Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: Astarte on November 17, 2013, 02:34:23 AM
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I've watched poparena's reviews and I agree with him 100%, I think if the Animorphs made more of an effort with David, then he just may have worked out. I mean, staying with the Chee would have been a nice touch, especially since he'd have all those things he wants, a bed, a shower, etc. Also, while it is inexcusable for David to drop Saddler down an elevator shaft and assume his identity and his "never kill humans" is so much crap, it is equally inexcusable that Marco is so mean to David. Like poparena said, he just flat-out hates him and that, in my opinion, is one of the pushes that drove him over the edge.
Well, what do you think?
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I always kind of saw it as, yeah, Marco's unnecessarily dickish toward David, but that doesn't really excuse that David overall has a total lack of character and he'd probably always go off the reservation. The type of guy that, horrible as things may be for him, looks for excuses in life anyway and has a tendency to go for revenge and retribution just as a personality trait.
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Yeah, that is a good point, David does kind of make excuses, but boy, it sure doesn't make liking Marco any easier. I actually hate Marco more than David, which is kind of scary, isn't it?
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I think it sort of stemmed from their first interaction, though. I can't remember the specifics, it's probably been a half decade since I've read the book, but didn't David sort of brush Marco off in some sort of "alright, whatever, loser" manner when they met at school?
Not an excuse for Marco, but they both seemed to have got off on the wrong foot right from the start.
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I agree that if they put more effort into it, including sending David to the Chee instead of having him sleep in a loud and smelly barn, things may have turned out better. There was something wrong with David, but it partly stemmed from not having any friends. If they had tried harder, he may have reformed.
As for his first interactions with Marco, the guy suddenly runs up to him like "Yo man, nice box", acting kind of weird because he knew exactly what the escafil device was. If he had been more casual about it, or just waited until he could sneak the box away, it would have been better.
It seems like the author knew david wasn't going to be permanent, so she got everything the way she wanted without it being really organic. We're supposed to focus more on how he broke into a hotel than the fact that a barn full of animals is about the worst place for him to actually get some rest.
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I think K.A. intended to write this character as someone who was never going to work out.
The bad feelings Marco gets with respect to David are intended to foreshadow how much of a psychopath he eventually ends up being, and the fact that he kills the crow for no reason is meant to accomplish the same thing.
That's how K.A. meant to write it.
With that said, I don't think K.A. provides us with enough to come to that conclusion ourselves. There is a lot of friction between David and the Animorphs early on and the Animorphs make a series of very drastic mistakes where David is concerned, and at this stage its hard to tell whether things would have worked out.
Tag on the fact that we really don't see much of David until after he loses his parents to the Yeerks and has his entire world uprooted and I think the picture gets even murkier. At the very least we can say that its certainly POSSIBLE that things could have worked with David. The only thing that makes me hesitate is the fact that I don't think any of the other characters EVER would have done what he did with Saddler. That shows a level of ruthlessness and cold bloodedness that I think may have caused serious problems down the road, even though we have characters (Marco and Rachel) who show lesser levels of cold bloodedness at various times in the series.
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There was something wrong with David, but it partly stemmed from not having any friends. If they had tried harder, he may have reformed.
Dangerous, dangerous way of thinking. I hope you don't apply that train of thought to instances in real life.
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I don't see how that's any more dangerous than anything else they do. Granted he likely needed professional help, but they already had one guy on the team that wasn't exactly well adjusted. Tobias decided his life would probably be better spent as a bird, tried to commit suicide not long after that decision, and afterwards was more bird than human.
Can you elaborate on your post some?
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This stuff about "David moved from town to town a lot and didn't have close friends" as stemming his, you know, animal cruelty, murderous rage, identity theft & ambivalence about the whole world potentially ending. And the "reform" line. Come on. Generally speaking, people don't reform, that's a new-agey line to make people feel better.
Most likely, no matter what the circumstances, David would have been a major screwloose. It's as much who he is as a person as the situation he finds himself in. Throw Jake or Cassie or Tobias in his shoes? Rachel or Marco? Nah, no abject cruel, vengeful murderer.
