xXRevan0515Xx wrote...
I believe I have to disagree with your notion that the rewriting is immoral...The Heretics' decision is that of assisting the Reapers in the systematic annihilation of all living beings, which is in my estimations, not a moral decision. It is immoral to take the lives of innocents whom have committed no transgressions upon you, yes? Therefore, the Heretics have behaved immorally (and intend on continuing to do so), making the correction of such behavior in the best interest of the common well-being. That, to me, makes it a moral action. However, I do understand your belief that all life should have the ability to believe what they will.
The question your posing is "Is it morally right to commit an immoral act against people who have been and continue to be immoral themselves with the intent of preventing them from committing more immoral acts?"
This is a tough one. Maybe breaking the question down in parts will help:
"Is it morally right to commit an immoral act?" Obviously, no.
"Is it morally right to commit an immoral act against people who have been and continue to be immoral themselves?" This is also hard to answer but I still think, no. In Hammurabi's time the answer would be yes (an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth). If a man murders your wife, you would be justified in
murdering killing him or his wife (if he has one). However, in justice systems of modern democracies you cannot do that. The police have to charge him with murder and arrest him, and then a court of law has to determine his guilt. If found innocent he's set free. If proven guilty he's punished.
Even in war there are rules to follow (no biological or chemical weapons can be used, soldiers who are prisoners of war can't be interrogated for information or be mistreated, soldiers on either side of a conflict must wear clothing that distinguishes them as soldiers of the nation they are fighting for, etc... etc...). So using today's generally accepted morality code (including but not limited to justice systems and rules of war) is the standard I'm using to answer the above question which again is, no.
"Is it morally right to commit an immoral act against people who have
been and continue to be immoral themselves with the intent of preventing
them from committing more immoral acts?" I think the answer to this question depends almost entirely on the situation and its circumstances. Many times the lesser of two evils must be chosen, so to speak. An example in which the answer is obviously no is as follows:
Two people get into a car accident by colliding into each other. Neither person is seriously hurt. The cause of the accident is clear: Driver A ran a red light at an interssection just as Driver B was crossing the same interssection with a green light. Driver B thinks "This accident could have killed either one of us, or both of us. I'm sure he won't make the same foolish decision to run a red light again after what just happened." The insurrance costs and all that are settled. Three months later, the same two drivers get into another car accident with each other. Driver A, again, ran a red light at an interssection at the same time Driver B crossed it with a green light. Driver B thinks "This lune is a serial red light runner. I have to do something or eventually he'll kill someone. So, Driver B grabs a pistol from his glove compartment, approaches Driver A, and shoots him dead. This example may seem ridiculous, but it demonstrates that the answer to the question can be "no."
And here's an example in which the answer is yes (I'll try to make it as un-ridiculous as possible):
In the future - let's say 160 years from now - humanity has discovered ancient alient technology on planet Mars. It is highly advanced, well beyond anything humanity has developed, The technology is so revolutionary that it is deemed the most important discovery known to man. It provides information on how to build space ships that travel faster than the speed of light. With this technology built into their ships, humanity can travel faster and farther in space than ever before. Called Mister Emazing - or ME - after the man who discovered the technology on Mars, it soon helped in the discovery of another amazing piece of technology that was always thought to be just a frozen moon of Pluto. In fact, it was a huge structure that could instantly propel ships to parts of the galaxy that would otherwise be impossible to get to in any reasonable amount of time. It's called a Mrs. Robinson after the woman captain who discovered it on her Mister Emazing powered ship. A few years after a war with an alien species called "Truians," and after a peace treaty was signed between them, humanity was introduced to various other sapient aliens some of which include the "Isori," "Salamandrarians," "Krudgons," "Volust," and "Elchorus." Another strange alien race worth mentioning is the "Ipodkeepers," who for reasons unknown, kept giant Ipods strapped to their backs. Anyway, the three most powerful races - the Isori, Salamandrarians, and Truians - had 1 representative each on a powerful government body called the "Dimwits." This government was housed in a giant space station called Giant Space Station which, in addition to being the home of a lot of aliens, was considered to be the heart of galactic civilization. Now, the Dimwits had a super-elite, top-secret, fighting force that everyone knew about. The Marvelous Fighting Agency, or MaFiAs for short, was the right hand of the Dimwits. These elite operatives only answered to the Dimwits and had a farily broad mandate to do anything they wanted, when they wanted, however they wanted, and wherever they wanted. Since everyone knew these secret operatives existed and the Dimwits acknowledged their existence, they knew they could claim plausible deniability for the actions of any of its MaFiAs agents. After all, the Dimwits weren't idiots, but politicians. After humanity had been apart of the galactic community for 5 minutes, they thought it was high time that one of their own should become a MaFiAs agent. With the help of Ambassador Dudina - the human representative of all humanity to the Dimwits - a one Johanas Sheepherdersberg was publicly inducted into the secret agency. After unimportant events transpired that involved Sheepherdersberg stopping angry giant squids - enraged that they could not find water to swim in in space - from annoying the entire galaxy with their complaints (not to mention the whining rogue Truian MaFiAs Sraen who was brainwashed by them with angry giant squid brainwashing oil squirted at him who then insisted that the galaxy's only chance of stopping their complaints was to give them water to swim in in space. Anyway, Sraen blew his own brains out after Sheepherdersberg told him that the angry giant squid's complaints didn't