A little more about the moral choice in Dishonored.
Recently, Stopgame was published on the Rest of Moral Choice of Dishonored for the authorship of the maestro Dmitry Kungurov, who prompted me to write this material. In truth, to tell me to make it for a long time, but It was too lazy There was no time. Now I have time, a little motivation and thoughts, which in a sense will refute, and in some way they will develop the ideas of Dmitry. I will immediately pay tribute to the chief editor for the extraordinary question, the very idea of pushing the choice between ethical and aesthetic is very interesting.
A small retreat. I am not a philosopher and I am not learning to it, but in irony this is almost my main interest for the last three to four years. Many articles and books on these topics were read and unearthly spent on their own discussions about life. So the further text is not a fact of all the facts, but a free reasoning, but not quite groundless.
I. Why is the moral system Dishonored does not work.
I’ll start in order. The key in which the player’s will manifests itself when passing – will he kill people standing in the way to the goal, or get rid of them is non -traditional. Each such mini-cut goes into the piggy bank of the abstract scale of chaos, which affects the state of the surrounding world. High chaos – around the rat, sick with plague, corpses. Low – all the other way around.
I see the problem in the fact that the game awares the player about this system and its consequences. The player understands that the option of high chaos is bad, and this is bad in any worldview system (well, in the majority). And if it is already clear what is good and what is bad – what is the choice? Moreover, it is known for what decision what outcome will go. Murder is the growth of chaos, and the growth of chaos is a bad ending. Giving the player a choice, the game does not give him. Paradox. Although the problem lies on the surface itself, in the very possibility of various ways to eliminate enemies. Any player feels that if he was given the opportunity to kill or euthanize, then this has his consequences, and he will guess what the developers give preference.
In most ideological and worldview systems, murder is prohibited, and even if not, that is, strict criteria for which it is determined whether the murder of this particular person is permissible. For example, the same Nazism: the murder is permissible, but only to certain groups of people (Slavs, Jews, etc.) Most of the people of our time live with a worldview, condemning the murder, which means that as soon as the player sees the presence of an option of non -lethal elimination, he, if he tries to correspond to his internal moral compass, will choose it. The essence of the moral elections in the test of either the inner will of man, as far as he is ready to follow his ethical views, or the views themselves, their inner harmony.
The problem of the trolley has long been a reference moral dilemma, let’s turn to it.
Before you are rails, they are divided into two ways. On one on which the train is walking, there are five people. If the train goes further, they will die. You can switch the train to another path, but one person lies on it. What will you do?
The decision to kill/euthanize in Dishonored from the point of view of ethics is obvious. Hedgehog is clear that it will be much more correct to lull. But how to flirt with the problem of the trolley, changing its conditions, one could play with the moral system in the game. I’ll make a reservation right away, the game has a really powerful scene if you have chosen a non -lethal path. It’s about the supreme caretaker, if you brand him as a heretic, then in the game you can meet him again … in a ditch, one infected with a plague, at the very bottom of life. You cannot advise such a fate to the enemy. When I met this moment by accident, I thought "I did this in vain".
And this is actually another problem of this system, I accidentally I drew attention to this, because each next NPC in the game, not marked by the icon of the task, is just the next NPC, not marked by the icon of the task. The game simply does not give strong weight to the choice, live a guard or not to live. The parameter of chaos does not help, because it is too abstract, besides you never know why rats run in the gateway: because they should have been there or because I killed too much.
Returning to the problem of the trolleys, the game could play with the elections and their consequence, like The Witcher 3, for example, only to make a decision out of the dialogue and integrate it in the gameplay. And what if your old friend was your enemy, and what if you had to kill in order to save others. Such “what if” can come up with a lot.
The first example that came to my mind: Suppose the player put a crowd of guards who patrolled the city. Later, when it turns out that they were not at the post, they are dismissed as punishment and edification of others. And these same guards are found at the following level, like ordinary citizens, only now other people are blown up to them who do not tolerate the authorities.
Yes, the described example of the described https://jammyjackcasino.uk/ requires an emphasis on characters, but not more than the game gives us in its existing form.
I especially want to note in the problem of trolleys such a concept as categorical imperative. It is invented by Immanuel Kant, he sounds … yes in different ways, but I like the following formulation:
Do so that the maxim of your will can be a universal law.
In general, the imperative can be reduced to the idea of a principle, such a thing that can not be violated at all. So, if we determine the categorical imperative in relation to the murder as “you can’t kill”, then in the problem of trolleys it is forbidden to switch the train to another path. Yes, yes, Kant was bloodthirsty. The bottom line is that if you switch the train, then a person dies through your fault, then you violated the categorical imperative, and if you do not switch, then all the norms, because formally they died not through your fault. But you could also play with this. Pour deontology with its “opponent”, consistency, the latter can be described as “the end justifies the means”.
Total, the concept of moral choice in Dishonored suffers at the system level. The game means in advance the possible consequences of your passage style without regard to logic (an example with a supreme caretaker, I don’t understand at point blank range why such a choice lowers chaos, IMHO, this is less moral choice). The game does not experience traditional worldviews in which the murder is condemned, it is completely synchronized with them, if I may say so. The game, as Dmitry Kunrov suggested, does not offer a moral choice at all. Of course, this can be said only if the developers did not initially plan to make moral choice in the game … But they added it, this is UNO, they added the ambiguous consequences of a particular passage style, this is Duo (we are talking about all the same caretaker and betrayal of Billy Lerk). Both of these factors, I think, say that the developers wanted morality, but did not work out.