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People do change over time. Yes David did some bad stuff. He seemed to have jumped off the slippery slope soon after V3 offered to release his parents, and became much worse a bit more suddenly than expected.
I think it's kind of funny about Rachel, since many people seemed to believe she was so changed by the war that she wouldn't be able to function in normal society again. Hence why KA killed her off. I think David only really went to the extreme he did because that's what KA wanted to happen. It was a bit rushed. The reviewer actually says as much.
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I don't know if Rachel was killed off because Jake couldn't picture her future post-war, Rachel'd have been just fine. It was just a suicide mission, best plan they had, and along with Jake himself she was the only one who'd actually kill Tom.
Always bugged me how people interpreted Rachel as some gung-ho war-loving maniac. Not really how it was, she was just all about doing the hard thing, making the hard choices, and combined with that adrenaline-junkie thrillster personality, she was just good at war. Not enjoying it.
David was something else, he was actually gleefully sadistic. He was the kid who burns ants with a magnifying glass and torments cats & dogs, y'know? That type.
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I agree Rachel would have been fine after the war. I'm just saying that while David was bad, the actions the animorphs take does not help things. Why was Marco so insensitive, especially since you'd think the family thing would give them something to relate with each other? Why did they shift him around, and put him in the barn when Erik could have given him a guest room?
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The Marco thing is kind of moot, though, as even if he was behaving badly toward David, it's small-time stuff when compared with his reaction. No matter how the others had treated him, David was a bad, bad dude right from the get-go.
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I don't know if I agree with you there, Nothing. David never necessarily screamed "pure evil" from the start. He was a little troubled and bratty, but that could have fixed itself in time. Besides, the Animorphs have all done things that were cruel or outright surpassed David's actions, like Cassie erasing a man from existence, Tobias killing off the Mercora race, Jake killing off 17,000 Yeerks, and if Marco had killed Karen, I'd include him in this list too. And they all worked out. I'd say in the end, it was a series of circumstances that doomed David, most of which were the Animorphs' total inability to commit to David. I get Mrs. Applegate wanted to make it look like Marco was justified in hating David, but the way I see it is that was part of the problem that led to him rebelling in the end, just like Jake forcing David to sleep in a freezing barn instead of putting him with the Chee or God forbid, just letting David sleep where he wants. Then again, the Animorphs were rushed to save the world leaders. Imagine if there was no ticking clock. Could things have worked out? Would they have been better willing to commit to David and see the problems he was having?
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Things may have been different if they didn't also have a very important mission to work with. I don't remember if there was mention of the barn being cold, but just the noise and smells would be enough to drive anyone out of there.
The Anis always seem to have multipl things going on, neither of which they could or should ignore.
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I'm not sure what the animorphs did compares to what David did. The animorphs did cruel and hard things, but they did them to keep people alive and stop the yeerks from doing worse things. Tobias did destroy a species, but he saved another by doing it. Cassie erased someone from existance, but saved millions of people and the way of life of billions. David did cruel things for his pleasure and comfort.
David:
They made me spend the night in a barn. So I tried to kill them all, steal the cube, and raise a small army of thieves and thugs to do my bidding.
(http://images.wikia.com/theevilliouschronicles/images/8/8a/Meme-well-that-escalated-quickly.jpg)
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I think if things had been different, if there hadn't been a super important mission to distract them, if they had David staying with the Chee, etc... I think he might have still gone bad, it would have just taken longer. And that could have actually been really interesting. I think in poparena's review, he mentions the possibility of actually spreading out his storyline, and even maybe having a book in David's point of view, making you think he'd going to be permanent, before doing his betrayal arc.
Also, can you imagine the Animorphs introducing David to the Chee?
Erek: Do you like dogs?
David: Actually, I'm more of a cat person---
Marco: *stomps on David's foot* He LOVES dogs!
Erek: ......
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He might have eventually gone bad anyway. I think it would have been nicer if it was more spread out. I would have liked him to return as a more legitamate threat, and not just in one book where it was more about Crayak trying to tempt Rachel, and then not knowing if Rachel kills him or not.
