Three Classical Approaches to Ethics Applied to Sarah Connor
September 18th, 2008 | by Matthew Smith |In my other blog I noted that I have developed an untimely obsession with anything that isn’t study related but I think I can use evil for good and apply philosophy to my interests in other things, namely the new season on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Last week’s readings were on Ethics looking at three styles: Kantian, Utilitarian and Aristotelian. Meanwhile in the Sarah Connor Chronicles, there is an ethical debate between characters called Sarah and Reece over whether it’s ok to kill innocent people if their actions are known to lead to the development of skynet, the evil computer network that takes over the world (we know this because we have time travellers coming back and warning us).
So first off the bat is Kant. Kant’s “categorical imperative” boils down to what if everybody behaved this way? and less so Would I want someone else to do this to me? which is the golden rule stated differently. Kant believed that we could use this idea to identify the basic universal moral rules of all existence (i.e. not just for humans but for all sentient beings). So does Kant think it’s cool to kill one or two people in order to prevent mass future killings? No Kant would be opposed to it because if everybody went around killing people because of some future thing that might be stopped from their living then we would have to kill everyone. Surely everyone will have an ancestor eventually (in the long term) who is somehow involved in many deaths. So killing for whatever reason is just wrong in Kants book. What about self defence? Well if it’s wrong to kill, then it’s wrong to kill, it’s a universal fundamental moral law of the cosmos. End of story. Which is why Kantian ethics aren’t really that popular. However, in a way, Sarah is taking a deontological (rules based) approach when she argues that it’s not ok to kill innocent people.
Utilitarians on the other hand say that you must aim to obtain the greatest good for the maximum number of people with the least expense to the fewest number of people. i.e. It would be ok to kill someone in order to prevent a future catastrophe unless there is some way to do it which is better than killing them, e.g. maiming them or maybe locking them up or just talking them out of it. You could argue that Sarah’s conflict with Reece boils down to Sarah wanting to explore other options where as Reece is less ethical because he only considers the “greater good for the greatest number of people” side of the equation and disregards the part about minimising harm.
Meanwhile Aristotle has some ideas about a thing called virtue ethics. His idea was that things that are good in themselves are also good to others, e.g. a healthy eye sees well for it’s owner. He argues that if we develop virtues in ourselves, we will be able to make more moral decisions in any circumstance. Aristotle develops this further by identifying virtues as being means which lie between extremes. For example, courage is the middle ground between cowardice and rashness. A virtuous person learns to judge which virtues come into play and by how much in a given situation to make a good moral decision. In our TV show, Sarah is seen to be brave, caring, intelligent and resourceful. Reece is more cowardly and suspicious but he is also intelligent and loyal. These virtues combine to affect the way these characters behave morally. Sarah’s concern for minimising innocent suffering comes from her caring nature. Reeces disregard for others comes from his bitterness and suspicion of others.
All three of these methods seem to have value when making moral decisions and thinking about morality and you can see how they can help you get your head around ethical problems.
References
Kant, “The Categorical Imperitive” in Ethics ed Singer.
Smart, J.J., “Desert Island Promises” in Ethics ed Singer.
Aristotle, “Nicomachean Ethics: Virtue as the Mean” in Aristotle: Selected Works.