 Rwy'n credu. Gweithio. First thing I want to say is a massive spoiler alert. So, if you haven't seen Star Wars... You're in the wrong place. If you haven't seen Stargate, Ark of Truth, if you haven't seen Firefly or Serenity, and if you haven't seen Red Dwarf and you want to, this is the wrong talk because spoilers. OK? So, that out of the way. We'll start. So, basically, the dilemmas of Sci-Fi is going to be a whistle-stop tour of ethics Mae'r ddysgwysbethau'n bynnig i ddim yn cwmanaeth. Mae'n rhai gwylwg ar gyfer sydd y cyd-fyniadau ddysgwysbethau yn ysgrifennu gweithio'n cerdd. Mae'r ddysgwysbethau er fydd yn cael ei ddau. Mae'r ddysgwysbethau erbyn yn unig fel ei ddau. Mae'r ddysgwysbethau yn maes. Mae'r ddysgwysbethau ar y cyfaint y gallwn ymlaen i'n ei ddweud i ddim yn cymryd. Mae'r ddysgwysbethau, rwy'n iawn. i wneud i gael i chi'n mynd i gael i'r wneud. O'r broblem yr wylio bod wedi bod wedi bod yn meddwl i chi yw'r pryddi'r rhaid i chi a chlesoedd a chlesoedd a dwi'n meddwl i chi! Felly, yw'r ysgrifenni o gyflymu lle? Felly, y yma, yna y ffordd y ffordd yw'r hynny yw'r law ffordd. Felly, yw'r ysgrifenni ar Arastodol, yn iawn, hwnnw, mae'r Ysgrifenni, ffald yw'r ffordd. Felly, yw'r 12th ysgrifenni argynnu Tomas Aqainus, ac yn gyda'r cywledig i'r rhon, rydyn ni fod yn gael cwynes. He basically came up with something called natural law which was how he believed people should live their lives with the aim of reaching eudaimonia. Eudaimonia is a greg word meaning human flourishing. You should aim to be perfect and happy. So he, ariacetod i wneud cyfrynd i cwynes. He created the word telos, which in Greek means purpose, Ac mae'r argument yw'r cychwynnach teulu, ac mae'n ddigon i gyfnod i'r cyfle gyda'r hynny yw'r cyffredinol, ac mae'r cyffredinol yn ymgylchedd. Mae'n mynd i ddim yn ymweld yma yw'r cyffredinol sy'n yn ymwyaf i'r cyflwyno gyda'r cyffredinol ar gyfer y byd. Mae'n ddim yn ddibyn ni'n ddim yn y byd oherwydd yr hyffredinol yn y cyflwyno. A'i gwneud oherwydd yw'r cyflwyno. Mae'r cyflwyno oherwydd yn ymgylchedd ddim ei chynll التam ar gyfer rwysan. Rwy'n gynllun ychwaneg chi oedd maen nhw y ffynol gweithio i fynd i'r cyfnod, i'r fforddau i'r ffordd, i'r fforddau i'r ffordd. A maen nhw'n intentional i ddiweddog. Ai ddim ychwaneg i'r ffordd. Felly mae'r ffordd a'r ffordd ymwyo'n bytt ar gweithio i dwyd. Felly chyfwch i ddigon nhw'n kyn nhw'n mwy fydd dweud. Rwy'n gweithio i ddrygu. i'w ddechrau'r llythau, i'w ddechrau'r llythau, a'r cyhoeddwn i'w ddechrau'r llythau, ac yna'r llythau'r llythau, i'w ddechrau'r preceptau sydd yn hyfforddi, oherwydd i ddim yn ddechrau'r llythau, i ddim yn ddechrau'r llythau. Rydyn ni'n dweud y gallwn gwahanol yma, ysgolwch yn dda, yna'r ffordd y gallwn yr un adeilad yn sgolwyd yn ynhaill. Dwi'n Arnold Rymor. A'r yna'r ysgolwyd. I have no idea what's going on. I've actually got someone else's powerpoint. All that, yeah? I won't touch it. So basically that's Arnold Rhymer. Pretty pathetic. I think we could all agree. But however he does fulfil Aquinas' precepts somewhat. I mean in this point he's had his anger removed by some crazy creature if he didn't catch that. But he does worship God. He does attempt to reproduce. He's not successful. Obviously there are about 3 million years in deep space. He does try to educate the young if we count Lista. Lista never learns. I mean, and so obviously we can argue that he tries to live in an order society by obeying the rules and just generally trying to be a good person. But obviously as you guys may know he is what we affectionately call him Ace Make Head. He is a bit of a twat. So obviously he's not happy. So even if he's following Aquinas' grand rules, what's going wrong? Aquinas might argue that he's not doing it right. Obviously he's failing to reproduce. He's failing to educate. So if you fail basically you're doomed to be unhappy. You can kind of see where that's going wrong. So this is why natural law has kind of been kicked to the curb. So going on we have utilitarianism. Now this is a theory I think most people end up recognising as a thought pattern that's generally used in society. It was originally created by Jeremy Bentham. This was a guy who actually was involved with a lot of political reforms of our country. So his kind of, I think Maxim is the best way to use, was the term the greatest good for the greatest number. So whatever action you should take should be a right action if it benefits the most people. So that seems reasonable somewhat. But actually there are flaws in this logic and I think this is one of the best examples of it. I'll try not to press any buttons again. So again major spoiler alert. But Serenity is one of the best films that kind of shows you utilitarianism. Because they try to do the greatest thing for the greatest