Ethical Decisions and Call of Duty

This Christmas, my parents definitely surprised me by giving me a Playstation 3, something I had neither asked for nor expected. I was very thankful, but a little surprised by the selection of games that accompanied it: Skyrim, Borderlands 2, and Call of Duty: Black Ops II. All of them were rated R particularly for graphic violence (Borderlands 2's cover is a man in a bloody, eyeless mask pretended to shoot himself in the head- ironically, it's one of my favorite games for the sardonic interpretation of the meaningless of violence, but that might be me reading into it a bit :).

Call of Duty, however, was by far the most graphic and violent of the three games, not only because of the knifing but because of its stark realism, rather than the almost cartoonish style of Borderlands. But I digress. One of the intriguing aspects of the game was the multiple endings available to the player based on a few decisions you made, all of which seemed to be unconnected to the actual decision (I read about all the endings on wikipedia after I finished the game and was thoroughly disappointed). For instance, if you choose to shoot a man in the head or in the chest, he'll either die or come back at the very end. If you choose to shoot a different man in the head or the knee, he'll either die and sink with the ship or the Chinese air force will come to his aid and he'll survive. Did I mention it was violent?

The most gratuitous, however, was a decision you had to make as a mole in a terrorist organization. The leader, the villain of the story, forces you to kill a captured soldier, one of the main characters in the plot line. As the mole, you can either kill the soldier or try to shoot the leader (you fail if you do). But get this: if you try to shoot the leader, a cyber attack will be unleashed at the end of the game, the leader will escape from prison, and snap the neck of an old soldier in a wheelchair. As I read this on wikipedia, I was instantly regretting my decision to not kill the captured soldier, but later thought better of the decision, considering the limits of my knowledge.

To be cliche, hindsight is 20/20. It's easy to see after the facts the outcome of a decision and realize that things would have been different if you had chosen otherwise. This is the foundation of wisdom and repentance  But we cannot hold ourselves accountable to something that we couldn't have known. When reading or watching a murder mystery again, it's easy to point out and read into the story who the culprit really is- but it fails to treat the first time viewer fairly, who could never have been expected to know the ending. Likewise with the Bible, it's easy to think that some of its characters are idiots and completely lack faith (some did, much as we do). But that's because we know the ending of the story- they didn't.

In my ethics class this past semester, we talked extensively about consequentialism, an ethical theory that suggests that an action is morally right or wrong based on its outcome. It's an attractive theory in many ways, including our intuition that we should try to do the most good that we can. Consequentialist theories all suffer some issues, but I think the crucial issue is this: we're not in a position to know the outcome of our actions. True, we can reasonably assume certain outcomes and should be held accountable if we do something foolish even with good intentions, but we really don't know the full ramifications of any given action; we know that dropping a pebble in water will cause a splash, but we don't know where the ripples end. We can't know the full consequences of our actions. God does.

I think that we can't always see why a particular action is good, or why, when God gives revelation to a person, telling them to do something absurd, that action will (ultimately) end well. But we're not in a position to know that, and we have to believe God. Faith is a fundamental aspect of the moral life, because we are not the ultimate moral arbiters of the universe. And thus, even though my choice had a terrible outcome, I shouldn't have shot the captured soldier in Call of Duty.

(I personally think that a version of virtue ethics is probably the best way of looking at Christian ethics, but that's another story :)

Update

I'm currently writing this on my phone as I drive through the Pacific Northwest, road tripping with my sisters. I'm in Idaho right now, which might be my new favorite state (though that might just be me reacting to the vacuum that is Wyoming).

That being said, I might not write for a while until I get home again (which won't be until late June, maybe even into early July. But I also have had a lot of thoughts I'd love to write on. For instance, the necessity of pain and discomfort for joy (partially inspired by Wyoming, sleeping in a tent in below freezing weather), the connection of the limits of our knowledge with moral responsibility (as seen in Call of Duty: black ops II), as well as what's the difference between pain and shame (not sure-but has that ever stopped me from writing?)

Anyways, I hope all of you are well and I will share my hundred pictures of mountains and trees from my trip when I get a chance!

Self- Rejoinder

In my last blog post, I mentioned that the ability to keep thoughts to oneself is a crucial part of a healthy mental state. I stand by that statement, and definitely think that in the context of me writing a blog, I needed to realize that it is good for me to be quiet. However, not because I need to be more quiet (though, as many of you would be quick to note, I could always be more quiet :), but because thinking in the context of a conversation makes my thoughts inauthentic and fake. This is what I wanted to get at.

A good friend, as good friends do, questioned and clarified her thoughts on the statement "Blogging, while increasing introspection, has a propensity to starve the unexpressed thought, a staple of having a healthy mental life." She noted that it is important to also have the communication and, if I may take some liberty, the communion, of expressing your thoughts among people that matter. And I agree, claiming that this is a much more foundational stake of a flourishing human life than keeping one's thoughts private.

Here's a better resolution of what I was going to say. The aspect of the human heart I was trying to point out is that we all deeply yearn for acceptance and belonging. We want people to think that we are good, worthy of their praise, and worthy of them. At times, this makes me feel like a little child, yelling "EVERYBODY LOOK AT ME AND TELL ME I AM SUPER DUPER AWESOME." Sometimes I do that. And yet, at other times, this deep desire to belong is beautiful, is painful, is meaningful.

Here then is vulnerability- that we want to be accepted by others, for who we are, by those of whom we desire their esteem. The problem is that we are imperfect, and others do not accept us in our imperfection. And so we fake ourselves, putting on masks to please and placate others. It's stupid and I hate it.

This is partially why I hesitated to continue blogging- because it makes me think about how I can make my thoughts acceptable (or worse, praise-eliciting). And then I don't think what I think, I think what I think you (you vague, diffuse notion of my general audience) want me to think. 

