• A Morality Question

    I finished reading American Gods last night and I borrow this discussion from near the end of the book.

    If you haven’t read the book, that’s OK. It won’t impact your response. I didn’t like the book that much. The plot was somewhat contrived. There were several obvious twists. And the premise was… odd. That being said, I loved the characters themselves. Very powerful, interesting, flawed characters.

    OK, so here’s the situation.

    Your friend has had their mind changed by an outside force without their consent. Call it telepathy, call it magic, call it pure manipulation, call it brain-washing. But your friend has become a member of a death cult and will commit suicide because of this tampering.

    Now you, because this is a thought discussion, have the power to save your friend by changing their mind. But you must use the same tactics that was used against your friend in the first place. Brain-washing, thought manipulation, telepathy, magic. whatever. And you must do so without their consent. In fact, you will have to do so against their current expressed desires.

    Do you do this thing?

    Why or why not?

    Should their be a difference between the tactics used by someone who is admittedly amoral and one who is moral? Why or why not?  [In other words, is batman justified in the violence he uses?]

    Please respond below and remember to be nice. This is about ideas, not personalities.

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    Article by: Smilodon's Retreat