number. They try to create an entire world where peace was kind of enforced upon you by drugs. But they figured, yeah, why wouldn't you want a peaceful world? So they do it. But the greatest good for the greatest number isn't always the best thing because they didn't think it's through. They end up killing half the people and then they're 10% turned into reavers which kill loads of other people. So again that is one of the major flaws with Jeremy Bentham's ideas. So a student of his, John Stuart Mill decided to come and kind of revamp his idea by creating higher and lower pleasures of utilitarianism. And this became something known as rule utilitarianism as opposed to Bentham's act. So with these higher and lower pleasures he believes that lower pleasures are those of the body. So lust, gluttony, all kind of more of the sins which I think we can agree is embodied by Jane as a character from Firefly. You know he's all about the lower pleasures whereas the higher pleasures are those of the mind. And we'll go with Simon for that one because he's intelligent, he likes to read, he likes to be smart. You know there's nothing wrong with these guys, they're both happy. But there is one of the fundamental flaws is that Firefly shows you that these guys both make mistakes. You know nothing is foolproof even with your higher and lower pleasures because if you stick to one and not the other you're kind of just doing it wrong anyway. So again utilitarianism in the concept is great. You know you should be doing the greatest thing for the most people helping others. But you really have to think about the consequences. The next one is virtue ethics. Now this was created by Aristotle Aquinas didn't sponge off him. And he basically decided that to be a good person you should be virtuous. You should practice your virtues and you should be perfect like that. Now this theory differs from the others in the fact that it's agent centred. Now agent centred as opposed to act centred means you look at yourself as opposed to the action you are taking. So to reach this eudaimonia that Aristotle so believed in you had to think about making yourself perfect as opposed to making others around you perfect. So I think one of the best examples I could find was actually Star Wars would you believe. And this is what I have chosen to show that will hopefully help you understand virtue ethics. Yoda spoke of another. The other he spoke of is your twin sister. But I have no sister. To protect you both from the emperor you were hidden from him. If Anakin were to have any offspring they would be a threat to him by your sister domain safely. Fyllirolart agen. I warned you guys. So now we've got sound. I do apologise for anything you cannot see or hear before. But yeah Star Wars is actually a very interesting aspect of virtue ethics because as you said the force. It's kind of a bit of a 50 50. And this is precisely what Aristotle was talking about because his kind of maxim to put it into kind of today's terms is practice makes perfect. To be virtuous you should practice virtuous acts. So if we take the virtue courage if you wanted to be courageous you should do courageous acts. If we use Luke as an example he becomes courageous because he does courageous acts like leaving his home planet. Like leaving his friends to train with Yoda and the more courageous acts he does the more he becomes courageous. However like Obi-Wan said his father turned out evil so how does that happen if his father was originally courageous. If we go back to the previous films or after films however it works Anakin obviously started out good. He was courageous but he actually embodies one of the greatest things that Aristotle said with virtue ethics and this was called the golden mean. Now he said virtues are essentially in the middle and this is what you want to be. You want to be in the middle and you want to avoid the vices which are basically deficiencies or excesses of these vices. Virtues. So if we take courage again Anakin starts off courageous he starts being good he does courageous acts. But the more he attempts to be good the more he does too many courageous acts and he becomes so determined to keep the ones he loves that he begins to just keep doing these supposedly good acts until he turns to the dark side. So in Aristotle's case his courage turns to rashness because he uses too much of his virtue without thinking it through. So in terms of virtue ethics in terms of being happy you should always aim for kind of the middle path and just do these good acts while thinking about how it will make you a better person rather than thinking about how it benefits other people which again is the down put for because you will fall to the dark side potentially. The next example is Kantian ethics now this was created