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[Neonivek]

details are what makes things ambiguous

It can. The fact that Bob might be motivated by the protection of self is something I don't feel changes anything.

You can't examine someone's morality if you're just going to dismiss their motivations

There is an extent I take their motivations into account when other motivations are involved. As well I know that some things are beyond motivation.

The fact that Bob is trying to save his friend entirely negates his selfish self-preservating instinct because we don't know. It is the benefit of the doubt I offer that unless something to the contrary shows itself the highest motivation is the one considered prime.

In the same way that I don't accuse people of bieng selfish when they donate to charity just to feel good about themselves.

You especially dismiss his selfish self-preservation because you cannot remove that feeling. While Bob can certainly feel no motivation to save his friend... he as a human being cannot remove his feelings of self-preservation. As well the situation doesn't challenge this because Bob could easily reach the same conclusions had Self-preservation been entirely out of the picture, yet not the other way around.

In otherwords. Self-preservation is ignored in this situation. The ambuity is only in considering whether Bob really did do it for Joe.

---

I am starting to feel picked on.

[fqllve]

In the same way that I don't accuse people of bieng selfish when they donate to charity just to feel good about themselves.

Donating to charity is not analogous to taking a life.

The ambuity is only in considering whether Bob really did do it for Joe.

...dude that is exactly the point. If his self-interest is known (and I said it was at least half his reasoning) the audience is going to question whether his primary motivation was concern for his friend. That is exactly the point. That throws his actions into a completely different light.

[Neonivek]

Donating to charity is not analogous to taking a life

Are you sure I am the one with Black and White Morality?

[fqllve]

I never accused you of having a black and white morality?

But seriously, those aren't analogues, you don't have to have a black and white morality to see that. Donating to charity and donating to the mafia? Those are analogues. But killing a person is destructive, donating to a charity is... not really destructive in and of itself.

[Neonivek]

I never accused you of having a black and white morality?

Sorry I am mixing people up. Another guy accused me of being insane.

Donating to charity and donating to the mafia? Those are analogues. But killing a person is destructive, donating to a charity is... not really destructive in and of itself.

It has more to do with Mens Rea then Actus Raus. Except spelled correctly.

I am collapsing of exhaustion. See you later.

[fqllve]

Ok but the point is that people are going to reflect differently on possible self-interest when it comes to something like murder, because if self-interest were the primary motivator that makes the act pretty immoral. Even if a person were solely self-interested in donating to charity you wouldn't call the donation immoral, you'd just think they were a jerk.

Having a guilty mind is integral to the assessment of the act of killing, whereas it doesn't much affect how people interpret the donation itself, just the person donating.

[SalmonGod]

Or these can be simply characters in a situation all acting according to their unique personalities and perspectives.  They all have their own moralities, but that doesn't mean the construction of the plot has to be a moral statement.  It can simply be that these are people living their lives, and the complexity of the circumstances makes it interesting to observe.

Also, a story rooted in black & white morality doesn't tend to generate this kind of debate over the details of its ethical deconstruction.

[Leatra]

Situation: Joe is being held by murderous rogue police officers and may be in serious danger

What? Where did I say the police is murderous and rogue? The police is interrogating Joe so they can find out where they can find Bob, the guy who took revenge on the guy who killed his family by killing him. Police isn't good or evil. They are just... Lawful Neutral, I suppose. Anyway, to be fair, I didn't really explain my example rather than saying this:

What if it was the police who arrested Joe and interrogated him to reveal the location of his trigger-happy buddy Bob? Because police wasn't cool with it when Bob decided to kill the murderer of his family.

I guess that's why you said it's okay to kill the cop. Still, like I said, there are people who believe there can be no justifiable murders. Besides, the police represents the law. It's not a thug Bob encountered here.

It can simply be that these are people living their lives, and the complexity of the circumstances makes it interesting to observe.

Exactly. I tried to point this out earlier but I think it got overlooked with all the other stuff I said.

It's just two guys hunting down criminals and putting them to jail. It's about the life of these two characters. The characters themselves are gray, it's not about the setting. The gray vs gray morality isn't enforced, it's just the way how these characters think and act. The setting doesn't agree with anyone. You are free to agree with any of these characters. You may root for Bob just because he suffered a painful past, got his family killed, got killed by his best friend, etc but still oppose what he believes in (murdering murderers). That's what makes a character gray. You may see Joe as naive and cowardly for not killing psycho murderers but still feel sympathetic to him because of his idealistic views, the way how he kills his friend accidentally and because he suffers from depression after that. The setting changes according to the characters. Elements of setting include plot, theme, characters and the style of the narrator. Setting can turn from "thou shalt not kill" to "sometimes violence is the best answer" according to the actions and development of these characters. In black vs white, the setting is clearly set and characters just have to roll with it.

I just came back from watching a local movie at the cinema. The story was told from four different point of views.

1. A brother who tries to kill (on the behalf of his dad) his sister and her lover who eloped together.
2. A mobster who is after the diamonds stolen by a food vendor. The only lead he has is the food vendor is a friend of a taxi driver he knows.
3. A drug addicted cold blooded killer who goes on a revenge against a taxi driver (same driver) because the driver (accidentally) got his father killed.
4. A taxi driver (same guy) who tries to hide a corpse (the father of 3. guy), get the diamonds his friend stole from a mobster back to him (2. guy) and force his brother to give up his romanticized dreams of elopement with his lover (yeah, you know this guy too).

