re: "The Last of Us' Episode 1 Gamers Thread: Spoilers, Complaints, Part 2 talk allowed

There's a lot to unpack in this thread and I didn't want to read it all...

I didn't play the game. I really liked the first episode and a few people I know that played the game also liked how it stuck with the games overall source material. I'm looking forward to the next episodes.

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Where I land is sacrifice without consent is murder, and murder is never the right choice no matter what it might achieve. Utilitarianism might be a useful moral guiding light if you were dealing with cattle; but I think this dilemma shows one of its critical failings by seeking to murder an innocent person just so this group of militants can save their own skin.

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obviously this thread has delved into the shithole of culture war political fighting, but i think your (the collective your) view on whether Joel did the right thing and was morally justified is a much more interesting political conversation than the inclusion of a trans tertiary character.

do ends justify the means? if it saves just one life? should a child have agency over such weighty matters?

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Where I land is sacrifice without consent is murder, and murder is never the right choice no matter what it might achieve. Utilitarianism might be a useful moral guiding light if you were dealing with cattle; but I think this dilemma shows one of its critical failings by seeking to murder an innocent person just so this group of militants can save their own skin.

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That’s a perfectly valid answer.

I don’t know exactly where I fall on it. There’s a reason philosophers have debated various ethical codes for millennia.

One of the interesting things about the game is that it demonstrates how impossible it is to block out our own experiences, perceptions, and biases when making that moral determination.

We know Ellie, as Joel knows her, so we are inherently biased. If our perception in the moment is that Ellie is good and the Fireflies are bad, that perception will cloud every judgement. A robot may be able to objectively make the determination “kill the girl, save humanity” but a father simply cannot.

The chance of success presents another interesting ethical dilemma. I think most people would agree that, if we knew the Fireflies had a 100% chance of success, it makes the decision much more difficult. But from a purely utilitarian standpoint, virtually any nonzero chance of success should make it a worthwhile attempt considering the number of lives (present and future) that could be saved.

And then there’s the cost of saving Ellie. So we decide it’s not worth sacrificing her life to potentially save the rest, but then we turn around and sacrifice the Fireflies’ lives to save Ellie. Part 2 expands on this theme but I think it largely went overlooked with all of the other controversy. It turns into a cycle of violence/revenge theme but I like to think it’s also intended to illustrate that Joel’s decision had a cost.

Anyhow, I think my stance is that the utilitarian view might make objective sense, but would require complete disregard for the things that actually make us human. And it’s hard for me to accept a solution that requires us to sacrifice our humanity as the “greater good.”

/rant

that's kind of you, TLOU1 is one of my all time favorite games and had some of the most relatable and best developed characters I've ever seen in any medium

The last I'll say on this for this stream of consciousness...

If Ellie had told Joel and the Fireflies she was willing to give up her life for a chance for humanity to have immunity from Cordyceps infection, and Joel still acted out of love to get her out of that hospital (maybe "she's just a kid, she doesn't know what she is saying" would be his rationale), I'd still say you could empathize with his position as a father, but it would be an entirely different moral dilemma and I'd be much more receptive to the notion that what he did was wrong and selfish because he denied what Ellie wanted as a rational agent and prevented her from potentially accomplishing some real good in the world by spreading immunity. As it stands, I think you could pretty much reduce it to "he saved Ellie from being murdered as any father would have and should have done".

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Anyhow, I think my stance is that the utilitarian view might make objective sense, but would require complete disregard for the things that actually make us human. And it’s hard for me to accept a solution that requires us to sacrifice our humanity as the “greater good.”

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I think this was well said.

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Even in that scenario the glowing flaw is still Ellie is by any account still a child who cannot fully grasp the futility of throwing her life away for what is clearly a fools errand.

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You aren't wrong, but I do think it's a little different of a moral dilemma and honestly an even harder one to answer.

How do you know Ellie's consent would be truly informed consent? I think that's why you would need Joel in the room to have a full conversation with Ellie about the matter, and ideally let Ellie take a day to a couple of days to think it over. But the question lingers, can a child even grasp the enormity of what she would be giving up and for what she is giving it up for?

However, I personally think that at the end of the day, Ellie has the right to decide what she wants to do with her own life, and Joel at some point would have to accept her wishes.

oh yeah the Fireflies come out of this looking essentially like ideologically driven monsters in my mind. They had no interest in letting Ellie have any choice other than to die for the their benefit. Zero sympathy for them or for the doctor who, IIRC, even admitted he couldn't do this type of procedure on his own daughter. So he's a hypocrite on top of a murderer.

