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so, as i pray...| Feb 22 2009 |
ethics; Infinite Ryvius 01 |
It's categorized as Anime, Haruhi's a Psycho, loli.
It's tagged over nine thousand things, including: ethics • infinite ryvius • legend of the galactic heroes • oberstein • philosophy. What a slut.
At least it only has 9 comments and 1,288 views.
[re; 117]Situation: someone’s life is in danger, but saving this one person puts into jeopardy the lives of many, many more. What do you do?
Would a moral person assign priority to the short term and save this one person? The reasoning was that Koiji and Ikumi couldn’t sit around and watch someone die. Yuki, on the other hand, views all lives equally regardless of context and stops the two from jeopardizing the lives of man others.
Perhaps Koiji and Ikumi were deluding themselves from the more crucial fact that they were hypocrites? – if Yuki had asked them “what would you say if you were that one person in danger?” would they respond “I’d be selfless and say ‘leave me behind for the sake of many others’”? If so, they would be contradicting themselves. If not, they would appear selfish, but that too would contradict their position of “selflessness” because they’re putting their lives at stake for the sake of one person.
[If 'what if' statements are not legit in philosophy then oops.]
But I think we can use ‘what if’ statements because Koiji and Ikumi were thinking not of the person in danger but of themselves, of their egos. Perhaps, the central theme here and thing which undermines the position of the two is the fact that Koiji and Ikumi wanted to save not so much the concrete existence of the person as their own abstract selves. This is supported because, as it were, this “concrete existence” isn’t even concrete to Koiji and Ikumi – they never see this person, only their representation on a digital device. Maybe.
Thus: does knowledge alone of a real thing make it concrete? If I know it’s there but do not, with my senses, perceive that it is there, does that still make it as concrete as if I were really perceiving it with my senses? If, then, suddenly I can perceive this real thing with my senses – I can see it, touch it, hear it – does that change the nature of the thing or, perhaps moreso, my own perception of that thing not in simple terms of the magnitude of my emotions directed towards the thing, but in terms of why these emotions arise within myself and to what they are really directed?
[hermeneutic sidepoint: essentially, considering the anime, trying to draw a conclusion is futile because we can never know the true intentions of Koiji and Ikumi (unless they admit to us the nature of their egos).]
Pragmatic conclusion: a life is a life, we should ignore our abstract selves and save as many lives as possible, thus, the person dies.
Realist conclusion: the effect of the symbolic representation of this real person has on us is worthless because a concrete person exists beyond our idea of it. Do we save it? – ask the deontologists!
Idealist conclusion: the effect of the symbolic representation of this real person has on us enormous effect. Do we save it? – ask the pragmatists!
Deontological conclusion: focus on the immediate effects of the act – you are directly neglecting to save a life, thus not saving this life is morally wrong. Save it!
ObersteinConsequentialist conclusion: yes indeed a life is a life, that is why we should save as many as possible. The ends justify the means.
[note: it may seem like I'm misinterpreting idealism because, nevertheless, this person is still real and exists outside our immediate ideas of it, though it is only known through the proxy of an abstract representation. I do not know of any ethical philosophy which deals with semiotics...though I've never really read much of any of the philosophies I've cited except a bit of The Prince.]
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pragmaticism/consequentialism/obersteinism come to the same conclusion in this context
lelangir — 2/22/09 @ 6:05 pm | #Link
I’m glad I checked and saw this was lelangir because I was about to be seriously pissed if this was the first lolikit post in forever.
Anyway, awesome post, I think, even though I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make… or maybe i should say, ‘I don’t think the show disagrees with you.’
digitalboy — 2/22/09 @ 7:14 pm | #Link
So this dilemma like Fate/stay night, Heaven’s Feel route?
***START HEAVEN’S FEEL SPOILERS***
In F/sn, the first two routes (Fate, Unlimited Blade Works) are spent fleshing out Shirou’s character–he likes to save people. In fact, he wants to be a superhero, as per mirror moon’s translation of ’seigi no mikata’, and F/sn spends about 40-60 hours educating us about this.
Then Heaven’s Feel happens. HF is basically Nasu’s foil to the superhero bullshit that Shirou’s made of in the first two routes–or, in the words of Ga-Rei Zero, “Would you kill someone you love because of love?”.
Admittedly, Nasu juxtaposes ideals and reality in F/sn into a sort-of dichotomy in order for us to truly see the dilemma as it is and not just someone else’s problem, but the way it’s done is absolutely brilliant. Not just the scene where you’re forced to kill Saber (a symbolic representation of the ideals that Shirou holds) in order to save Sakura, but just about everything–from the point where the news is broken to Shirou about Sakura being
Abyssal OneCthuluthe one behind the nightly massacres to the various other conflicts ranging from internal (To kill or not to kill, that is the question!), interpersonal (v.s. Rin) to external (v.s. Dark Sakura, and Kotomine)–all of them do the same thing in challenging Shirou’s ideals, and HF is all the better for it.This is what makes HF the route, and not just for its gratuitous porn or grand scale of action–it forces Shirou, and by extension you as the reader/viewer to make a choice between the principles that make Shirou what he is and the girl he loves.
***END HEAVEN’S FEEL SPOILERS***
Owen S — 2/22/09 @ 7:37 pm | #Link
db: no “thesis” for this post really
owen: are you implicitly telling me to play fsn? perhaps over spring break…
lelangir — 2/22/09 @ 8:04 pm | #Link
What happens when you’re just a bastard and don’t care about people’s lives? :p
Honestly, if I think about this for too long I just end up going in circles, which leads me to believe that I’d probably be indecisive even when someone’s life was in danger, in a case like you described.
Nazarielle — 2/22/09 @ 10:38 pm | #Link
What do the virtue ethicists say?
@ Owen S: I think the key difference is that in Infinite Ryvius’s first episode, it’s just ‘a person’ – the potential rescuers don’t know who it is. In HF Shirou knows Sakura very well (in the Biblical sense, I cannot resist adding). If he didn’t know her well, the dilemma might be less challenging. Whereas the rescuers in IR are being tested as citizens facing intellectual and emotional attachments to [the idea of] an unknown fellow-citizen, not to a family member.
IKnight — 2/23/09 @ 1:11 am | #Link
@Lelangir
You should never talk about Effects or Consequences when having a Deontological interpretation, Lelangir. What’s important is the intention of the moral act.
In this case though, neglecting to save a life will pass the “universalisability test” (If everyone neglected to save lives…), therefore we have no absolute moral duty to save lives.
It would be an imperfect duty, where those acts are those we wished would be universalized.
@IKnight
I’m sure they’re saying a lot of funny stuff. :D
jp_zer0 — 2/23/09 @ 7:21 am | #Link
nazarielle: if I were in this situation I’d probably take the pragmatic route, given a lack of peer pressure… (and a bastard is a bastard perhaps?)
ik: I forgot to say (due to poor articulation) was that in deontology, the immediate ethics are inseparable from the act (I think?)
lelangir — 2/23/09 @ 7:38 am | #Link
@jp_zer0: yeah (re; my above comment) when I meant “immediate effects” – which is more or less an oxymoron – I meant “the morality which is inseparable from the deed”, so thanks for those nifty devices for judging acts
lelangir — 2/23/09 @ 8:42 am | #Link