So, in agreeing with my friend, true vulnerability requires me to be honest and unreserved about who and where I am. And this requires the expression of my thoughts, the risk of being rejected, and the

bravery of authenticity. 

However, I think my previous point about the need for an internal privacy of thought still has hold here in vulnerability. Because just as true vulnerability requires us to be ourselves, it requires the people that we want to be considered worthy by are the people worthy of giving us their opinion. (As an aside, there is still a naive, childish element of me that just wants the whole world to love me, but a more mature side recognizes that there are certain people that I could care less what they think of me. In fact, I think the reason that I still want their acceptance is not to be accepted, but out of a fear that their criticisms or judgments would be true of me- not that they don't love me, but that there is something about me that is unloveable. Maybe.) There is something exclusive about true vulnerability- it means that we are judging somebody as being more worthy of knowing us. Perhaps this is true only in a broken, sinful, world, but it is very true (and deeply impacts how we experience love). Think about marital  intimacy- as Christians love to (rightfully) proclaim, choosing to marry somebody means rejecting everybody else, and having an exclusive relationship with your spouse. Think about true worship- it means claiming that God is above all else, and that we will have no other gods- and not just "before" Him, but even with Him. Read Hosea. (I think there's a lot of interesting things to be said about this, but I shall retire).

In conclusion, retaining thoughts for yourself have a dual role- in a practical way, they mean that we don't share parts of ourselves that we think are unacceptable. And while vulnerability is important for us particularly in our brokenness and sinfulness, perhaps it is better to remain quiet about your faults than to mask them with falsehood. In the end, though, this is unhealthy and inhibits true vulnerability, which inhibits true friendship and connection. Secondly, though, retaining your thoughts is a way of suspending the need to be accepted by others and becoming authentic- thinking what you think not through the lens of others, but for yourself (which I don't endorse as always right- heaven knows that I need to be corrected as much as anybody, but I also need to be myself.)

And so I have more thoughts. And I'm not going to share them. At least not on a blog :)

A Self-Rejoinder

In my  last blog post, I mentioned that the ability to keep thoughts to oneself is a crucial part of a healthy mental state. I stand by that statement, and definitely think that in the context of me writing a blog, I needed to realize that it is good for me to be quiet. However, not because I need to be more quiet (though, as many of you would be quick to note, I could always be more quiet :), but because thinking in the context of a conversation makes my thoughts inauthentic and fake. This is what I wanted to get at.

A good friend, as good friends do, questioned and clarified her thoughts on the statement "Blogging, while increasing introspection, has a propensity to starve the unexpressed thought, a staple of having a healthy mental life." She noted that it is important to also have the communication and, if I may take some liberty, the communion, of expressing your thoughts among people that matter. And I agree, claiming that this is a much more foundational stake of a flourishing human life than keeping one's thoughts private.
Here's a better resolution of what I was going to say. The aspect of the human heart I was trying to point out is that we all deeply yearn for acceptance and belonging. We want people to think that we are good, worthy of their praise, and worthy of them. At times, this makes me feel like a little child, yelling "EVERYBODY LOOK AT ME AND TELL ME I AM SUPER DUPER AWESOME." Sometimes I do that. And yet, at other times, this deep desire to belong is beautiful, is painful, is meaningful.

Here then is vulnerability- that we want to be accepted by others, for who we are, by those of whom we desire their esteem. The problem is that we are imperfect, and others do not accept us in our imperfection. And so we fake ourselves, putting on masks to please and placate others. It's stupid and I hate it.

This is partially why I hesitated to continue blogging- because it makes me think about how I can make my thoughts acceptable (or worse, praise-eliciting). And then I don't think what I think, I think what I think you (you vague, diffuse notion of my general audience) want me to think. 

So, in agreeing with my friend, true vulnerability requires me to be honest and unreserved about who and where I am. And this requires the expression of my thoughts, the risk of being rejected, and the bravery of authenticity. 

However, I think my previous point about the need for an internal privacy of thought still has hold here in vulnerability. Because just as true vulnerability requires us to be ourselves, it requires the people that we want to be considered worthy by are the people worthy of giving us their opinion. (As an aside, there is still a naive, childish element of me that just wants the whole world to love me, but a more mature side recognizes that there are certain people that I could care less what they think of me. In fact, I think the reason that I still want their acceptance is not to be accepted, but out of a fear that their criticisms or judgments would be true of me- not that they don't love me, but that there is something about me that is unloveable. Maybe.) There is something exclusive about true vulnerability- it means that we are judging somebody as being more worthy of knowing us. Perhaps this is true only in a broken, sinful, world, but it is very true (and deeply impacts how we experience love). Think about marital  intimacy- as Christians love to (rightfully) proclaim, choosing to marry somebody means rejecting everybody else, and having an exclusive relationship with your spouse. Think about true worship- it means claiming that God is above all else, and that we will have no other gods- and not just "before" Him, but even with Him. Read Hosea. (I think there's a lot of interesting things to be said about this, but I shall retire).

In conclusion, retaining thoughts for yourself have a dual role- in a practical way, they mean that we don't share parts of ourselves that we think are unacceptable. And while vulnerability is important for us particularly in our brokenness and sinfulness, perhaps it is better to remain quiet about your faults than to mask them with falsehood. In the end, though, this is unhealthy and inhibits true vulnerability, which inhibits true friendship and connection. Secondly, though, retaining your thoughts is a way of suspending the need to be accepted by others and becoming authentic- thinking what you think not through the lens of others, but for yourself (which I don't endorse as always right- heaven knows that I need to be corrected as much as anybody, but I also need to be myself.)

And so I have more thoughts. And I'm not going to share them. At least not on a blog :)