I think I've seen those lines before.
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Yeah, it would have been really nice to get a bit more from him (I barely understood that book actually). Maybe it would have been interesting for the Animorphs to go visit him on the island? It's not like he can do much to them XP
Well, Erek asks Marco's dad 'do you like dogs' in #45...? XD
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I've probably also posted that potential interaction in the past. It amuses me.
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Quote from: Chad30 on November 17, 2013, 09:40:50 AM
There was something wrong with David, but it partly stemmed from not having any friends. If they had tried harder, he may have reformed.
Dangerous, dangerous way of thinking. I hope you don't apply that train of thought to instances in real life.
Oddly....I'm on the fence with this one.
On the one hand, saying you can "reform" a genetic sociopath is sort of like saying you can teach a blind guy how to see. You're trying to tell someone how to do something they don't understand (And feel they're better off without) the principle of in the first place.
But on the other hand, that doesn't necessarily mean that David wouldn't have worked out. I've met plenty of people who were crazy as **** (And at least one sociopath, likely two) and I got them to like me enough to defend me ruthlessly and stick around for years on end. It strikes me that if they acknowledged David's strengths and allowed him to be himself....there's a chance they wouldn't have had as many problems.
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I never considered David a sociopath. I'll agree you can't fix something that doesn't exist. The most you can do is teach them how to fake it, and obey laws on a pragmatic level. Empathy is pretty crucial to any social species.
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I don't know if I agree with you there, Nothing. David never necessarily screamed "pure evil" from the start.
Of course not. Not in a Crayak, Emperor Palpatine, Red Skull type of way. He was an aggressive, excuse-prone, "the world owes me so I'll find a way to get away with anything I want to" type. It wouldn't really have mattered if Marco had been nicer to him initially at school, sooner or later someone would have said or done something that he'd see as his "excuse", his trigger, to go all ape-sh*t. He was just the type.
Kind of the opposite of Rachel, in a way, which made their conflict so engaging. She was the "stop whining, suck it up, other people go through bad crap all the time, take it like a man" type, self-assured and just against excuse-making on principle, while David was more like "this and this and this happened to me, it sucks, I can get away with taking it out on other people so why not?"
There's a lot of that in the world today, the woe-is-me stuff. Horrible as it was for David, I'd throw it out there that none of the others would have dealt with it in that manner.
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It wouldn't really have mattered if Marco had been nicer to him initially at school, sooner or later someone would have said or done something that he'd see as his "excuse", his trigger, to go all ape-sh*t. He was just the type.
You might be right in the case of this kid (Given that he's a character designed to turn traitor by his own creator) but I still disagree with reasoning like that on principle. There is no "type" that does anything.
Kind of the opposite of Rachel, in a way, which made their conflict so engaging. She was the "stop whining, suck it up, other people go through bad crap all the time, take it like a man" type, self-assured and just against excuse-making on principle, while David was more like "this and this and this happened to me, it sucks, I can get away with taking it out on other people so why not?"
There's a lot of that in the world today, the woe-is-me stuff. Horrible as it was for David, I'd throw it out there that none of the others would have dealt with it in that manner.
I'd throw it out there that had Cassie's parents been less functional, she would have dealt with it just like David. She wasn't exactly the "Suck it up" type. ;)
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You might be right in the case of this kid (Given that he's a character designed to turn traitor by his own creator) but I still disagree with reasoning like that on principle. There is no "type" that does anything.
Maybe, but I've met 2 people like that who stand out to me in particular. They always had an attitude that they were God's gift to the world, and if anything didn't go exactly right it was someone else's fault. You expected them to screw up majorly, then blame someone else for it. They never disappointed. One of them even ended up committing assault then she bragged on her facebook page about being able to get away with it when she was put on probation. I certainly wouldn't trust either of them with anything.
I'd throw it out there that had Cassie's parents been less functional, she would have dealt with it just like David. She wasn't exactly the "Suck it up" type.
