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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9191411" data-attributes="member: 7035894">Yes, I was aware that I presented simplified (but accurate) representations of those schools of thought, given that I covered each in a few sentences. If only I had thought to point out that "obviously, there is a lot more nuance here, and many different flavours of these two branches."Okay...what does that have to do with me using this example to illustrate the two fundamentally different approaches to ethics? The plot of that show is basically nonsensical. However, the conclusion did in fact revolve around him being presented with two choices, each representative of one of those schools. That's my entire point. Whether these were the only options is irrelevant - they were the two that were given.You understand that I was just illustrating two different positions, right?<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f644.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":rolleyes:" title="Roll eyes    :rolleyes:"  data-smilie="11"data-shortname=":rolleyes:" />The first rule of discussing ethical dilemmas with students is there's no avoiding the dilemma. It's a logic exercise. It's like I asked them to solve the problem "What does 2+2 equal?" and they replied, "what if instead of 2+2 it was 3+potato?" Like, sure, we could just keep altering the premises but if we want to explore the fundamental ethical rules that doesn't really get us anywhere.You seem really hung up on the fact that I presented simplified (but accurate) descriptions of these schools of thought, even though I expressly pointed out that these were highly simplified descriptions.It's hard to take you seriously in a discussion of ethics if you are going to discuss intent as an automatic issue in all schools of ethics. Deontologists generally care deeply about intent, that is true. Consequentialists, not so much. They care about outcomes. Now we could get into the weeds about act vs. rule utilitarianism, but in essence a fundamental difference between deontological and consequentialist ethics is how they view intent.So going back to the case in point, let's say your character used a mind control spell to make someone hand over their delicious looking cake because you were hungry and wanted it for yourself. Unbeknownst to you, the cake contained an allergen that would have killed them, so your selfish action actually saved their life. A deontologist would typically argue that your act was unethical, because controlling people for your own selfish ends is inherently wrong, and intending to do so is in itself an immoral act, even if you don't follow through for some reason. But an act utilitarian would look at that mind control as a correct moral action, because you saved a life and enjoyed some delicious cake (both positives, one of them a huge positive) versus the small negative of your victim feeling bad about missing out on cake. Intent is irrelevant to the equation.All of which is to say that it is pretty hard to make any blanket statements about ethics such as "mind control  is wrong" because context matters and there are a lot of different approaches to ethics.</blockquote>

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