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Author Topic: Super Powers and Ethics: Beware the Superman  (Read 3913 times)

Felius

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Re: Super Powers and Ethics: Beware the Superman
« Reply #15 on: March 20, 2012, 07:14:27 pm »

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Yes, but would it be right allow ethically unacceptable actions to happen, you having the power to stop? One should allow evil to happen so to avoid trampling the right of individual and societies?
The problem is it's what you deem ethically unacceptable, whether anyone else agrees or not. It's not necessarily about trampling anyone's rights; it's about thinking one's opinion is the true, universally right one. God complex, much?
Yes. But if you don't, but on the other hand, you'd be allowing evil to happen that you could easily avoid.

I really don't have the answer, I can see the points of both sides of the issue, and it's a dilemma I never found a good answer for. I mostly want to debate the issue to bring new points of views and new arguments for and against on the issue.

Mm, Kaij, that's limited human knowledge being expressed, there. We do have a responsibility to be really frakking careful in trying to implement some sort of utopia, but this limited scale omnibeing can know exactly how to implement a conception of good* without it becoming a dystopia**.

There are, actually, pretty ubiquitous conceptions of right (Usually either some variation of "And it harm none" or "Do unto others;" the major limitations in human cultures is that it runs into our mostly-natural xenophobia and everything buggers right up. Either that or it starts either stepping beyond the former concept or going too far with the latter.) that could be implemented by a omniscient/potent being without things buggering up.
The entity restricting itself to the issue nearly everyone agrees on, is a middle of the road choice to it, and it'd still be allowing evil from the point of the view of the entity to happen, while also suffering with some of the more extreme definitions of free will and auto determination.
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Again, it depends on its definition of evil. The entity certainly has the right and responsibility to prevent violence, to stop hunger, etc., as a baseline. For a limited knowledge entity, possible consequence would become an issue and a problem is generated.
Remember the entity does not necessarily follow the same ethical guidelines you follow. It might, as a random example, believe that one deserves the fruits of its own work, and not only not stop hunger but stop charity (and to be self consistent, maybe even force kids to pay back the parents for their rearing after they grown up).

That said, yes, some interventions would be pretty much considered universally good. These are not the interventions that's actually the issue here. The biggest problem is that on the issues not everyone agrees on.
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Frumple

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Re: Super Powers and Ethics: Beware the Superman
« Reply #16 on: March 20, 2012, 07:30:12 pm »

The entity restricting itself to the issue nearly everyone agrees on, is a middle of the road choice to it, and it'd still be allowing evil from the point of the view of the entity to happen, while also suffering with some of the more extreme definitions of free will and auto determination.
Some of the more extreme definitions of free will and auto-determination are utter bunk (though pretty, and they can be fun to poke at.) :P

They break down, aren't internally consistent, etc., so forth. We can safely discard those as actually viable, as moral theory more or less has for the last good spat of time, heh.

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That said, yes, some interventions would be pretty much considered universally good. These are not the interventions that's actually the issue here. The biggest problem is that on the issues not everyone agrees on.
Mmhmm... in those cases, it's debatable whether you're actually dealing with an ethical issue or if you're dealing with a cultural one (and whether you separate the two -- I'd easily argue that you must, because while there are baseline moral actions, what extends beyond that depends on geographic complications, if nothing else.). Largely depends on what exactly the intervention is, in other words. As I've been noting, depends on what, exactly, the entity considers evil :P

There's fairly solid arguments though, iirc, that extending beyond your basic harm prevention package is indeed immoral if the recipients do not wish it. That's th'ol' "White Man's Burden" thing, really.
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Sensei

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Re: Super Powers and Ethics: Beware the Superman
« Reply #17 on: March 20, 2012, 07:35:54 pm »

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Criptfeind

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Re: Super Powers and Ethics: Beware the Superman
« Reply #18 on: March 20, 2012, 07:39:00 pm »

I certainly don't think it would be immoral to to do nothing. Rather I think it would be amoral.

I think the issue here is that morality is subjective over longer time frames. There is really nothing a being like this can do on a wide scale that is moral, or at least sure to be moral.
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