Instead of the > and >> nesting used in Usenet, we substituted italics to set off material being quoted. In a couple of places, we indicated quotes within quotes by indenting them.
I did no spelling corrections and only a minimum amount of formatting (such as changing words surrounded by _underscores_ to italics and occasionally making titles bold). Clicking on people's names will send them e-mail to the account they posted on. -- DER
1. Do you think that sf is a good medium to discuss ethics? Why or why not?
SF has often been called "the literature of ideas." Stories often present debates concerning a wide variety of ideas, speculative and otherwise. Ethics are among these ideas. Where better to present fictonal discussions of ethics in our changing society, or the ethical consequences of technological advancement, or to try out differing moral viewpoints by creating an alternate society?
2. What ethical points are being discussed in sf and in few other places? These can be anything from colonization of other planets or cloning to less sf-specific issues such as reproductive rights or the net.
I think it would be hard to find any such points that are not being addressed by some author in some way. SF and F is a very large set of genres and there is a lot of work going on out there. One interesting point is that authors may present stories that intentionally debate issues that have been taken up by other authors. Haldeman's Forever War may be seen as a reply to Heinlein's various discussions of war in his novels, for example. So the genres provide opportunities for dialog on these topics. This is an aspect of sf that casual readers may not be aware of. Non-readers of f and sf may also be surprised at the broad scope of material publishers are putting on the sf shelves these days.
The best of science fiction often (but not always) presents issues in such a way that the reader is aware of differet sides of an argument -- and is often left to reach their own conclusions (or maybe this is just the kind of story I like).
Conventionally, historical/magical fantasy often (but not always) presents clear-cut ideas about good vs. evil (the dark and light sides of the force, etc). This is not true of fantasy in contemporary settings (currently enjoying a revival) where all bets are off in this regard. There are also some authors like Ursula LeGuin and Elizabeth Moon who allow for shades of grey in their magical fantasy universes.
3. What sf work (or author) influenced your ethics? Do you have any specific examples or anecdotes?
Cordwainer Smith's "A Planet Named Shaol" had a powerful impact on me as a kid. It is an adult story, but I first read it at about 10 -- at an age when I needed to know that there were other people who thought about such things as varying attitudes about justice and injustice, crime and punishment (the story is based on Dante's Inferno). Smith set his tales in a bizzare future and had his own unique brand of satire. His collected works have been reprinted recently by NESFA press.
James Tiptree Jr (Alice Sheldon), who was an experimental psychologist, often wrote stories that dealt with whether humans have inborn flaws that hamper their attempts to succeed in doing good -- or even doom them altogether (the "tragic flaw" or "original sin" as part of our DNA?). A good example is "The Screwfly Solution" (written under the name Racoona Sheldon but often collected under her better-known pseudonym of Tiptree). I read these stories when I was quite young and they gave me a different perspective on feminist issues. Warning: many of Tiptree's stories (including the one cited) are powerful tragedies. Her best stories were recently antholgized in Her Smoke Rose Up (hardback).
4. What sf work would you recommend for someone who is not a regular sf reader but has an interest in ethics and/or morals?
(see also examples cited above)
The following stories have been used by several of my collegues in academe to get their students to discuss ethical issues. I think they are accesible to non-readers of the genre and must-reads for anyone interested in ethics/morals:
Ursula Le Guin's "The ones who walked away from Omelas" (In The Winds Twelve Quarters). The moral dilemmas of society as parable
Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" - the concept of social equality taken to its logical extreme
Connie Willis "All my Darling Daughters" - on sexual abuse (collected in Alien Sex)
And of course Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" which is one of the few sf stories to make it into Norton anthologies
Some others:
LeGuin's The Disposessed shows a different moral standard in an anarchistic society.
E. Moon's The Deed of Paksenarion - a fantasy quest for justice with a female hero
Asimov's I Robot is an old classic that lays out the concept of standard ethical programming for robots.
C. J. Cherryh's Cyteen deals with issues of cloning effectively including social/moral consequenses. (Originally published in three volumes, this has been reprinted in a single volume trade paperback and is on bookstore shelves now).
C.J. Cherryh's A Wave Without a Shore deals with politics, art, philosophy -- and issues that overlap with ethics in several ways.
