#ethicists

[mexicanistnet]

The real danger, the kind that gives ethicists the shivers, is changing human DNA on a generational scale. Just because you can tweak a strand of DNA doesn't mean you should, especially without fully understanding the ripple effects… genes are complicated.

[azeutreciathewicked]

Found my people, fellow ethicists!

Love this discussion about Aziraphale's moral positions and reasoning, as well as his struggles with being able to make decisions without convenient frameworks. Also a huge fan of Chidi as a character. Totally not because I'm in his shoes all too often. Lastly: "Aziraphale sure does try to murder Adam." This does not get brought up enough. It doesn't mean Aziraphale is bad, or a murderer. But the fact that he would have killed Adam if not for Madame Tracy's intervention is something that haunts me. I brought that up in my fic focusing on Aziraphale's trauma and mental state after having his moral frameworks taken away -- I made sure that he had to reflect on that fact -- that he almost killed a child when even Crowley would not pull the trigger.

As far as they can

At the end of the Job minisode, Crowley inaugurates Their Side by proclaiming Aziraphale "an angel who goes along with Heaven... as far as he can," parallel to his own stated relationship with Hell.

Only it... doesn't actually work that way. Their exactlies are different exactlies.

Crowley defies and lies to Hell as often as he thinks he can get away with it. He never disabuses Downstairs of their misconceptions about his contributions to human atrocities. He cheerfully lies in his reports Downstairs, something Aziraphale briefly turns on his Baritone of Sarcastic Disapproval about in s1. Crowley even turns evil homeopathic in the latter part of the 20th century, likely in hopes that it will look good to head office while accomplishing essentially nothing. (This, of course, is another way he Crowleys himself, both with the London phone system and the M25.) After Eden, Crowley's default given an assignment from Hell is to see how he can subvert it.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, defies Her and Heaven as little as he possibly can. Sometimes, as with his sword giveaway, his compassion gets the better of his anxiety. Sometimes, as with Job's children in the destruction of the villa, he can try to stay within the letter of the law by leaving the defiance to Crowley.

His default, however, is "'m 'nangel. I can't dis- diso -- not do what 'm told." This comes out most often as respect for the Great/Divine Plan, which to him is sacrosanct. He sounds quite sincere in s1 when he says "Even if I wanted to help I couldn’t. I can’t interfere with the Divine Plan."

Aziraphale quite frequently Good Angels along by parroting Heaven's party line, whether it's "it'll all be rather lovely" or "I am good, you (I'm afraid) are evil" or droning on about evil containing the seeds of its own destruction, or condemning Elspeth's graverobbing as "wicked" (a stance he offers absolutely no reasoned support for, no logic, no "but She said," not a word -- that's very Heaven; most of Heaven's angels have the approximate brainpower of paramecia). Maestro Michael Sheen even has a particular voice cadence -- I think of it as Sententious Voice -- he uses when Aziraphale is thoughtlessly party-lining.

When the angel's conscience wars with his sense of Heaven's orthodoxy but (and this is an important but) he can't feasibly resist whatever's wrong, he offers strengthless party-line justifications he clearly doesn't agree with (as with the "rain bow" in Mesopotamia) or resorts to a Nuremberg defense: "I'm not consulted on policy decisions, Crowley!" Once or twice, he's even vocally aware of Heavenly hypocrisy: "Unless… [guns]'re in the right hands, where they give weight to a moral argument… I think." This isn't Sententious Voice. It's I-can't-disobey-and-I-hate-that voice.

But at base, the angel prefers obedience (not least because it's vastly safer), and he'd rather have someone else do his moral reasoning for him. Honestly? Pretty relatable. I know lots of people like this -- hell's bells, I've been this person, though I grew out of it somewhat -- and I daresay you do too. Moral reasoning is hard and often lonely (since it can be read as self-righteousness or even hypocrisy) and acting as it dictates can hurt. Nobody would need ethics codes if The Right Thing was also invariably The Convenient Thing.

Many GO fans find these Aziraphalean traits frustrating! Especially his repeated returns to parroting Heaven orthodoxy! Sometimes I do too! (Not least because I'm rather protective of my own integrity, and it's cost me quite a few times. I'm well-known in professional circles for picking up a rhetorical spear and tilting at the nearest iniquitous windmill. I often lose, but I sure do keep tilting. Every once in a blue moon I actually win one.)