Now you wouldn't be saying she was the type to do that, would you? :XD:
Points for the joke. I missed it the first time I read through your post.
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:huh: Of course there are "types" of people. You can't just classify everyone down to the nth-degree, sure, but there are broad archetypes of personality and behavior. There are more than enough subtleties dropped throughout those three books to say David was pretty self-righteous and with a penchant for cruelty. Put someone like that in a crappy situation, they're going to cave under pressure.
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We're all forgetting one very important point. David was a CHILD. Sure, he wasn't a little kid, but he still hadn't reached maturity yet. Like I bring up to people when discussing Elfen Lied, should Kaede be held accountable for murdering Kouta's family despite her being a little girl? Getting back to the topic at hand, it's possible David might have grown out of it. I do agree he would have turned traitor eventually, but I feel that the Animorphs, Marco particularly, are never willing to admit that they messed David up. If they'd committed to him 100%, then they would be less accountable than they are now, with Marco condescending down to him and making him sleep in a freaking barn. I would say David is 75% responsible and the Animorphs are 25% responsible, or somewhere closer to 50-50. Though I do like the twist in the fanfic One Least Likely where David grows a crush on Cassie, and that keeps him from crossing over to the dark side.
To address donut's point, it doesn't matter. Even if they were stopping the Yeerks, those acts were still atrocious. And David hadn't really done anything that evil until he dropped Saddler down the elevator. It was dark and morally ambiguous, but until he took Saddler out, you could argue he really viewed it as him defending himself from the people he hated because, remember, they didn't treat him all that great, again, Marco in particular. Besides, in the case of Cassie, she had the freaking TIME MATRIX! She could have traveled to the exact moment before Visser Four came upon the Time Matrix and stopped him then, even killing him, which is a much better fate than what is essentially destroying his soul. To quote poparena: "Stupid, stupid Cassie!"
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Yeah, I'm completely in the minority on this I'm sure, but the way I see the world, you know right from wrong at 12. A decent 12 year old doesn't make calls like "yeah, but I can murder you 'cause you're in an animals body", or even feel it's cool to murder an animal in cold blood for fun anyway.
The "child" stuff doesn't fly. Jake was a child, look at all the stuff he made it through.
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Even if they were stopping the Yeerks, those acts were still atrocious.
I want to clarify what you're saying here, intentions and what happened because of the acts don't matter? Killing 25,000 (or however many it was) is killing 25,000 and wrong even if it wins the war or was because they were trying to save people?
I would say David is 75% responsible and the Animorphs are 25% responsible, or somewhere closer to 50-50.
See, this I don't buy. You're still responsible for what you do. They might be responsible for not making him as comfortable as possible, but they aren't responsible for David trying to kill them. David's responsible for that. The animorphs were the same age too. David can't be excused by that with the animorphs being held accountable.
And I might be a little more callous to this than most people, but if sleeping in a barn and Marco talking down to him caused him to flip his lid, then he was going to go nuts no matter what. How was he gonna to handle combat if he can't handle someone saying something mean or having to sleep on hay? And you're right, most people don't have to put up with that stuff. But we know he was going to have to fight. If something small like that crossed his threshold, then he wasn't gonna make it anyway.
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I've always hated when people use the words "necessary sacrifice." They can use it to justify anything. I'm reminded of what Ax said in #17. That you have to become a little dirty to win a war, but the question is HOW far into savagery do you go? You probably would condone murdering 25,000 people to end a war, innocent people to boot. By saying their intentions are all that matter, you can literally say it's okay to do almost ANYTHING. Intentions and actions BOTH matter, neither one is more important than the other, and to think otherwise is to delude yourself. You need to balance both.
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I always thought K.A. should have tempered that a little, found some way to have it so the Yeerks had a whole bunch of hosts on the ground WAITING for those Yeerks, like it was a delivery, to bring more forces to bear. Make it a little more morally ambiguous, and give Jake more of a point, make it less of an emotional "screw 'em", and more of a genuine "we've literally gotta kill 'em all or we lose" thing.