None of these guys are good and there is no true antagonist. The cold blooded killer has absolutely no regard for human life. The selfish taxi driver abuses his brother and friend. The brother wants to kill his sister because of his moral ideals about honor. The mobster is only after his collection of diamonds.

You may end up thinking why people should care about one of these characters. However, fates of all these characters get tangled up and the conflict between them is so interesting, you can't help but watch with attention. It's interesting to see how these characters act in moral situations and how it later bites them in the ass.

Since it's a local movie which you will never watch even with the English subtitles, I'll tell how things resolve in the end. In the end, cold blooded killer makes it to the driver's apartment. He encounters the brother and his friends outside, who came looking for the elopers after he found out that they live with the driver. Since the killer is easily offended and is murderous, he just ends up killing the brother after a small argument. While he is searching the apartment, the mobster and his henchmen comes to the apartment with the driver, driver's food vendor friend, driver's brother and his girlfriend (elopers) because the driver convinced the mobster that they can get the diamonds back to him without further bloodshed. They notice the dead people outside of the apartment. The brother's sister runs to his brother. The brother, who is lying on the ground and losing blood, takes a gun from his belt and shoots his own sister, even though his sister was trying to save him. Her boyfriend goes crazy and starts running to his girlfriend's aid, only to be shot by the brother. The cold blooded killer notices the shooting sounds and comes outside. He mistakes the mobster and his henchmen for the friends of the driver. He takes out his shotgun which he hid covered in a piece of newspaper earlier and erratically shoots down everybody, including bystanders. Everyone ends up dead, except for the killer and the taxi driver. Taxi driver survives by covering his face in blood from the mobster's corpse and feigning dead. Killer survives by just a bullet to his arm.

In the end, I was thinking like "That's how you pull a story where nobody is heroic!" The setting itself was actually light-hearted and sometimes, comedic. Nothing was dark or edgy. I thought about the discussion in this thread on the way home.

Ah, anyway. I think we pretty much milked this debate about morality in fiction to the end.

[alexandertnt]

I give up. The grey morality is there and is quite selt-evident, you are just either completely ignoring it, or genuinely do not see it (wheras the vast majority of people do).

The story will be black and white if you are only going to focus on one single conflict (saving someone's life OR killing police, white/black) instead of all conflicts (killing police (murder is traditionally immoral, no exceptions) AND saving someone's life, OR not refraining from murder but causing someone to get killed) which the story has set up for the purpose of introducing some degree of ambiguity.

What is a police officer?: A police officer is someone who works for the government for law enforcement. They carry no supperior moral status by being a cop alone.

The purpose of the police officers is to present people who are legitimately doing their job's to catch Bob. They carry no superior moral status by being a cop, but they DO have the higher moral ground in this situation, as opposed to two random peope hunting bob for undisclosed reasons. Joe will kill some honost, hard-working people who are just doing what society wants them to do.

It is considered colorless because the situation relies on Bob doing something "evil" in order to do something "good". Essentially the "White lie" Logic. You are doing something wrong to do something good. You didn't exactly do anything wrong, yet you didn't do anything really good either.

How is protecting a murderer good? This is where the ambiguity comes in. You just described grey morality, congrats.

Which in that story they never did.

Is Joe alergic to cops only when they are around Bob?

What? Joe has no issue with cops, only people who are hunting bob if thats what you mean.

If I believed in justified murder there is no ambiguity. The Cops clearly forced my hand and I had to act in kind. It is a shame there wasn't anything else I could do but that is just what was happening.

No they did not! Tell them about Bob and his muderous ways, there is nothing stopping you from doing that. I think joe would experience a bit more than shame.

The Cops weren't a innocent third party but an active guilty party.

Pursuing a murderer is their job. They are hired to do their job and society accepts this. Nothing they are doing is morally wrong. They are an innocent third party. What are the cops guilty of?

[Neonivek]

The grey morality is there and is quite selt-evident, you are just either completely ignoring it, or genuinely do not see it

What the? I thought I? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

(Note: This was my genuin response after reading that... which I said outloud in my room)

[alexandertnt]

What? It should be noted I only skimmed over the last posts, so if there is something I missed, please do tell.

[Levi]

Back on topic,  Dead Space 3 launching with 11 pieces of day one DLC.  Hilarious!

I'm not strictly against day 1 dlc, but its usually a warning sign for me.  11 pieces of day one DLC is a sign the size of the space shuttle.

[alexandertnt]

"Bot Capacity Upgrade - $4.99" Really? I can sort of understand DLC that require actual work to be put into them, but all this is is an increase to an integer/float somewhere. If the game had any form of modding (or even just diddn't go out of the way to stop you) I would just do it myself.

Your paying $5 for zero actual product. Its lazy.


And is the game still reasonably completable without purchasing microtransactions? If so would they just not make the game easier? If not, paying AAA price for a game that basically requires microtransactions seems ridiculous. (Im assuming/hoping they are going for the former).

[SalmonGod]

I was interested in playing Dead Space someday.  If that is really as bad as it looks at a glance, I probably won't ever bother.

[Leatra]

EA games - DLCs Everything.

The game itself isn't actually bad. It relies too much on jump scares but it's still not bad. Anyway, I have been watching Extra Credits for a while and this caught my attention. It's an open letter to EA Marketing. Since I'm not living in America (or just any country where EA advertises), I never knew EA employed THAT kind of sick marketing techniques. I mean, you don't market Dead Space to teenagers by getting their moms to watch the game. The fake protesters are something else. I have idea what they were thinking. It's much worse after listening to their "we are the good guys" speech.

If you feel like hating EA some more, watch it.