Evander Arcangel

I actually found the part about ethics philosophy very interesting. I do like the character, but I want to take a moment to discuss "fate vs. free will", the CI and morality, because you're the only other person I know that's really interested in that sort of thing.

I have read next to nothing by Kant because I have little interest in his teachings, but from what I understand the CI is sufficiently vague and utterly ridiculous. Just take the Formula of the Universal Law, for instance: "act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it become a universal law." If the universalized maxim could not be a universal law, you have a perfect obligation not to perform the action. If the maxim could be a universal law, but you could not will that it be a universal law, you have an imperfect duty not to perform the action. Because it is so damn vague, it’s a very easily manipulated law. Just make your maxim specific enough and it can be willed as Universal Law without contradiction.

Exempli Gratia: So let’s say that I want to kill my brother for breaking my Fokker triplane model. Here’s my maxim universalized (I skip formulating it, you can do that if you want): If you are fifteen, female, named Rachel, born May 29th, 1998, have shoulder-length brown hair, are wearing a cookie-monster t-shirt and pajama pants with hearts on them, and your eleven year old brother who is adopted from South Korea broke your metal replica of Manfred von Richthofen’s Fokker triplane, you will kill your brother.

Even IF I couldn’t make specific maxims to get around the rule, which I supposedly can’t because of the possible application of the meta-maxim “I will invent highly specific maxims to allow me to do whatever I want”, which itself cannot be willed as a universal law without contradiction, the idea that "a good will is good not because of what it accomplishes or effects, not by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply by virtue of the volition” is tripe. I’m going to go ahead and quote you because I think you said it nicer than he did: “we can judge morality based on the nature of actions rather than the consequences, as we cannot change the future”

I’m not going to argue that we’re all physically deterministic systems, though we are, because even then we are morally responsible for our actions. What the CI completely fails to take into account, or rather takes into account but does not solve, is our cognitive failure to distinguish between epistemological claims and ontological claims. In other words, our map never matches the territory. He expects us to judge whether or not the volition is virtuous using a method that expects every to be the same but different. There will always be individuals with different perspectives, different desires, and to that end the law contradicts itself. There’s no standard to measure virtue, not even the one he invented.

AND EVEN IF all of that can be proven wrong, which I’m sure it can be, the CI is STILL complete rubbish because who actually thinks along those lines? The imperative is useless. If we did follow the imperative as Kant designed it we’d all be a bunch of Hufflepuffs. Really the CI comes down to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you in the same situation.” And who really follows that rule?

This is why, to me, philosophy is a bunch of hogwash. It’s an industry. Intellectualism is an industry. Especially when the dead don’t die. The philosophical community has major problems with relinquishment. It’s one thing to study Plato with the intent to determine what parts of his writings are correct or still applicable, but there are many philosophers who study his work with the intent to defend it from criticism.

As for gray morality, I’d like you to keep this quote in mind:

The Sophisticate: "The world isn't black and white. No one does pure good or pure bad. It's all gray. Therefore, no one is better than anyone else."
The Zetet: "Knowing only gray, you conclude that all grays are the same shade. You mock the simplicity of the two-color view, yet you replace it with a one-color view..."
—Marc Stiegler, David's Sling

I don’t think it needs much explanation. Just don’t forget that there are different shades of gray. There may not be black and white, but there is still a shade of gray that is so dark that is nearly black and a shade of gray that is so light that it is nearly white.

NOW, time for my favorite part. Fate vs. Free Will. Fate is, by definition, “the development of events outside a person's control, regarded as determined by a supernatural power.” I don’t like dealing with the supernatural. It’s vague, it’s antiquated, and it’s quite frankly not real. So instead let’s talk about physical determinism, or nomological determinism if it pleases you. The definition of determinism is “the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will.” They sound pretty similar, right? Right. Well, they’re not, but we’ll get to that later.

Here’s my solution to Fate vs. Free Will: it doesn’t matter. You’re morally responsible for your actions either way.

Allow me to demonstrate.

So let’s say you’re standing in front of a burning orphanage. There are children inside, and at the moment the fire isn’t a raging all-consuming inferno, but will probably become one any minutes. You can either go inside and try to save a child, or not. Now let’s say it’s your “fate” to choose to walk away, but instead of walking away because it’s your fate you walk away because of physically determinism. Are you morally responsible for your actions even though you’re a physically deterministic system? Yes. The decision was determined by your agonizing, your weighing of duties, and your self-doubts. So, not yet knowing the output of the deterministic process that is yourself, and being duty-bound to determine it as best you can, the weight of moral responsibility is no less.

“But Sleeves”, you say, “determinism doesn’t sound much like fate”. Well then let’s test our theory using the classical definition of fate as being the development of events determined by a supernatural power.

Using the same situation as before, imagine a zillion slight variants of yourself, floating in the Platonic space of computations (ignore quantum mechanics for the moment, so that each possible variant of me comes to only one decision). Then each of these computations must agonize, and must choose, and must determine their deterministic output as best they can. The supernatural being in charge of fate can choose which mind design to make real, but that doesn't necessarily lessen the moral responsibility within the mind. Do you see what I’m saying?

I’ll post a separate comment analyzing your character and providing feedback.

Yup, you are my beta for my story. Nope you don't get a choice.