Connie Willis's Uncharted Territory an hilarious account of a planetary survey team and their attempts at a future version of "political correctness." 1995.
One thing that SF can do very well is explore ethical and other philosophical issues. Delany, in writing about Heinlein, observes that most of Heinlein's late novels (from STARSHIP TROOPERS on) take off from a philosophical point of view, and say, "Now, since the world is like this, such-and-such behavior is morally justified/required. . . " [To which, Delany hastily adds, his own reaction is, "But the world is not like that, and this is a straw-man argument!]
A few general points:
1. SF, by the creation of counterfactual worlds, sets up a dialogue with the factual world. This is perhaps most obvious in extreme "if this goes on" type cautionary tales like Pohl & Kornbluth's THE SPACE MERCHANTS, which explores the ramifications of a world in which advertising -- an industry with which Pohl was familiar from the inside -- has achieved an ascendancy of power far beyond what we have today; the results are an exaggerated image (a distortion through the lens of SF) of how advertising affects our society here-and-now.
The "casually dropped detail" school of worldbuilding is perhaps the easiest aspect of this dialogue to explore. By dropping a detail -- for example, Heinlein's (in)famous "The door dilated," not only does the writer indicate to the reader that, yes, this world is *really* different from the one the reader inhabits; and not only does the detail imply a great deal about the counterfactual world (what kind of technology is involved in dilatingdoors? What kind of people want them? Etc.), but also about the *factual* world (by being placed side-by-side with the counterfactual world, we are led to ask what kind of technology *our* doors use, why we use that kind of door, etc.); we are led to see that the facts of the factual world are *not* inevitable.
The same can, and often has, been done on a moral level. To do it well takes a more complex rhetoric than the "casually dropped detail." For example, in Pohl and Kornbluth's GLADIATOR-AT-LAW, we are introduced to a future America in which "Field Days," which make the ancient Roman Circus Maximus look tame by comparison, are an accepted part of the culture. The reader's first reaction (one hopes!) is horror; but by carefully controlling and exposing the reactions of the characters within this future society, and particularly of those we have come to regard as our protagonists, decent and honorable people, we are led to understand that our horror is *not* an inevitable fact of human nature -- and, as a result, we cannot judge others in the factual world, who do not accept the assumptions of our culture, quite so severely. Thus, SF can serve as a powerful tool for multicultural understanding.
2. The moral/ethical/philosophical structure of an SF story does not necessarily that of the counterfactual world; and neither of these is necessarily congruent with what the writer believes to be the moral/ ethical/philosophical structure of the factual world. Perhaps the most blatant example of this is DUNE, a book with a decidedly "liberal" moral/ ethical/philosophical structure. This structure so pervades DUNE that most readers never realize that they have been reading about a universe where the basic precepts of facism are literally true. Examples: the Bene Gesserit's breeding program -- "we sift through people to find humans" -- which *works*; the Fremen belief that they are a superior people -- which proves to be *true*; the fuhrerprinzip embodied within the myths of the Kwisatz Haderach and the Mahdi -- myths which come true. Etc.
(Having realized this around 1980, I was tremendously amused, upon reading the last book of the DUNE cycle, at this: The DUNE cycle begins in a future so distant that the cultural groups with which we familiar have changed and blended in strange and wonderful ways. During the course of the series -- specifically, between the third and fourth volumes -- the human race is subjected to thousands of years of a program of deliberate cultural homogenization. Yet, thousands of years after *that*, we find a cultural group suddenly popping up, recognizable from our own time. And who is this? Why, the Jews! Talk about fascist myths coming true -- !)
Another pretty well-known example would be NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR. The final message of the book is that, in the universe in which it takes place, IngSoc *is* inevitably, and eternally, victorious. The shape of the future is a booted foot stomping a human face. I think it fair to say that the *novel* supports an entirely different moral/ethical/philosophical position, and that Orwell himself would (when not lost in bitter cynicism) have agreed that the world of NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR was not (necessarily) the future of our world.
