The Basics of Ethics

Posted on Thu Apr 20th, 2023 @ 21:54 by Claire Cavendish & Oliver Bloomfield

Chapter: Prologue: Dawn of Avalon
Location: Classroom, Avalon Institute
Timeline: Thursday, October 1st 1992
1807 words - 3.6 OF Standard Post Measure

"So, I'm sure you can appreciate that while this class is called Ethics, it's more about morality and how to determine your own." Claire stepped away from the board to allow the students in the class to see all of the principles she had described connected to each other. It was only the first class on the topic but she knew that it was sometimes a bit dense for people. "It's important to know where your morals come from, and what could influence them." She looked around a bit to see if what she was saying was actually landing among the young class. "Can anyone tell me where their morality originated?"

There was a silence in the classroom indicative of young kids still finding their way in their peer group, not wanting to fail in such a public forum. Then with some hesitance Oliver raised his hand.

"Yes, Oliver, go ahead."

Oliver cleared his throat and looked around a bit before giving a hesitant smile, "The laws."

Claire nodded, "Very good. Laws definitely influence our morality. Just like ethics and morality influence our laws."

A girl in the back raised her hands at that, "what about laws that are wrong?"

"Very good point, can you give me an example of laws that were morally wrong in the past?"

Another student immediately piped up, "Only men having the right to vote!"

"Slavery!" Very quickly the room was abuzz with all sorts of historical examples of laws that were clearly and blatantly unethical.

Claire allowed the class to keep naming them until they kind of ran out of steam, when Oliver raised his hand again. "Yes?"

"What about Mutant Registration? Is that Ethical?" The whole Sentinel thing had opened up old wounds and restarted the debate around whether or not Mutants should be forced to register their powers with the government, and it was clearly a hot topic for an institute like Avalon.

In the higher classes Claire always had a couple of debate lessons and this was always a contentious topic, but she felt it was super important for the students to try and come to the perspective of 'the opposition' even on such a deeply personal subject. It tended to get very heated. The head teacher realised that the entire class was staring at her, and she was not going to get away with a 'what do you think' answer. "An important trait for philosophers and students of ethics and morality is the ability to logically and objectively reason through such questions, even if they are deeply personal." In her heart she wanted to just say, or scream, that it would never be ethical to do so. "One of the ways to ensure that is to try and argue the opposite side, playing devil's advocate as it were."

The purple teacher made her way to the desk and sat down on it, looking over the class trying to gather her thoughts on the topic. She tried to keep a steady and authoritative voice, keeping her personal feelings out of the response; "From the perspective of those in favour of Registration, the argument might be made that it is a necessary evil for public safety and security. These are arguments that have been used in the past." She wanted to add that it was mostly by fascist regimes, but she was able to bite back that remark. "They'd say that mutants have been shown to possess a wide range of powers and abilities that can be dangerous if used irresponsibly or maliciously. Supporters of the Registration Law might also argue that it is a fair and just way of holding mutants accountable for their actions, and that it could help to prevent discrimination and violence against mutants by providing a legal framework for their protection."

"On the other hand," She opened up her other hand to emphasise the point, "Opponents of mutant registration might argue that it is discriminatory and infringes on the civil liberties, bodily autonomy, and privacy rights of mutants. On the grounds of that it may be easier to subject them to discrimination, harassment, segregation, or persecution as a result of their registration status." Even as she tried to remain neutral in her explanation she was unable to leave some of her personal passion out of it, "Opponents might also argue that the law would create a dangerous precedent for the government to control and regulate certain groups of people based on their genetic makeup, and that it could lead to further oppression and marginalization of empowered individuals."

Claire gave a bit of a weary smile as she finished her short explanation, "this is a far too intricate and laden subject to be busying ourselves with in our first ethics lesson, however." She clapped her hands together to signal that she was closing the book on that subject before she pushed herself off the desk. "Morality is much more personal, as such I wanted to ask you to think about how your powers affect your moral compass. Or what moral considerations you should take into account when applying your abilities." She walked back over to the board and closed the sidepanel to create a new empty slate. She wrote 'invisibility' on the top of the board. "I can turn invisible. Tell me, what ethical concerns does this raise?"