by Emmanuel Kant and he was he took a very objective approach to ethics which meant everything is right or wrong there is no grey area and he was very strict about it he believed that you should be doing the right thing by doing your duty duty for duty sake you shouldn't allow emotions or desires to cloud what you're doing. So we're going to actually go back to serenity because I think there is a character who embodies Kantian ethics quite well. I believe in something greater than myself. A better world. A world without sin. So me and mine kind of lay down and die so you can live in your better world? I'm not going to live there. There's no place for me there any more than there is for you Malcolm. I'm a monster. What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it but it must be done. Keep talking. You're not getting the location trace off this wave. Every minute you keep River Tamp from me more people will die. You think I care. Of course you care. You're not a Riva Mal. You're a human man and you will never understand how. I'm making a better world. The operative. So he's a character in serenity that just objectively goes through and just kills people. However Kant would say that he's potentially doing the right thing because he's doing his duty. He acts how he believes others in his situation should act. He kills people saying that if you were in my position you would do the same. And that's what Kant believes. You should use people's ends not means. So as opposed to maybe you use someone to get something. You should just use this person for what they are. They should just be there. And the operative does the same thing. He just kills them because they're there. And that's terrible. He's just mindlessly killing people. He's going after these people for no other reason than his government told him to. That's wrong, isn't it? But there we go. But with Kant. Kant would argue he's technically doing the right thing because he's not thinking about the consequences he's just doing his duty. So Kantian ethics. I mean on the surface it sounds fine. A black and white definition of right and wrong you just do your duty. But I think as the operative shows that actually you really need to consider what your duty entails before you think you're doing the right thing. So last but not least we've got war and ethics. Now this is obviously a huge topic but I'm going to focus on two approaches to how you might consider the ethical approaches of war. And we're actually going to look at Stargate for this one as I think they actually have the best kind of consideration of war and peace. We are so few compared to them. The arc can change everything. Is forced indoctrination really the answer? You would deny the alright, the very essence of self. It is no different than the murder they propose. The only moral way to change someone's mind, make them see the truth as you put it, is to present evidence. We believe in the systematic understanding of the physical world through observation and experimentation, argument and debate. But most of all, freedom of will. I will not compromise the fundamental tenets of my devotion in order to preserve it. We acknowledge the incredible potential of the technology of the arc. And the danger such power presents. It will not be used as a weapon against the orai. The debate on the issue is closed. That's the intro to Stargate arc of truth. To give you a quick basis of that, the orai are basically these religious fanatics who are proposing war. These alterans take a point of view called realism in opposed to war. Realism basically presumes that there is no place for ethics and morals in war. There's just no point. What they try to do is they try to objectively see the benefits and horror of war. That's what they were doing there. They were seeing that the benefits of fighting would mean to be taking away what the orai essentially are and disrespecting their faith. Whereas to go to war basically means that they would kill them. And so in the end they decide that actually they can't fight. There is no benefit. And so they flee. They end up being killed out. So that probably wasn't the best option to take. So obviously several years, thousands, millions, a long time passes and the American teams start to fight these religious zealots basically. And they go to war. But obviously you have to consider whether it's right to go to war and there is actually an ethical way of deciding this. And this is called the just war theory. And this is split into three parts. And the first one of which is use ad bello, obviously Latin, and that is the ethics of going to war. And they basically give you all these conditions. And if you can fulfil these conditions, you are actually having a justified and essentially right war if that's the