3. "To fail to oppose something, is to support it." That is to say, if a facet of our (factual) culture is taken for granted in the counterfactual culture of an SF novel, this taking-for-granted silently reinforces that facet in the factual culture. Millions of words in which White Male Supremacy and the Decent American Democratic-Capitalist Way were taken for granted, did not merely fail to challenge the white-male-supremacist, decent American democratic- capitalist majority culture; they helped to maintain the myth that this was just how things are. This is not to say that the writers *ought* to have challenged the way things were; it is to say that by not thinking about it, they supported the way things were, whether they intended to or not.
4. Because of all of the above, any serious writer of SF is faced with both an opportunity and a challenge.
The opportunity is fairly obvious; the creation of counterfactual cultures allows the writer to explore a variety of moral/ethical/philosophical ideas -- whether the writer believes these to be true or not. Heinlein, I would say, was probably the master (to date) of such explorations; from the 1950s on, he tried on a series of philosophical masks, and one novel after another explored the "If the world was like *this*--" that Delany so admires, while decrying Heinlein's choice of *this*ses. In the end, he appears to have settled on what one of his characters refers to as "pantheistic multiple- person solipsism" -- settled, at least, to the extent that (after writing FRIDAY and JOB) he returned to it and remained with it for his last two novels.
The challenge may be a little less obvious, but for me it is *the* most interesting aspect of creating counterfactual cultures: to examine everything, to hold up to the light every possible assumption about how things are, and show other ways they could be.
From: dan'l danehy-oakes
It occurs to me that I never directly answered your questions!
1. Do you think that sf is a good medium to discuss ethics? Why or why not?
Well, *that*, at least I think I answered, if only by implication. Yes.
2. What ethical points are being discussed in sf and in few other places? These can be anything from colonization of other planets or cloning to less sf-specific issues such as reproductive rights or the net.
Anything and everything. Bioethics is a current "hot topic." The rights of "society" v. the rights of the "individual" has been a major SF topic for about as long as there has been SF (goes all the way back to H.G. Wells). The question of "what is human?" -- vital, for example, in the abortion/choice debate -- has deep roots in SF, too: we can start tracing its arc with Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN -- like Wells' novels, really proto-SF -- and bring it up to, at least, Philip K. Dick and Rudy Rucker.
3. What sf work (or author) influenced your ethics? Do you have any specific examples or anecdotes?
The total work of Robert Heinlein, and especially his juvenile novels, have had a diffuse influence upon me and thousands of other SF readers. Not, necessarily, in that they convince readers of Heinlein's own stances, but in that they convince readers that such questions are (a) interesting and (b) worthy of careful thought.
Specific stories that have changed my view of life? The only one that comes to mind is James Tiptree, Jr.'s "The Women Men Don't See."
I think it would be fair to say, however, that much other SF has done so in a less-specific way: that is, by presenting issues in interesting perspectives, causing me to think about them in new ways, etc. An excellent example of this is Philip K. Dick's "The Pre-Persons," one of the most powerful anti-abortion stories I have ever read. It did not cause me to magically change to an anti-abortion fanatic, but it *did* participate, along with many other influences, in the internal dialogue that led me to my current position on the matter, which is unchangeable until next time I think about it 8*)
4. What sf work would you recommend for someone who is not a regular sf reader but has an interest in ethics and/or morals?
Heinlein, though many would find this answer offensive. Russ. Tiptree. Le Guin. David Gerrold's WAR AGAINST THE CHTORR, especially the first volume. Lord, what a question! Octavia Butler's "Bloodchild." Just about anything by Philip K. Dick.
Sf is of course a wonderful medium to discuss ethical issues. An important part of sf and fantasy since the Campbell Golden Age has been to ask "what if" questions. The author can vary one or more aspects of ordinary society, and then explore the implications. As a formal matter, the "what if" approach is precisely analogous to an important tool of the professional ethicist, who also asks "what if" questions, often dressed up in the more scientific-sounding form of "thought experiments" (or gedanken experiments to those who aspire to Einstein-like insights). One ethicists' example of this technique with which I happen to be familiar is Judith Jarvis Thompson's work on abortion.