Again the silence overtook the class, perhaps it was a bit much to ask for them to tell the head of the institute what she should and shouldn't do with her powers in their first week of school. "Come one, I'm sure you can come up with something I shouldn't do. So, let's start there."

"Spy on people." A voice called out from somewhere in the middle of the room.

Claire immediately started to scribble, "so I can't spy on anyone?" She turned and gave a bit of a theatrical pout.

"Maybe you can spy on the Sherwood Rangers?" someone else offered from the first row.

"Alright, alright, some wiggle room. So don't spy, unless I don't agree with someone's viewpoints?"

"No!" There was a whole chorus of rejection of that offer by the teacher.

Claire laughed a bit, at least they weren't letting her get away with very selective morality. "Ok. Now I'm confused." A smile crept across her features.

"You can only spy on people that threaten Avalon, or the people in it." There were some agreements from around the room, the class seemed pretty happy with that little specification.

"But how do I know that if I can't spy on them before?" Claire raised a concern.

"You need a, uhm, permission. Permission from Ms. Hunter." One of the students offered as a possible solution.

Claire nodded a bit at that, "Alright." She turned and adjusted the first rule on the board so that it read 'only spy on people if Ms. Hunter says it's okay." She nodded at that and turned back to face the class. "That's a good rule, I'm sure Ms. Hunter would be more than happy to have that little bit of responsibility added to her job description." She folded her arms, "alright, what else?"

"You can't pretend to not be in your office when someone wants to come talk to you." The kid had a bit of a cheeky grin, it was clear that this was something he'd considered himself. There were always moments where people wanted to get away from it all, perhaps there was someone or something he wanted to hide from himself.

"Alright, so no hiding?" Claire turned to add it to the board.

"Yeah! No hiding." Someone was very emphatic about that.

"But what if there's a really annoying reporter that snuck into the Institute to ask me questions I don't want to deal with?" She turned with a crooked smirk, wondering how they'd deal with that.

There was a murmer around the room, with some people agreeing that this was a good reason to turn invisible, but none of the kids wanted to tell her it was alright for her to go invisible in that instance.

"What if I promise to only go invisible and hide if I really don't like the person I'm hiding from?" Claire ventured, seeing how much she'd be allowed to get away with.

"Would that include students?" The initial person proposing the rule spoke up.

Claire shrugged, "I mean, some students can be very demanding. Or their parents." She gave a bit of a mock sigh, immediately followed with an overt wink to make sure they realised she was joking.

"Maybe you should just have office hours." Oliver proposed.

"Alright, I'm not allowed to hide from people during office hours?" Claire tried to clarify.

It seemed that most of the class agreed with those rules.

Claire made the necessary adjustments to the rule and then turned back to the class, noticing she was quickly running out of time in her lesson. "Alright. This is a great start, how about you all take this week to work on an essay, I want a full page on what some ethical considerations are for your personal abilities, when and how you may or may not use them and what rules, or morals, you can come up with for yourself to govern your abilities." She walked to the other section of the board that she hadn't folded over yet and revealed the homework neatly bullet pointed out on the other side. "This is due on Tuesday so we can use it in our next lesson. Any questions?"

As Claire asked the class for questions the bell rang to indicate the end of the class, and immediately all notebooks and pencil cases were shoved into bags, nobody having time or attention to ask her any more questions, their minds already at the lunch hour that was only one math class away. "Remember, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to visit me in my office, I'm not allowed to hide!" She pointed back at the second rule she had written down on behest of the students. There was a bit of a laugh from the crowd as they started to shuffle towards the exit and out into the hallway.

Claire moved to start and erase the stuff from the blackboard, since she wasn't permanently occupying the room she felt it was only decent for her to leave it as she found it, or perhaps even a bit cleaner than that. As she wiped away the rule of not being allowed to hide her mind wandered to so many times where she had just melted into the shadows and avoided confrontation. The kids were right though, she shouldn't simply hide because she didn't want to talk to someone, or confront an elephant in the room.

But some days that was a lot easier said than done.