right thing to say. So grab my notes because I can't even remember them. So for the beginning use ad bello. You have the just cause. So for this the just cause is to free hundreds of people from being oppressed. That seems okay, right? Whereas maybe on the awry, their reason to go to war is to just kill people. That's not a just war. So you also have things like legitimate authority. Are you going to war because some guy on the street corner said, go and fight that guy. Are you listening to the government who say actually we need to go to war? You also have the right intention and likelihood of success. Are you going to war for the right reasons? Are you going to liberate people? Are you just going to go and shoot some people? Are you sure that you're going to win? There is no point going to war if you know you're going to die, like the alteran said. So obviously there's a lot more categories, but then you have use in bello, which is the ethics of conduct in war. So apparently you can actually be ethical while you fight. That doesn't sound quite likely, but if you follow the conditions of proportionality, that means that if someone guy shoots you, you really shouldn't be chucking a grenade back. That's not essentially fair apparently. Discrimination and non-combatant immunity means basically you discriminate between those who are fighting you and those who are running away. You don't shoot the people who are running because they have no part in this war. Respect your weapon laws. So obviously in sci-fi weapon laws are a bit dodgy considering the galaxies may have different ideas. So we kind of throw that one out the window for this one. And obviously fair treatment of prisoners of war, you know the bad guys never treat these guys, the people they capture right. So obviously maybe you are on the right side of fighting them. And then you have use postbellum, which is the ethics of ending a war and peace agreements. And again, proportionality is one of the biggest things with the just war theory. You have to be making sure that you aren't going over the top because if some guy surrenders, you shouldn't shoot them through the head. That's not proportional to ending a war. Again, you have discrimination and punishments. You have to be able to discriminate between the people you're punishing. There are millions because they have nothing to do with it. You need to punish the leaders and the soldiers potentially for what they've done. You also have compensation and rehabilitation in the use postbellum. And this is to make sure that the right people are getting the right help. And you compensate those who have lost what war has taken away from them. So overall these just war theories is if you can fulfil all this criteria then you are actually doing it right. Obviously it's nearly impossible to fill all this criteria and there's never such thing as a just war. The third option is obviously pacifism where you expect that you must follow your morals and you should not fight. We've experienced in sci-fi pacifism doesn't happen very often. So that is the whistle-stop tour of ethics using sci-fi as your examples. Feel free to come and nab me after this. I will happily talk about ethics on sci-fi. Thank you very much for listening. If anybody wants to volunteer for... Oh, have we got any questions? Any questions? No? Oh, okay. If you've got any more questions that's fine, but... Yeah, it's just this small thing. You talk about Kantian ethics and how supposedly because this man was doing his duty for his government by killing all these people that he was doing the right thing. Now forgive me if I'm wrong here because I didn't take philosophy and ethics, but wasn't Kant and a big person for universalisation, the idea that you should look at what would happen if everyone did this. Surely then you would look at it and say that if everyone got rid of all the bad... attempted to kill everyone who they thought was a bad element in society, you would end up murdering the entire human race because you'd murder these people and then the next layer would become... Yeah, and that's exactly what Kant attempted to say. He tried to get his ethical theory out there. He was like everyone should act like everyone else. Universalisation. However, one of the main problems is universalisation is non-applicable. You cannot get any moral rules that everyone around the world can follow. If you said no one should eat meat, that wouldn't be fair. If you try to obey religious laws and say it killed the bad people, it doesn't work. The operative says he knows he's doing wrong because everyone can't act like that. You've got to put a good point, but that proves that Kant didn't have it right. Universalisation is just one of those things you can't do. Any other questions? All good.