make any sense). Sheepherdersberg - skipping 2 years that involved his dying after a freak accident with his omnitool turning into a blade, while he was scratching his head, and piercing his skull, and then Cerebrum ressurecting him for the sole task of stopping the Angry Giant Squid Protection Agency from sueing humanity for denying the angry giant squids their inalienable rights of acquiring and swimming in water in space (and getting no help from the Dimwits who denied the existence of the angry giant squids and attributed the whining and complaining that so annoyed the galaxy 2 years earlier to a Qunarian hoax - after all, the Dimwits had expelled the Qunarians from Giant Space Station space after the latter developed artificially intelligent tomatoes who then initiated the "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes Massacre" which caused many Truian deaths because tomatoes are lethal if ingested by this species but they couldn't help themselves and ate the attacking sentient tomatoes anyway because they looked so delicious - and so offered Sheepherdersberg no legal support). Sheepherdersberg had to settle with the Angry Giant Squid Protection Agency in court in the Terminal System and pay them a sum of 10 billion credits. Luckily, Cerebrum had a plan. Sheepherdersberg would go to the Angry Giant Squid Protection Agency central office in the galactic core on the pretense of giving them their 10 billion credits. In fact, his real objective was to speak to the manager at this central office in the galactic core to tell him that since the Dimwits deny the existence of the angry giant squids, the agency itself was technically a scam. The manager, terrified, had Sheepherdersberg talk to Horriblebringer, the leader of the angry giant squids, on the quantum entanglement phone on his desk. The conversation was brief, with Horriblebringer responding to Sheepherdersberg's news with the following words: "Human, you have changed nothing. Your species has caught the attention of those who want water to swim in in space. What you know as angry giant squids are your salvation through allowing us to swim in water in space." And Horriblebringer asked Sheepherdersberg to put the manager back on the phone. Sheepherdersberg could hear what Horriblebringer was saying to the pitiable manager of the Angry Giant Squid Protection Agency he was yelling so loudly: "YOU HAVE FAILED. WE WILL FIND ANOTHER WAY. RELEASING CONTROL OF THIS COMPANY AND TAKING AWAY ITS ASSETS." The poor manager looked to his side with a hopless gaze. It was as if he were expecting fire to engulf him at any moment. It might as well have because he was ruined - after about 2 years and 3 months, (Sheepherdersberg) got a call from General Hackingit. The General asked Sheepherdersberg to go to Battarup controlled space to find out what happened to a secret agent Ally scientist who was stationed there to do some sort of monitoring of a Mrs. Robinson. It had something to do with the angry giant squids. Hackingit feared that the scientist had been captured by the Battarups. He was right. Sheepherdersberg found the scientist in an interrogation room in the Battarup prison. He got her out safely however. In the shuttle that they had stolen and taken off in, the scientist told Sheepherdersberg about Project Rowboat. The scientist and her team - who to Sheepherdersberg's surprise were still alive and active in their secret base - had determined that a Mrs. Robinson within the system would be a gateway through which the angry giant squids could pass to the rest of the galaxy. She and the rest of the science team at their secret base had found a way to prevent this from happening. They planned to carve and shape an asteroid into a rowboat and, with the aid of its astroid oars, steer it into the Mrs. Robinson and destroy it. However, doing so would come with a tremendous price. The Battarups would suffer approximately 300,000 deaths, including their slaves, from the explosion of the Mrs. Robinson. Aside from the irrelevant fact that a angry giant squid artifact had brainwashed the scientist and her entire team by spraying brainwashing angry giant squid oil all over them, Sheepherdersberg had to stop the angry giant squids at all costs from annoying the entire galaxy again with their demand for water in space to swim in. If killing 300,000 Battarups was the price that had to be paid to save trillions of other space-faring, sentient species from enduring the incessant, undending, everlasting, illogical complaining and whining of the angry giant squids, then so be it. I guess the scientist and her team being brainwashed by angry giant squid brainwashing oil is relevant, because Sheepherdersberg had to get through them to activate the steering of the astroid rowboat into the Mrs. Robinson. Alas, the science team was too far gone - they all now fervantly believed that the angry giant squids must enter the galaxy to demand their right to swim in water in space. The longer they had no water to swim in in space, the angrier they would get, and the more intense their complaints would become. Sheepherdersberg had to kill those scientists, and those 300,000 Battarups. That's exactly what he did, but not before he spoke to a hologram of Horriblebringer. I can't recall what the conversation was in this example I've contrived because I've only played the theoretical DLC that this example must theoretically have, once. In the end, Johanas Sheepherdersberg had only two choices to choose from, and he chose the one that, although immoral itself, saved Trillions from the angry giant squids who have acted and would have continued to act immorally. I was bored, but this example demonstrates that (if you take into account what really happened in the game and Arrival DLC) that the answer to this question can be "yes."
So as not to cause any confusion, let me state why the Arrival DLC is an example of when the answer to the question is "yes."
1. You are given the choice of either sparring the 300,000 Batarians and slaves but then allowing the Reapers to invade the galaxy and possibly kill trillions of people or
2. Destroying the mass relay, thereby killing 300,000 Batarians and slaves, but saving the Galaxy from a Reaper invasion and so - possibly - saving trillions of lives.
Option "2" is the lesser of the two evils. That doesn't mean that option "2" is morally right. It's just the least costly in lives of the two immoral options that are available to you.
*I know that you can't actually make a choice between the two in the game. You can only choose option 2 which essentially means you don't have a choice at all.
**I know that the destruction of the mass relay doesn't actually prevent the Reapers from eventually invading, but we have the benefit of hindsite and Shepard doesn't.
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