The key, I think, to giving our angel a little grace on this (beyond honoring the gentle compassion that is pretty basic to his character) is noticing how often he can be induced to abandon an unconsidered Heavenish default stance. As irritating as his default is, and as consistently as he returns to it, it's not really that hard to talk him out of it. Crowley, of course, is tremendously good at knocking Aziraphale away from his default -- he's had to be. But Aziraphale even manages to talk himself away from his default once, in the form of the Ineffable Plan hairsplitting at the airbase!

I think the character-relevant point of the Resurrectionist minisode is making this breaking-the-Heavenish-default dynamic as clear as the contents of the pickled-herring barrel aren't. "That's lunatic!" Crowley exclaims, when Aziraphale Sententious Voicedly parrots Heaven's garbage about poverty providing extra opportunities for goodness. Aziraphale isn't quite ready to let go yet, replying "It's ineffable."

But Dalrymple (who, I think, parallels Heaven, perhaps even the Metatron -- there could be something decent there, but it's buried too deep under scorn and clueless privilege for any graverobber-of-souls to dig it out) manages to break Aziraphale's orthodoxy by explaining the child's tumor.

Once released from his orthodoxy, Aziraphale can't be trusted to handle moral reasoning well; his moral-reasoning ability is not-uncommonly (though not always) portrayed as vitiated. When he gives Elspeth the go-ahead to dig up more bodies, his excuses are just as vacuous as they were when he was convinced of her wickedness. He knows that he's crossed Heaven's line, too, and just as at Eden it's worrying him. That's why he has to talk to Crowley to nerve himself up to help Wee Morag... only he spends too much time talking, and it's too late.

But Crowley can then talk him into bankrolling Elspeth toward a better life. Aziraphale doesn't even put up any fight, both because he's compassionate and because Crowley is temporarily taking the place of Heaven (he's even Heaven-sized and staring down at them!) as the angel's moral compass.

S1 has an even worse example of Aziraphale's moral wavering, actually. Crowley yells "Shoot him, Aziraphale!" and Aziraphale sure does try to murder Adam. Again, he's adopting his morals from the nearest (and loudest) convenient source. Madame Tracy, thankfully, has enough of a moral backbone to save our angel from himself and Crowley.

(With my ersatz-ethicist hat on: this is a fight between utilitarianism and deontology. Crowley is the utilitarian, which is actually a bit of a departure for him, but he's admittedly desperate. Madame Tracy is the deontologist: One Doesn't Kill Children. Aziraphale is caught in the middle.)

I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason we start s3 with Aziraphale and Crowley separated is so that Aziraphale finally has to do his own moral reasoning, without Crowley's nudges. I don't think it'll be easy for him. It will absolutely be lonely. And it may well hurt.

But I will watch for it, because it's how he will become his own angel, independent of Heaven and even of Crowley. And he must do that.

[thatbadadvice]

Help! I Am Entitled To Do A Bone!

The Ethicist, New York Times, 14 October 2023:

My wife became pregnant soon after we met, when our relationship was “fluid” and non-monogamous. We agreed to raise the child together and, at my urging, to have an open relationship. However, our relationship since has been monogamous. My wife was injured during the birth of our second child and now finds sex painful and avoids it. (We had a terrific sex life before the injury.) When I broached the topic of having other partners and reminded her of our agreement to have an open relationship, she became irritated and said that having kids changed things. Subsequent discussions resulted in a stalemate. I very much enjoy my wife’s company and love her and our two kids. I have no intention of separating from my family. Nonetheless, I harbor resentments that my wife reneged on her commitment to me, and this, together with the lack of sex, is creating a wedge between us. Would it be ethical to take a mistress, given her earlier promise, and if so, can I do this discreetly so as to avoid tension and perhaps divorce? Or should I tell her I am planning to pursue this course of action? Or does the inherent risk of infidelity mean I should accept near-celibacy indefinitely? — Name Withheld

Dear Name Withheld,

The restraint with which you signed yourself "name withheld" rather than the more accurate "big fun deep-dicking from which I have been blocked by my hateful bitch wife" is admirable in the extreme. You are a credit to your gender, sir.

But on to the matter at hand, specifically, your hand, to which you have been relegated in lieu of the aforementioned big fun deep-dicking. Your wife waited to drop the vicious bomb of possession upon you until she had roped you, an unwitting fancy-free man of leisure (entitled to all the benefits thereof indefinitely and in perpetuity), into marriage and fatherhood of not one but two children — children you could have in no way have known would result from your consistently and entirely monogamous coupling over many years, and moreover, could never have expected would complicate the terms of the thing y'all talked about one time about boning other randos?? And now this self-interested harpy dares to refuse to you the clear promise of sex with absolutely anyone other than her at any time ever, which she made and guaranteed in surety after you'd been fucking for a minute? A promise you had in theory enjoyed by writ and at length in your mind based on a conversation y'all had years ago before the entire terms and nature of your relationship changed in deep and meaningful ways to literally the one other person involved in said relationship, to wit, the worst person?

