Thieving Thursday: Ethics

Relax Max had some ethics exercises based on real events on his post earlier this week.

Food for thought. And I like thinking.

I don't have real situations to quote, but I have thought about the kind of questions that he posed for my writing. I have to do that for my novels, and sometimes my characters, even the protagonists, make choices a reader might struggle with. I think it's healthy to do that with readers.

For instance, I have people in my Jenri novel (the Jenri) who kill many people. I am not a violent person myself and I'm inherently against killing people out of hand, nor do they. They kill only those that are actively attacking/endangering themselves or their loved ones. It's that second part, endangering, that makes it smokey for me and, likely, a few readers. Also, they attack quickly and kill the same way - in a world (sword and sorcery) where violence is a daily fare, leaving someone injured rather than dead is good way to get killed. Is it ethical? I'm not sure the world is black and white - I can't give you an answer. Can you safely save yourself with a clear conscience even if another loses his/her life? I don't have the answer.

That's kind of the point. Readers can decide for themselves how they feel about my characters, whether their actions are justified or whether they cross the line the readers have for themselves.

I have another character who stumbles across some slavers posing as gypsies and he kills them, freeing the slaves. A reader objected that it was disgusting, but it was who that character was. What's more (and this is true of all my protagonists), I was sympathetic with his position and his decision. I may not personally follow that path myself, but I can see it under the right circumstances. I also understand that not all readers would. But I want to be able to show his side well enough that some would.

I might add, as I've mentioned before, that it is a personal thing for me in all my work that rapists end up dead, often in ugly ways. Personally, I'm good with that, but many may not be.

Or, a more pointed example (one that bothered my husband so much I almost took it out and ended up changing it): under what circumstances could one understand a mother killing her own children? Impossible, right? What if she's an unwilling slave in a brutal man's harem and her children face the same fate (my novel)? What if she were in a concentration camp and the children face a slow death if she does nothing? What if your family faced starvation if you all lived?

What if the choice was saving your own child or other people's children? What would you choose?

It's easy to have clear cut answers in a world where the average family throws away enough food every year to feed several other families, when your children are safe asleep in their beds.

I'll be honest. I don't know what I'd do and I hope I never find out. But I think it's healthy to ask ourselves such questions if only to realize how lucky we are, to help us understand some of the horrible things that have happened in the past, to open our minds to situations we wouldn't empathize with otherwise.

One side note. Relax Max was dealing with shipwreck scenarios. One of the many things that bothered me about what happened on the Titanic (other than the number of third class women and children who perished) - and I've never heard anyone talk about this - is why they didn't take off some damn doors. Ever seen the actual footage from the Titanic: doors as far as the eye can see, hall after hall. Ten men with screwdrivers could have liberated dozens of doors. You could make a raft with a couple but even a single door could mean the difference between living and dying in that ice-cold water. I'm completely floored that no one on the ship, not one person, thought of this. It was the first thing that struck me watching Titanic.