Have him basically be in the right, but a whole lot of people think he's a war criminal anyway. Add to that gray area stuff.
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Well, everything David did was to have fun, make himself more comfortable, or to get power. I can't think of anything he really did that wasn't motivated by one of those. You said there wasn't a difference in what David did and what the animorphs did. But their intentions were completely different.
Where would you draw the line, if it were your choice? How many would it be ok to let die, or even kill to save the human race? It's a hard question. Is it just numbers, which way gets fewer killed? Is it just what side you're on, anything is ok if it's necessary for us to win? Is it about what each side is trying to do, we can do whatever is necessary because we won't go on to enslave everyone but they will? It's not a question that's easy or has a universal answer. But I believe it's much more acceptable to kill thousands of people even trying to save lives or fight for freedom than killing a single person just because he annoyed you.
A little off topic, but we've sorta moved in this direction: in TAC, Alloron wanted to dump the yeerks in transport into space, and the Elfangor objected because they were defenseless. Almost everyone would agree with Elfangor, and I used to. But I realized that for them to be able to fight back means andalites would have to die in the process. I also realized that for them to fight back would mean they'd have to have hosts. The hosts would have to die too. After I realized that, I found myself siding more with Alloron on that decision.
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Of course there are "types" of people. You can't just classify everyone down to the nth-degree, sure, but there are broad archetypes of personality and behavior.
There's a big difference between saying this, and saying "Of course he was hopeless. He was just the type to be an unsalvageable dick." Under the Federal Rules for evidence, you're not allowed to use someone's character or past acts as a way to show the likelihood that they committed the crime they're on trial for. This is because character evidence is incredibly likely to bias the jury, convincing them that someone committed a crime because they're a jerk rather than on the weight of the evidence.
It's also just common sense in regular life that that isn't always the case. I've known people who were "the type" to be school shooters, serial killers (And did neither) and I was considered "the type" to be a learning disabled idiot. I'm a 2L student in a prestigious law school. There are "types" of people, but your "type" doesn't predict your future behavior.
Where would you draw the line, if it were your choice? How many would it be ok to let die, or even kill to save the human race? It's a hard question. Is it just numbers, which way gets fewer killed? Is it just what side you're on, anything is ok if it's necessary for us to win? Is it about what each side is trying to do, we can do whatever is necessary because we won't go on to enslave everyone but they will? It's not a question that's easy or has a universal answer. But I believe it's much more acceptable to kill thousands of people even trying to save lives or fight for freedom than killing a single person just because he annoyed you.
~Ah, the Lucifer Effect. An admittedly favorite topic in our discussions. For who is it to say what is right and what is wrong? What can the humans use to justify their actions?
And what happens when the moral issue becomes....complica ted? What if the human race had to torture another sentient being to achieve their lofty moral purpose? Does then the moral calculus change when it is suffering rather than death?
I believe that there are actions that are necessary, in war, for your army to achieve its intended purpose. But I don't believe that you can walk away from such necessary actions with your hands clean. Many have tried outside these books, and all of them have failed.
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There are "types" of people, but your "type" doesn't predict your future behavior.
I'd throw it out there that had Cassie's parents been less functional, she would have dealt with it just like David. She wasn't exactly the "Suck it up" type. ;)
You're kinda contradicting yourself here. You're saying you can't predict behavior on type, but then predict Cassie's based on her type.
But that's a good point, what are the statistics for repeat offenders?
Oh, I've got a scenario for that question. Let's say you're in charge of the US and at war with another nation. can do whatever you want. Because of the how serious the war is, a new wartime powers act was passed that gives you a free pass to do whatever you want regardless of the law or constitution. Are there any circumstances when it would be justified to throw your own soldiers against the enemies, knowing they will be slaughtered, just because your side can afford to take the casualties and your enemy can't; and you target the other nation's agriculture knowing it will result in the civillian population starving; and exiling U.S. citizens for speaking against your policies?
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You're kinda contradicting yourself here. You're saying you can't predict behavior on type, but then predict Cassie's based on her type.
Hee, so you noticed. ;)
But that's a good point, what are the statistics for repeat offenders?
