Kabooooom wrote...
since geth are self aware, sapient and conscious, they are alive. they have a social structure and know their place in time and space. they are a people and therefore it is genocide to whipe them out.
I agree. Earlier in this discussion people were making arguments about the definition of genocide, but I believe that the concept of genocide is inseparable from the ethical and moral ramifications of it.
For example, it was pointed out that genocide is murder which requires malice by definition. But if a sociopath commits genocide, but feels no malice in doing so, is it not still murder? I submit that it is.
So, definitions are fine and all, they serve a purpose - but in this case I think the situation is clear enough.
A sociopath may not have empathy for his fellow human beings, but he would still understand that the act of killing ends another human's life. If he then set out to annihilate a group of his fellow human beings based on their ethnic, national, cultural, or religious backgrounds, he'd be guilty of murder because the crime would involve malice aforethought. Lack of empathy aside, he knows the consequences of his actions and yet still willfully set out to kill other human beings in a premeditated fashion. The act of murder is understood, and intentional.
Shepard on the other hand is not setting out to kill EDI and the Geth. He's trying to destroy the Reapers, and EDI and the Geth are only destroyed as collateral damage. That doesn't fit the definition of genocide.
Some point to the Catalyst's warning as evidence of Shepard intentionally destroying the Geth, but the Catalyst was an enemy entity. As such there is no reason for Shepard to trust anything it says. If for example Imperial Japan had cabled the United States at some point during the Manhattan Project and issued a warning that using an atomic weapon would ignite the Earth's atmosphere, would the U.S. have believed Japan was concerned for humanity's future, or just voicing such a warning in an attempt to prevent the weapon from being used on their own cities?
Trusting the Catalyst is a massive leap of faith, considering it is the cause of every one of the mass extinction cycles including the current attempt to annihilate your own species.
Finally even if Shepard were to believe everything the Catalyst says, the Catalyst mentions that anything destroyed by the Crucible can be rebuilt, and he says that in direct response to being asked how the Crucible will affect EDI and the Geth. If their deaths aren't final, the act of killing them wouldn't be murder even if intentional. It is the finality of death that makes murder such a heinous crime. If death were only a temporary state, we would probably still outlaw killings just as we outlaw minor assaults, but it is doubtful that murder would be treated with the same level of seriousness as it is currently, or punished with the same severe penalities. If the killing of Synthetics doesn't have the same level of finality as the killing of organics, it can't be be treated as being an equivalent crime.
Modifié par Han Shot First, 08 octobre 2012 - 07:56 .
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