Good discussion. Well done, guys.

Part of the issue in dissecting the moral and ethical implications is that the hospital sequence is pretty contrived and not presented very well. It's the weakest part of the story in TLOU1. It lends itself for a lot of speculation of which we get no answers from the story. Then, we get part 2 which introduces new elements that tries to cloud perceptions, but still lacks needed elements upon which we could make a sound, rational conclusion on the whole situation.

As presented, the Fireflies are objectively idealistic fools. They have little territory. They get slaughtered left and right. At least one of their scientists gets wrecked by a monkey. We receive no information they're even capable of developing a vaccine; to the contrary, it seems like they'd frick up boiling water.

They are also presented to be the opposite side of the same coin with FEDRA. They're just as ruthless and just as authoritarian with no qualms to kill...they just do it under the guise of an idealistic crusade.

Then, we run into a metric ton of other issues which require us to explore the unknown:

1. Are they capable of developing a vaccine?
2. How do they develop enough vaccines to make a dent?
3. How do they promulgate it?
4. How do they ship & deliver it?
5. Who controls access to it?
6. If a vaccine can't be created, what then? Apologize for killing a kid?


Finally, How does the vaccine not become weaponized for political gain? He who controls access holds massive power. Are Fireflies going to share the vaccine with FEDRA, bandit groups, David's cannibal group, etc? Or will they pick and choose who gets saved and who doesn't? What prevents the Fireflies from becoming the Moral Authoritarians? What's stopping FEDRA from waging war to take the vaccine from them? Realistically, the last of humanity is going to go full war mode in desperation of this hope of a cure along with despots trying to seize power. Ultimately, is the vaccine even worth it at this point?

Let's say, in Mega Millions odds, the vaccine is successful and distributed... what then? We just all lay down arms, hold another Continental Convention and reform the nation? Think the Fireflies and FEDRA won't war for power? Think bandit camps, fledgling militia and free towns like Jackson are going to surrender their autonomous freedom to some agreed upon governorship? What about the already infected? You can't unsplit a clicker's head nor unbloat a bloater. They're still powerful threats that have to be respected and resolved. With a vaccine, what's to stop a group(s) from using infected as a mindless army against sociopolitical enemies, like we've seen on The Walking Dead?

It's a Hell of a rabbit hole. The odds of pulling it off and saving/recovering humanity to anything remotely resembling pre-mushroom zombies has to be billions to one. That's not worth killing a 14-year-old kid.

Problem is, we're never presented this perspective. Instead, it's ignored in part 1. In part 2, we're given presented with almost universal hate of Joel by the Fireflies, Abby and by extension her WEF group, and Ellie herself, without any perspective on the implications I presented above. It becomes an almost futile exercise for us, but I'm convinced beyond question Joel was justified and it eats at me that none of this was explored in the game so we get the "you didn’t save my life; you ruined my death" crap from Ellie in part 2.

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Again I go back to this being a human response from Ellie to her own “survivor’s guilt.“ It’s a story about people, more than a story about science. People aren’t necessarily rational. Teenage girls damn sure are not.

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This was the inevitable reaction to Joel’s decision. Few would be able to handle the knowledge that they might have been the savior of the human race, and their very continued existence is a selfish act. I haven’t played the second game but I assumed she would react this way.

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Joel has to make an immediate ethical decision without necessarily having enough information to do so.

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I almost posted that Joel wouldn't be sitting here asking all the questions I unloaded

So, how are we to judge him? Do we weigh his actions on what he knew and only with what we're directly presented with by the game or do we judge him based on what WE know (and assume/presume)? I don't really know, because a lot of the defense of TLOU2 is about perspectives. What Ellie sees. What Abby feels. How Joel responds. "You're missing the (Druckman's) point." We get to watch this unfold from 30,000 feet and we have the time to contemplate beyond the characters' singular perspectives. I'm not hamstringed by them.

(I don't want to get into 2, but, defenders of 2 seem to want me to only accept what the writers present as if that's the only valid POV and anything beyond that is introducing my own biases and whatever other tiresome buzzwords that inevitably lead to the sociopolitical bitching. It's why I refuse to delve into discussion about 2 and I'll kindly exit when the show & discussion here reaches that part of the story.)