The statistics generally are that there's a small number of people who are persistent repeat offenders, and another group who are either convicted of one crime and afterward never take another crack at it....or there's a huge number of years between rounds. It depends upon the person, and the same person can change patterns. The problem I have is when people try and "classify" another person in one type or another without any real evidence of what that person actually does. And also when people write people off according to "type," affording them not the slightest degree of redemption and thus indirectly damning them to repeat themselves.
Are there any circumstances when it would be justified to throw your own soldiers against the enemies, knowing they will be slaughtered, just because your side can afford to take the casualties and your enemy can't; and you target the other nation's agriculture knowing it will result in the civillian population starving; and exiling U.S. citizens for speaking against your policies?
These strike me as questions with three different answers. (1). Yes. Basic wartime logic--- nasty stuff like this happens. (2). I'm more hesitant with this one, because I don't see why another solution designed to thin their numbers/cut off their supply chain wouldn't work. (3). If you do this, you alienate your own population. Not worth it.
Mar's torture question still comes up, too. What if the thing you "have" to do to save your country is morally reprehensible by your own standards? All of the above are nasty things to do, but they're a hell of a lot less direct. You can almost, under some of the above circumstances, blithely ignore what you've just done.
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The statistics generally are that there's a small number of people who are persistent repeat offenders, and another group who are either convicted of one crime and afterward never take another crack at it....or there's a huge number of years between rounds. It depends upon the person, and the same person can change patterns. The problem I have is when people try and "classify" another person in one type or another without any real evidence of what that person actually does. And also when people write people off according to "type," affording them not the slightest degree of redemption and thus indirectly damning them to repeat themselves.
The stats I found when I googled it were different than that, but I guess it depends on the crime.
These strike me as questions with three different answers. (1). Yes. Basic wartime logic--- nasty stuff like this happens. (2). I'm more hesitant with this one, because I don't see why another solution designed to thin their numbers/cut off their supply chain wouldn't work. (3). If you do this, you alienate your own population. Not worth it.
I should clarify the question, not each individually. All of them, a packaged deal. But to the third one, another country might be different, but I picked the US for a reason. The freedom of speech is sacred and part of what we defend when we fight a war. So sacred is it that office holders and soldiers take an oath not to defend and uphold the country, but defend and uphold the constitution. Would that count as a "morally reprehensible by your own standards" act? Me, personally, I'd find them all fairly reprehensible, letting your own people get slaughtered, specifically targetting civilians, violating the freedom that you're fighting for. Maybe unforgivable maybe not, but do you think circumstances could justify it?
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I should clarify the question, not each individually. All of them, a packaged deal.
Then it's a "No" for me. I can see circumstances under which #1 and #2 might be committed by me, but I can't see any circumstances under which I'd commit #3. The latter one goes so far against my basic moral code that if I had to reject or accept them all, I'd have to reject all three wholesale. If you want to really screw things up, though....let's say for a minute that I wasn't the guy in charge, and that the guy who was was my God. If He asked me to do any of the above, I would gleefully violate my own moral code.
The freedom of speech is sacred and part of what we defend when we fight a war. So sacred is it that office holders and soldiers take an oath not to defend and uphold the country, but defend and uphold the constitution. Would that count as a "morally reprehensible by your own standards" act?
Nah. The kind of thing we were talking about there isn't just morally reprehensible. I mean something you do that gives you PTSD nightmares at night from doing it. Something you can't run away from by feeling bad about doing it, the line between "jerk" and "monster." Like shooting up a dozen people, or torturing a guy, or brutalizing innocent civilians because they happen to be associated with a terrorist. Zero Dark Thirty stuff, or Alloran using the quantam virus on the Hork-Bajir home world.
Which begs the question overall. In war you have to do things that make you into a "jerk" or even a "monster," sometimes. Does an action being justified in context mean that it isn't wrong? We're not so sure on that one.
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Now, let's say you aren't in charge, someone else is. Would you find it acceptable for that person to do it instead? Under what circumstances would you think it was justified?
