ik: I forgot to say (due to poor articulation) was that in deontology, the immediate ethics are inseparable from the act (I think?)

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

@ 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.

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.

owen: are you implicitly telling me to play fsn? perhaps over spring break…

***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 One Cthulu the 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***

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.’