A separate problem is the nature of modern ethical discourse among the townsfolk, it became too … scentist. What the trouble is, in my opinion – people rely too much in morality on science, and it is useless here. Do not think that I am a man of obscurantism, but evolution, medicine, biochemistry will not give us knowledge about what ethics should be. It is cool that we know which hormone is thrown out when making a decision, only this should not affect our choice directly, we must make it contrary to these hormones. This is a word about the evolutionaryness of morality.
II. Ethics and aesthetics.
I want to devote this part of the material to thoughts about the video of Dmitry Kungurov, namely the idea of choosing between ethics and aesthetics.
In general, this concept of choice annoys me (although it is interesting), because this choice is deliberately artificial, very right. Where in the ethical dilemma you choose from two options, each of which can be evil and good at the same time, which creates ambiguity and Moral choice, then in the choice of ethical and aesthetic you choose from the right, but ugly and wrong, but fucking. Yes, there is only one nuance, the aesthetics are very vague, the same things can be shown both extremely repulsive and bewitching. Watch two films “inglorious bastards” and “go and watch”, it would seem one topic, war, but how cheerful the militant is Tarantino and how much you do not want to review the Magnum Opus Klimova. Dishonored proves that the “correct” style of passage can be aesthetized by its second part, it is played much more fun with an intellectual style than the first part (though the lethal still does not reach). The artificiality that I talked about above is that everything can be aesthetic, but there is no ethical.
Here I want to dwell on the topic of aesthetics and deepen this moment of the video, but carefully, then we will talk about Such a dick such an incomprehensible phenomenon as
Postmodernism. But for starters a little story.
Middle Ages. Just accept that for a medieval person God is not a concept, not a category, not an abstraction, this is a fact. He is a point. And what follows from this? This follows the fundamental ethical and aesthetic system. Sins, virtues, paradise, hell, grace – these are all real things that the world and man are connected. Aesthetics and ethics come from here. Dmitry said that there were no aesthetics in the Middle Ages, well, it was not entirely true, rather they were spoiled. God is the truth, and what can be more aesthetic than the truth? Hence the religious orientation of medieval art. Hence the difficulties with the perception of such paintings as, for example, "The Dead Christ in the Coffin".
Modern. The revival and new time went, humanity doubted the concept of God, to the extent in the extent of its form, which was declared by the Church. Now in the foreground is a person, his being and his capabilities. Aesthetics redirects its attention to a person, his achievements, to the world around. The new one is of interest in antiquity, its culture, philosophy, science. Together with a seemingly pleasant rise, this is the beginning of the transition to the abyss. Nietzsche noted the “death of God”, and Dostoevsky described the corpse of society without God. The main problem that has gone since then is this – if God as a source is not, then what is the truth? Then it went even worse.
Postmodern. If in Art Nouveau it was also believed that a person has his will and is independent of the world in decision -making and his being, then Marx and Freud saved him from this. Human behavior is determined by socio-economic relations, in the competence of the second unconscious impulses. Achievements of medicine finished off a person as a subject. Since then, it was finally unclear who is a person and what is his place in this world. In the second half of the modernity and ethics, the ethics falls into a stupor, and the aesthetics take the form of absolute liberty. Why not? There is no God, so there is no taboo, so you can write and draw about anything. In my opinion, this is noticeable in such a phenomenon as aesthetization of violence. A bright representative of this direction is Tarantino, his films are an extravaganzer of cheerful violence. Middle Ages and a man of a traditional worldview of this simply does not accept. Aesthetics are revealed in all its glory, dozens of different movements in architecture, painting, music, etc.
You can say a lot more to say about postmodernism, but I wanted to define a little evolution of aesthetics through this prism.
And here is postmodernism? Yes, despite the fact that it was this amorphous beast that shared ethics and aesthetics, among other cultural phenomena that he carries with him. Thanks to him, a choice between ethics and aesthetics is generally possible. It’s just after the death of God that ethics was a bit bent, there were disputes about moral concepts, proposed different concepts: deontology, conservativeism, etc. That is, it turned out a situation when morality is in a position of terrible uncertainty, and aesthetics … Aesthetics lives freely, it turned out that everything can be portrayed beautiful, and since ethics no longer limits, why not use it. Everything came to such oddities that many do not understand, contemporary art, performances – this is all aesthetics too.
Then I would like to hurt the moment in which Dmitry discusses the physiologicality of ethics and aesthetics. Moreover, Dmitry himself outlines his logic, but as if stumbling in the middle.
In any aesthetics there is a set of rules not related to morality. What if it is already beautiful already correctly.
Honestly, I got a little lost in this phrase. In any case, the point is that the aesthetics really has its own patterns, but they are not related to ethics metaphysically. A certain subject of art is beautiful, because the laws of aesthetics are correctly attached to it, but not because it is ethically correct. AND Amur and Psyche Kanov
And "The kidnapping of pro -terrips" Bernini
beautiful, only stories standing behind sculptures are different in their ethics. Modern aesthetics can allow you to be attached to completely different phenomena of the world, such is the era.
Actually, this annoys me, the game makes you make a choice from options not polar inherently. Ethics and aesthetics can go hand in hand, moreover – they did it. Such a demarcation not only creates frustration for the player, but also gives rise to the illusory enmity of those concepts and pulls that do not need to be enlightened.
III. Conclusion.
In this blog, I omitted some other aspects that I initially wanted to discuss (about the Officer of the Nazis, about physics and biologism), as I found them inappropriate to the main idea of the material.
Kungurov’s video, I repeat, cool. It speaks of interesting, philosophical things, introduces many people to this, expanding the circle of their knowledge. On this I will finish perhaps.
What do you think, what is binded by the existentialism Camus, Nietzsche and the Rogue-Like genre? Any person who is more or less interested in philosophy will guess, but the rest, it seems to me, will be interesting. You can lose Kungurov about this, since he has a heading on this topic, or somehow I will write about it.