Ah, but that's more of an emotional question. How bad do you have to feel before you don't want to do it rather than how bad it is before you don't want to.
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Now, let's say you aren't in charge, someone else is. Would you find it acceptable for that person to do it instead? Under what circumstances would you think it was justified?
I would find it unacceptable to interfere with someone else's actions. Interfering conflicts with my aforementioned moral code, no matter how warped whatever the other person is doing is.
Ah, but that's more of an emotional question. How bad do you have to feel before you don't want to do it rather than how bad it is before you don't want to.
Not sure what this is referring to. If it's referring to the above statement, well...I personally don't see the difference between "How bad you feel" and "How bad it is." What you feel IS your Reality.
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Well, that opens up a whole other can of worms, but to stay somewhat on topic I'll skip that discussion. I'm not so much asking if you would stop it, just if you would think it was ok for someone else to do it.
In my view, only considering how you feel about something means no one else matters except in how they make you feel. Say in an extreme example, I steal someone's car, but as long as I don't have to see the person suffering for it or think about the person suffering, it's not wrong since I don't feel bad about it. In effect, how I feel is the only thing that matters in determining what's right and wrong. I've never really thought about this view, so I might be missing some of the nuances or completely getting it wrong, but I couldn't accept that as a moral code.
Anyway, to my question. I was hoping other people would join in the discussion, but I think the whole thread is just you and me now. The question I posed wasn't hypothetical. They were the actions that the Union took during the American Civil War. Union soldiers were pushed into fighting simply because they could afford the loses and the Confederates couldn't. Union soldiers cut a huge path of destruction through the Confederacy, destroying the food supply to civilians. Abraham Lincoln exiled a member of congress from the country because he spoke out against Lincoln's policies. The actions taken were brutal. But almost everyone would say they are justified because of what was being fought for. Every tenet of morality was violated to win that war, but I'm not sure you could find someone who would say that in this case, the ends did not justify the means. That the intentions and effects far outweighed the actions.
The ultimate point is this:
Intentions and effects are what defines actions. The things David did were far worse than what the animorphs did because the animorphs did them in an attempt to protect the human race and freedom. David did them for fun, or for his personal gain.
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In my view, only considering how you feel about something means no one else matters except in how they make you feel.
I believe that's...just the way things work. The morals that were imparted to us ensure that we feel bad or guilty when we do something "wrong" according to our society's moral code, and so ensure a functioning society. All of us follow what we were taught or what seems "right" to us in our worldview because of our emotional reactions to the moral and immoral.
Say in an extreme example, I steal someone's car, but as long as I don't have to see the person suffering for it or think about the person suffering, it's not wrong since I don't feel bad about it. In effect, how I feel is the only thing that matters in determining what's right and wrong. I've never really thought about this view, so I might be missing some of the nuances or completely getting it wrong, but I couldn't accept that as a moral code.
You're missing the point. When most people would steal that guy's car, they instantly would feel guilty for stealing it. That feeling, empathy, is what gives you morality and what creates moral codes. A sociopath is a person for whom that feeling does not exist, and so a sociopath must rationalize another reason why it would be a bad idea to steal from that guy. Some of them fail to.
Those feelings and perceptions of morality ARE Reality to the person feeling them....but in my experience they're completely subjective. It's possible that guy down the street doesn't feel them the same way or even about the same things. My sister shows revulsion toward anything even slightly sexual, and I have no reaction at all.
Intentions and effects are what defines actions. The things David did were far worse than what the animorphs did because the animorphs did them in an attempt to protect the human race and freedom. David did them for fun, or for his personal gain.
I simply don't agree. I can't believe that torturing people is okay because a person's doing it to "protect freedom." In my dimension, I'm so repulsed by torture that performing it would stain the torturer for years in my eyes. However, if I love someone enough that terrible act doesn't stop me from loving them or supporting them. My morality schema simply isn't impenetrable.
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I believe that's...just the way things work. The morals that were imparted to us ensure that we feel bad or guilty when we do something "wrong" according to our society's moral code, and so ensure a functioning society. All of us follow what we were taught or what seems "right" to us in our worldview because of our emotional reactions to the moral and immoral.
