain his self-control was already in shambles from the personal hell of MA arc, when he let Garou feel his negative emotions behind his carefully controlled mask. Saitama probably does not handle stress well at all.

(Which I've yet to make a meta about how well it's crafted to specifically destroy his willpower over maintaining his self-control)

(In a more direct translation basically saying "You did this for this, right?" You got exactly the kind of reaction you wanted Garou, are you not entertained?)

Saitama believing in this human ability to change, to be morally good, is what he believes cost him everything, so to the trashbin it went and what makes it such a great moral ambiguous moment that it seemed that he would have destroyed the Earth on the same go. Because him lashing out was such a poorly planned out, impulsive act that he did not exactly think it through that Garou would also punch him back and it would endanger earth.

Chances are, it would not have if it was just his own punch, but what he let go is belief in himself to be a morally upstanding person. That it is pointless if he tries to be morally righteous and caring individual because ironically that got people killed and instead he was being callous when he tried to care more.

In this, it would seem that he then put all his remaining care in doing right by Garou, at least, to make sure that at least one person makes it out from this mess and believing in this one person to change back into the person they used to be.

And maybe trying to redeem himself at the same time, that he could be excused for his own lapse of control, if he held tight to this belief. Losing control is not worth it.

The quirk of this personality is that in right situations, they can logically justify anything.

If he does not believe in that, his core value that humans can inherently change to be better, then he would lose his sense of self.

It was Genos' belief in him being able to be a hero, that allowed Saitama to still keep a grip on himself and his values. Because Saitama no longer truly believed in his own values that he had just thrown away, like his lack of belief in his heroism would mean his clothes would shred instantly, he needed the core as memento to remind him of those values. To remind him why he's a hero.

Maybe he could do one last thing correctly at least, while keeping himself in control over his emotions.

(Chances are he actually changed his mind about letting himself loose here, because he was reminded of his values. Huh.)

--

This belief in humans ability to change, even if at first they seem to be merciless and understanding the motives when someone takes a more morally questionable action can be observed when Saitama for instance, chastises Genos weakly when Genos suddenly blasted away house of evolution without making sure that there wasn't any humans occupying the upper floors and Saitama is floored by Genos suddenly doing that.

Genos never presented himself as irredeemably merciless, in Saitamas moral opinion though. What genos did was wrong because there could have been human casualties, but he understood the motive behind suddenly incinerating the entire house because they were also bad guys sending mutants to attack people and after them specifically. So they were the aggressors first and Genos and Saitama were defending themselves. Hero association had nothing bad to say about Genos code of conduct either and probably won't.

Genos wants to eliminate evil just as bad as Saitama wants to, but chances are, Saitama's only awakening sense of humanity like emotions and morals after the warning that he was losing himself entirely, allowed him to shrug off genos' blatant disregard for ethics and possible lost human lives there as casualities in his quest to exterminate evil, when it turned out that the baddies were probably hiding underground and no actual human lives were lost.

When Genos no longer disregards other human lives as potential casualties, including his own, Saitama commends him for it. His disciple has come around to understand Saitama's deeply entrenched moral code.

--

On the moral scale? I would say Saitama ranks high on the moral scale, all things considered.

It took a loss of a very close loved one, the loss of everything he owns, being responsible for allowing someone go against his core values of murdering people, damaging the planet he lives on and highly stressfull situation in general and lowered amount of self-control, to make him re-evaluate his values and let go of his inhibitions.

It is a moral failure he has yet to own up to because he does not remember it, yet, though it was something that never ended up happening and he "redeemed" himself for it by traveling backwards with the help from Garou to deny the causality of his lack of action and action taken.

But even when he has literally nothing left and no reason to even exist, he ultimately, still tries to uphold the one last and most important moral value he has; not taking a life unless he has to.

It is a thing that he already suffers from emotionally, because his morality regarding killing monsters does not line up with the ethics of the Hero association and them killing monsters, because some monsters used to be human. One of the reasons why being a hero did not line up with what he thought it would be; helping people and defeating evil and this will probably become more and more apparent.

But the theme seems to be that he would strive to do the right thing. Within his capabilities and within his knowledge.

What he deems as morally right and wrong though, that may change if he gets more emotionally invested and his emotions and his full empathy makes a return and he may even make some morally questionable decisions based on feelings alone. For better...and for worse if he regards it as moral failure on his part to actually take care of and save every single person. To be an ideal hero.

No doubt he will get morally tested from time to time however and we'll see how sound his moral judgement remains.