So, sf authors have the freedom to experiment, and thus to pose ethical issues in thought- and emotion-provoking contexts. In a fictional setting, once the reader begins to care about the characters, the author can push the reader to sympathize with positions that would otherwise be abhorrent. A classic example is Theodore Sturgeon's story about incest in Ellison's Again, Dangerous Visions collection. (I think the title is: "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?") Heinlein also made incest seem almost natural in several of his Lazarus Long episodes. (Let me assure you of my personal opposition to incest. The point here is that, by varying societal context, the sf writer can pose ethical issues in provocative ways.)
Sf routinely explores ethical issues that are otherwise difficult to raise in an interesting way. Gibson and other cyberpunk writers have been instrumental in exploring the morality of the Internet. One obvious example of their influence is that Gibson's term "cyberspace" has so thoroughly entered into common usage that most people don't know its origin. A particularly wonderful recent exploration of Internet morality is Melissa Scott's "Trouble and Her Friends." I propose that her term "syscop" (instead of "sysop") deserves widespread adoption, as do her insights concerning the morality and law of having lots of syscops as a necessary part of the networked future.
Sf also given us many examples of the ethics and morality of environmental issues. David Brin's Earth, for instance, made me think in very concrete terms about what the near future would be like with global warming. Although I had read lots of the science about global warming, his fine cautionary tale had more emotional impact on me. On television, Max Headroom had a similar impact when it showed the sale of body parts -- even if you thought that the free market deserved respect on that issue, could you really approve of such a horrific institution actually selling such things in your home town?
Although there are numerous other ethical issues that have been well explored in sf, some mention must be made of the sub-genre of dystopias -- horrible futures that are the opposite of utopias. Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World are the most famous, but there are too many nuclear holocaust or worldwide plague or other dystopic futures to count. By asking the "what if" question, sf writers can colorfully explore the problems that will arise "If This Goes On" (a Heinlein story title).
The ethical explorations in sf are often colored by authors' libertarian leanings -- Heinlein, Bova, Pournelle, and the cyberpunks' suspicion of state authority. The freedom to explore outer space, the freedom of the author to imagine an alternate future, and the freedom of the individual from state authority all seem to have often linked together in a satisfying emotional package. Now, some of my best friends are libertarians, and I have spent much of my adult life arguing (sometimes sympathetically) with libertarians, but a reader exploring ethics and sf ought to at least be put on notice of the over-representation of libertarian leanings in much of what is classified as sf. Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series wonderfully illustrates a typical pattern in sf -- the rugged and brilliant individual opposing the cow-like herd of people satisfied with their community. In writing an adventure story, the author can always find a clever way to let the hero win against all odds. In real life, most of us depend on other people, and sometimes even on the government, a whole lot more than that. So, explore away in sf and ethics, but remember that individuals come from families, and live in communities, and connectedness matters in many ways that the lonely hero does not always appreciate.
Hi David. I was delighted to see your post on r.a.sf.written.
1. Do you think that sf is a good medium to discuss ethics? Why or why not?
I think all fiction is a good medium to discuss ethics. SF has a few specific advantages. It lets an author separate an ethical problem from some of its social and political associations. In ordinary circumstances, a lot of people make "ethical" decisions based mostly on family, religious, or political loyalty, without giving much thought to the actual issues. SF also makes it easier to consider several changes at once, and extrapolate broadly from them. SF readers accept that the extrapolation can be a main point of a story, while readers of mysteries or romance novels tend to balk at any setting that's too wildly unrealistic. In an sf setting, it's also possible to introduce very controversial, provocative ideas. Rather than reacting "How could any people possibly live that way? It's outrageous!" we can say "Of course they're not people, they're aliens, and they do seem to live that way. Let's see how it works for them, what it could lead to..." See?
SF also has a few disadvantages for ethical discussions. The big one is that people don't take it very seriously. That's starting to change, a bit, but many authors and readers still consider it light entertainment in the pulp tradition. The other one is that so much of it is still limited by what's considered appropriate for children. Teenagers used to make up most of the sf market, and they're still a significant fraction of it, and a lot of ethical questions (why are drugs bad? what would make suicide ok?) are just considered too dangerous for them.
2. What ethical points are being discussed in sf and in few other places? These can be anything from colonization of other planets or cloning to less sf-specific issues such as reproductive rights or the net.