A bait-and-switch of the kind your cruel and fickle wife has pulled on you cannot, should not, be tolerated. Are you — is any man, really — obligated to just not fuck his wife in addition to whoever else he wants to fuck ever? Just because she "finds sex painful"? Sex isn't painful for you, and doesn't that matter just a little bit more? Isn't it her job to have kind of a bad time so that you can have a good time? Isn't that what it is to be a woman and a mother? And she just casually eschews her duty to put up with whatever the fuck you propose? Because WHY? Because "having kids changes things"? I ask you: changes things for who? For the person who carried children in her body and experienced deep and lasting personal and physical injury? Or for you, the person who matters most?

It seems your wife has an unfortunately topsy-turvy view of partnership, one in which she believes two individuals are allowed to dictate the terms of a relationship that may change over time due to a variety of mitigating factors that one or both of you may or may not have control over. Would that she realized that her sexual needs are not merely incidental to yours, but actively irrelevant. If only she would simply give you that one, small thing (in addition to two children).

But alas, she seems sadly fixated on her own needs to the exclusion of the fact that you would like to do a bone upon her or frankly anyone, you are not picky, as long as she doesn't leave you or take your children away or do anything really to upset the world as you would like it to be, which is a classically controlling woman-type thing that women do because they are so self-involved.

Obviously you're really grappling with the profound ethical implications of lying to your wife about taking a mistress, and you're trying to find literally any other solution to just finding a girlfriend and fucking the shit out of her and hoping your wife doesn't find out. That's clearly the very last thing you want. But since you've shown such magnanimous restraint in not doing so, you probably should just do it and see what happens, it'll probably all be totally fine! And if it isn't, eh, idk? Were you supposed to just survive on beejays and handies forever? You tried your very best not to! And that's what will matter most to your children in the end.

[qiu-yan]

i'll write a more in-depth post later, but imo one of the reasons for the level of disagreement in this fandom is that many of us readers can see what mxtx is trying to imply about ethics through her work and simply do not agree with her base premise. like i think that there are some conclusions about the various characters in mdzs that mxtx wants you as the reader to draw. you can kind of tell even if you don't agree with those conclusions. more importantly, though, you can also tell exactly what kind of moral philosophy mxtx (consciously or unconsciously) favors, and what she treats as the granularity of morality, so to speak. the most commonly-held positions in the fandom are those mxtx intends for the reader to reach using her own beliefs about ethics as fundamental axioms.

the problem, then, is when the reader does not agree with mxtx's unspoken axioms of morality. if you come into mdzs with a moral framework different enough from what mxtx has (consciously or unconsciously) used to write mdzs, then of course you're going to come to different conclusions regarding the characters or even the object lessons of the story.

or rather, in simpler terms: the rammies, mxtx....the rammies....

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

There’s a lot of “humans, fuck yeah!” and content like that, where people post about how humans are so much more special than aliens. This somewhat bothers me, and I’m curious to hear your thoughts on that phenomenon?

Are you talking in (Doylist) context of tumblr as a whole, or of sci fi fandom, or of NASA or SETI? Or is this in (Watsonian) context of the within-Animorphs forums we see in canon in #16, or post-war in #54, or is this about Animorphs fic/meta in general, or my Animorphs fic/meta?

To answer for myself: Any time I'm writing from Tom Berenson's POV, I am deliberately writing him with a massive pro-human anti-alien bias. That's why I had Ghost in the Shell hinge on him being dumbfounded by human villains. Hopefully it's kinda justified, if not excused, in light of his backstory.

Any time I'm not writing Tom, I will admit I have an easier time headcanoning about human society/human thoughts/human feelings than about hork-bajir or yeerks. I get paid to read and write about humans, and there is just less to know about taxxon society than human society. If I want to write about an andalite firefighter, then... do andalites fight fires? do they have jobs? do they search for jobs? do they apply for jobs? do they interview? do they get paid money? do they have money? do they have fire? So on forever. It can be paralyzing. Writing humans is often easier, at least for me.