I disagree. History is full of philosophers who have thought through morality from an intellectual standpoint regardless of how something feels. And it's a self-centered view in the most literal sense. Only what that person feels is important. I'm under the impression the whole point of a moral code is to avoid that.
I wasn't really talking about sociopaths. Someone would have to actually consider a person's suffering before being able to feel empathy. If someone just didn't consider it, they wouldn't feel empathy. And I don't believe guilt and empathy are the same thing. Empathy is sharing an emotion you think someone else is feeling. You can feel guilty doing something that doesn't affect anyone at all, and empathy can give positive emotions as well.
But as long as we're on sociopaths, if we define right and wrong based on if it makes you feel bad, then a sociopath is incapable of doing wrong. A sociopath would be the most moral person in the world.
I think the whole point of a moral code is to define right and wrong, regardless of how someone feels about it. If all you needed was emotions, then you don't need a moral code to begin with.
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First off....As much fun as the two of us are having with this (Him more than me XD) we're getting waaaay off topic. Should we take it into another thread? But here's where we proceed.
I disagree. History is full of philosophers who have thought through morality from an intellectual standpoint regardless of how something feels.
Of course. But the vast majority of average people aren't philosophers. Human beings make most value judgments in seconds, and those value judgments are all feelings (Empathy, disgust, fear, anger, rage and revulsion, et cetera). That's why you can hate villains in movies, and love heroes.
Only what that person feels is important. I'm under the impression the whole point of a moral code is to avoid that.
Again, of course that's what moral codes were designed to avoid. That's why they impart the correct series of triggers in a person's psyche. Moral codes are designed to create consensus on what feels "right" and what feels "wrong." Once those triggers are embedded, the person then feels the correct emotions when something occurs that either violates or lines up with their moral code. But these moral codes don't always line up perfectly. Example: A devout Christian, against homosexuality, feels revulsion when viewing two homosexual men kissing. The two men, for their part, feel passion and warmth. A third person, with a different moral code than the Christian, feels nothing at all.
....it seems relatively simple to me, and I fail to see how it's self-centered when most of these triggers were created in order to prevent overly self-centered behavior.
I wasn't really talking about sociopaths.
If we're talking morals, we should talk about them. They are creatures that violate the moral order by failing to comprehend the supposedly universal. It'd be like having a conversation about how seeing was universal and ignoring blind people. That conversation just doesn't trigger the same reactions. ;}
And I don't believe guilt and empathy are the same thing.
Never said they were, but I get how that'd be confusing because for me anyway....my earlier statement was in the context of stealing somebody's car. The existence of empathy causes you to feel guilt, in that situation. Unless you feel guilty there because of your moral code about stealing, but with me the former's more likely to come up first.
But as long as we're on sociopaths, if we define right and wrong based on if it makes you feel bad, then a sociopath is incapable of doing wrong. A sociopath would be the most moral person in the world
I think it depends upon the sociopath's intelligence, really. As things stand now, morality is defined by cultural consensus. That is, the largest number of people with the same moral code (I.E. The same feelings in response to the same things) imparted to them.
If the sociopath was so stupid so as to be truly oblivious as to the existence of other people, then yes we're looking at an innocent fool. (I consider intent under some circumstances, such as the capability of the person to form it). If the sociopath's smart enough to know about other people and what the consensus is, the sociopath must be condemned if the sociopath fails to follow it.
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I'd be careful as labelling David as sociopathic, implying he didn't understand. That's possible, sure, but there's not a whole lot to go on in the books as far as establishing that, over "I comprehend the morality, I just don't care".
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I figure David's not a sociopath, from his actions. Like I said, at this point we're just discussing morality for morality's sake and should take it off-thread.
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I'd be careful as labelling David as sociopathic, implying he didn't understand.
Might make sense, he was trying to say killing the animorphs wasn't murder because they weren't human when morphed. I need to go find where I put my ebooks and reread some of these.