Well, sf is a very broad category. Some of the best writing I've ever seen about both sexuality and bigotry was by Ted Sturgeon. He wrote a story called "The World Well Lost," saying that hatred of homosexuals was tragic and wrong. He got that published in 1959! Now, that's a mainstream ethical concept, but it was pretty shocking then.
There are so many pacifist and environmentalist sf writers out there that I can't begin to list them. Most of them start with some future world that has already been devastated by pollution or war. These tend to be a bit too preachy for me to consider them great works of art, but David Brin and Kate Wilhelm have written some good stuff along those lines.
A few sf writers deal with fundamental issues of how mortals can or should approach the divine. Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun is unbelievably full of ethical and theological concerns, as rich and complicated as the Christian new testament. Because of that very complexity, it's not really readable/approachable enough to be great sf. Robert Charles Wilson brings in a lot of gnostic theology (with the related ethical questions about hubris) with a much lighter touch.
A lot of sf authors explore (or simply preach against) sexism and racism. M arion Zimmer Bradley does the feminist bit most emphatically. I loved it when I was 12, but now it seems too blunt and strident to be very meaningful. Good and evil are not so simple in real life. The racism issue is most often dealt with by analogy -- with sentient aliens or magical creatures dealing with humans. Harry Turtledove, Robert Silverberg, and James Tiptree do this very well.
3. What sf work (or author) influenced your ethics? Do you have any specific examples or anecdotes?
Lois McMaster Bujold. Most of her stuff deals with basic humanism. Ted Sturgeon. He shows a profound understanding of love and trust and human weakness. Both of these give a lot of attention to issues of forgiveness. I've also learned a lot from James Tiptree, John Brunner, and George R.R. Martin (only his short stories - his novels are not nearly so good).
4. What sf work would you recommend for someone who is not a regular sf reader but has an interest in ethics and/or morals?
Lois McMaster Bujold: "The Mountains of Mourning" (short story) -- bigotry, class, infanticide Falling Free (novel suitable for teens) -- slavery, scientific ethics Shards of Honor -- sexism, militarism, patients' rights, rape.... LOTS more. Not much "sf feel," but assumes different human cultures on different planets Ted Sturgeon: Anything. Really! Anything you can find.
James Tiptree: Brightness Falls From the Air
Harry Turtledove: Departures -- collection of alternate-history stories, some sf, some less so. He deals with faith, religious bigotry, democracy...mixed in with humor.
1. Do you think that sf is a good medium to discuss ethics? Why or why not?
Yes, because you can extrapolate future results based on whatever ethics you want to postulate, and then discuss the kind of society that results.
2. What ethical points are being discussed in sf and in few other places? These can be anything from colonization of other planets or cloning to less sf-specific issues such as reproductive rights or the net.
Far more than just issues in science - I prefer to think of "SF" as "speculative fiction", because it can be any kind of speculation - what if people were different, what if aliens thought differently than we did - many alien civilizations are created mainly as foils for differnet philosophies or ways of thinking.
3. What sf work (or author) influenced your ethics? Do you have any specific examples or anecdotes?
Heinlein, of course --his characters almost always have strong moral and ethical codes. L. Neil Smith, in his Libertarian SF. Orson Scott Card, who portrays strong characters with high degrees of ethics and morality. Ender's Game and the rest of the Ender series include long discussions on the ethics of genocide of an alien species. The "Alvin Maker" series is a classic "good vs. evil" morality play at one level.
4. What sf work would you recommend for someone who is not a regular sf reader but has an interest in ethics and/or morals?
Those mentioned above, Also James P. Hogan's Voyage from Yesteryear about what a society raised without negative parental influences and prejudices would be like. David Webber's "Honor Harrington" series has a female character with strong moral and ethical values (as her name implies). Lois McMaster Bujold's "Miles Vorkorsigan" character who overcomes tremendous physical and emotional challenges but maintains a strong ethical character.
1. Do you think that sf is a good medium to discuss ethics? Why or why not?
Yes. In SF you can create situations which would probably never come up in real life, but which hit right to the fundament of ethical thought.