To speculate about all of fandom: I assume that every tumblr poster and sci fi reader is a human. And that it is easier to feel love for the species to whom one's best friend, lover, and favorite cousin all belong, when compared to a species that is strictly imaginary. We could argue forever about if yeerks are monsters or lovers or fascists or victims or all of the above. But if I say "humans are awesome," most of us will simply think of our favorite human, and smile.

[armoryamor]

btw i’m not saying you’re morally obligated to critique tech if you’re techum. but i am saying that if you do, tech will get better and more efficient and your bond will deepen because you were a part of that. trust

[faaun]

my arms keep burning and turning red i keep smiling at polaroid photos of my friends i bought a set of pans so i wouldn't have to steal theirs. when i asked 2 ethicists why the way she treated me was so bad (tell me logically why i should let her go) i really meant tell me why i deserve better. tell me why what she did matters in the context of how you know me. will you tell me why do i deserve better than to suffer for a beautiful person?

[tetrachromate]

not sure if this lines up but i feel like the common aphorism on here 'let the soft animal of your body love what it loves' would be much less popular if it was explicitly described as a utilitarian claim

[froshele]

today in the wild I came across a phrase to the effect "...And this [pair of ethical axioms about what constitutes quality of life for purposes of discussion about disability and coma prognosis, based on the opinion of one person who has not ever been in a coma or disabled thereafter] suggests that maybe, just maybe, [relevantly comatose or recovering or disabled] people may have quality of life sufficient to make them ethically relevant"

that's ... not, um, normally considered to be what makes people "ethically relevant" in the world where all the people are and there's sunshine and grass and things, but, you know what, ok jennifer, A for effort! :) gold star for you, philosopher extraordinaire, moral lodestar for people unsure what to do with granny, paragon of ethical conduct!

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

98462 LIVED???

AND REFORMED???

Tell us more please!

is he single

Uhhhh I dunno. It just occurred to me that he could still be alive. And it would be funny if he did the overhauled-at-Crovan's-Gate-worked-off-his-repairs-on-Sodor-for-a-spell thing I love so much during, like, the FC3 era.

Bonus hilarity if the newer engines find him charming and have this lowkey collective crush and meanwhile the oldest residents of the island are sooo sour-faced and can't stop side-eying him.

This unexplained beef, of course, only enhances 98462's mystique.

Sorry, man. If you want to give him a boyfriend that's on you. Go for it. Me, I think he's too self-involved to really be either single or attached. Like he has serial relationships that mean nothing.

He has become more personable over the years though. And he didn't manage to get preserved despite being thrown off at least one railway in disgrace during his working career by being stupid. So he doesn't make enemies whenever he goes. Not anymore.

[thatbadadvice]

Help! Everyone Can See My Tiddies, And By My Tiddies, I Mean Somebody Else’s Tiddies

The Ethicist, New York Times, 15 November 2022:

I’m proud of my wife and her breastfeeding of my son — I am so glad that they have been able to experience the bonding and health benefits that come with breastfeeding. My concern arises from the fact that my wife has posted photos online of her breastfeeding. These are not photos where everything happens to be conveniently covered up. You can see it all. I understand that my wife’s Instagram accounts are “private,” in that only connections/followers can see posts. These people range from family members, close friends of hers, close friends of mine, acquaintances and business contacts. I have asked her about the photos, and in particular what the thought process was behind posting them. She said that breastfeeding is something she is proud of and wants to share with her contacts.

I can’t claim that I understand the psychology behind posting such things on social media. To me it seems rather show-offy. But it’s part of our culture now, and I don’t need to understand it. I support efforts to normalize breastfeeding in society, but this feels like a step too far. That my friends and family are able to see such explicit photos of my wife makes me uncomfortable. But that alone would not be enough for me to push the issue. My major concern, which I raised with my wife, is that one day our son will be going to school, and school kids can be mean. Is it fair for those photos to live on accounts where parents of other children at the school, connected to my wife, could see the photos? Could this expose our son to unnecessary bullying? My wife’s response is, “Let’s discuss it with our son when he is old enough, and we can make a choice then.” My gut tells me that it would be more appropriate to remove the photos now, and when our son is old enough to discuss the matter with us, they can be posted with his consent at that time. What do you think? Name Withheld

Before we get to anything else: can we just take a moment to celebrate you for once? Because not everyone on earth would be proud of his breastfeeding wife, but you definitely are, and for that, my good sir, you deserve a major award. Humanity has achieved a number of feats over the millennia -- rescuing children from underwater caves, traveling to space, developing antibiotics -- but nothing quite captures our incredible capacity for goodness like a dude who just really thoroughly approves of his wife’s decision to breastfeed. Love to see a man who isn’t so cowed by “our culture” that he’s forced to hide how absolutely fine he is with children eating food.

But it’s “our culture” that is the problem, isn’t it? Sure, there’s nothing wrong with breastfeeding -- as you so eloquently said yourself, it has some upsides that you are gracious enough to be publicly supportive of -- and sure, it’s not a bad idea to normalize breastfeeding, but there’s a line, isn’t there? Surely your wife can find a way to normalize breastfeeding without showing her loved ones how she does it? She’s just over here like, “I’m proud of this and I don’t care what people say?” Feminism has really gone too far. Sure, every woman could use a little more pressure to do something different or better based on what other people think is best or what makes other people more comfortable, but mothers need a triple-dose these days, and your wife is a primo example. Normalizing breastfeeding is great! But there is such a thing as too normal. We can’t just make breastfeeding so normal that people just feel totally comfortable taking pictures of themselves while taking care of their children! What’s next? Universal child care?? Paid parental leave?? STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS??????

One appreciates that you’re worried about the very real possibility that, ten years from now, a child from your son’s school will go digging through his parents’ Instagram accounts looking for your wife’s profile and scroll backwards through a decade of her posts to identify his classmate as a baby and alert the local children. Sounds exactly like every fifth-grader I know.

But your concerns are misplaced.

It’s sweet that you’re willing to be so accepting of your wife literally keeping your baby alive by feeding it -- it really does show what a bold, forward-thinking man you are -- but it seems like you’re going out of your way not to name the elephant in the room. Or, really, the two elephants in the room. More aptly, the two elephants on Instagram: tiddies. Your wife is behaving as if her breasts, somehow, belong to her? Let’s just say what we’re all thinking: What is your wife doing putting your tiddies out there on the internet for everyone to see? It would be one thing if she were, as you note, “covered up” in such a way as to obscure literally everything about what she’s doing (a great way to normalize behavior!) but you said it yourself: “you can see it all.” And by “it all,” you mean your personal breasts! Just on display! Willy-nilly! “Show-offy,” if you will! 

It’s time to sit the little lady down for a serious discussion about her life choices -- not breastfeeding, breastfeeding is amazing! could not possibly be more supportive of breastfeeding! make no mistake! -- and ask her if she really thinks it’s appropriate to flaunt her benevolent master’s mammarial property all over the internet. There is a point after which a man must put his foot down to protect his own bodily autonomy -- you cannot allow your wife to just flop your jugs out there all over the internet, showing off Daddy’s fun bags to every Tom, Dick, and Harry! What right does she have to free your nipples? Sweatergod, it’s like one day women were permitted to open credit cards in their own name and then the next day they just lost their entire fucking minds.

Perhaps when your wife gets a little bit older, she will better understand what it means to post photos of her husband’s breasts on social media without his consent.  

[transhitman]

My utilitarian take is that ethicists should all be beaten to death with a stick

[byakuyasdarling]

I think a good thing about being away from social media though is just caring so much less about all the internet argument stuff. It’s so much less stressful just focusing on me and my health and the people close to me.

Especially with AI stuff. Of course I don’t agree with it scraping from artists but I love when artists reclaim it as a tool and I think it should be used as such. You can’t stop a program from existing, it’s useless. But you can make guidelines to ensure it’s uses are ethical and practical — basically to make jobs easier and not over-work artists, not to replace them.

I think there’s so much to still work-out in that regard, obviously.

Another thing that used to stress me out was those “press 3 buttons to save my pet” videos. I always try to do the copy link think and get interactions up but it started triggering me my anxiety which wasn’t good. Have you guys experienced that, and how did you deal with it? /gen

[marmorenshud]

I'm not saying metalheads are all moral arbiters who have perfect ethics but I think the pop girlie twitterinas could learn something from spending time with people whose favourite artist has actually murdered people and go "yeah but the beat slaps"

[onetruelurker]

I like ethics consults but omg. the moral injury quotient is through the roof.

[in-sightjournal]

Ask A Genius 1092: Post-Networking Speculative Futuristic Discourse

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I just returned from travelling and networking in Vancouver. Regardless, I sent you two topics for tonight. The first is the future of the commodification of human beings and the human body.  It would be smart to split the definitions of a human being and the human body, where the first incorporates the second.  Rick Rosner: The future is a jungle. It’s like the Cambrian…