2. What ethical points are being discussed in sf and in few other places? These can be anything from colonization of other planets or cloning to less sf-specific issues such as reproductive rights or the net.
If you have a simulation of the world, is it ethical to hurt those in the simulation? Is it ethical to elevate humanity over other things in the universe, just because we have a feedback loop (called sentience)? Is it ethical to form power groups? Is it ethical to make your kid take drugs because she's depressed? You because you're not functioning at work? Is artificial evolution ethical? Is a God who'll destroy a whole civilization to create a holy sign ethical? Is it ethical to interfere in another's business? Is it ethical to stand by and watch? Is it ethical to get out of bed in the morning? Is social darwinism ethical? Is religion ethical?
3. What sf work (or author) influenced your ethics? Do you have any specific examples or anecdotes?
Most of my ethics came from other life, and from writing more than reading, but one I can think of is the Illuminatus! trilogy by Shaw and Wilson, I think. It was the last thing to cement my belief that governments are unethical.
4. What sf work would you recommend for someone who is not a regular sf reader but has an interest in ethics and/or morals?
Hm. That's a rough one. I'd say 1984 by George Orwell. It's not really that different than non-sf and it's quite powerful.
Also, look to A Clockwork Orange, especially because the movie's pretty understandable and can make the book easier to read.
1. Do you think that sf is a good medium to discuss ethics? Why or why not?
Yes. With sf it's possible to remove yourself from the limitations and prejudices of your given moment in time and space and try to examine a problem in the absolute, without the trappings of the immediate moment. Very few other fictional modes offer these possibilities as default options, so to speak.
2. What ethical points are being discussed in sf and in few other places? These can be anything from colonization of other planets or cloning to less sf-specific issues such as reproductive rights or the net.
The most striking discussions of ethics in SF were, for me, wholly social issues -- things about people, really. Theodore Sturgeon's monumental short story "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?" (in the DANGEROUS VISIONS compilation) is a classic example: a brutally dead-on examination of just how idiotic our sexual morality really is. But Sturgeon also carefully makes cases for what is good for individuals and what is good for populations as being discrete things. Not even D.H. Lawrence cut this close.
3. What sf work (or author) influenced your ethics? Do you have any specific examples or anecdotes?
Sturgeon I've already mentioned -- his stuff spans a LOT of territory, but he was always possessed of an abiding love for people as people, not as abstractions the way a lot of social philosophers seem to. Heinlein less so, since I find a lot of his philosophy half-baked and indigestible.
Phil Dick used things like reality inversions and the instability of the individual to make a strong case for the goodness of individual men when confronted with the hopeless or impossible. He did a short in DANGEROUS VISIONS (there's that book again, hint hint!) called "Faith of Our Fathers" that hits that nail solidly on the head.
4. What sf work would you recommend for someone who is not a regular sf reader but has an interest in ethics and/or morals?
Check the above -- plus a couple of other goodies:
MORE THAN HUMAN, Sturgeon (again). Excellent examination of morality as it applies to evolution. When Man changes, does he discard Man?...
THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, UBIK, and DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?, all by Phil Dick. Some extremely tough going here, but lots of forceful probing into what it really means to be human -- and inhuman.
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, Anthony Burgess. Again, not for weak stomachs, but one of the few really philosophical and moral novels out there. Get the uncut version.
2. What ethical points are being discussed in sf and in few other places? These can be anything from colonization of other planets or cloning to less sf-specific issues such as reproductive rights or the net.
The most striking discussions of ethics in SF were, for me, wholly social issues -- things about people, really. Theodore Sturgeon's monumental short story "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?" (in the DANGEROUS VISIONS compilation) is a classic example: a brutally dead-on examination of just how idiotic our sexual morality really is. But Sturgeon also carefully makes cases for what is good for individuals and what is good for populations as being discrete things. Not even D.H. Lawrence cut this close.
Not just sex, but any issue where emotions may overwhelm facts or reason. If anyone reads this story, I really hope they read the afterword as well (I suspect Sturgeon wanted people to read the afterword along with the story because the first part of the afterword answers a rhetorical question asked within the story.) otherwise the reader may go off with a mistaken opinion that he was merely talking about sex.
In an earlier post about ethics and sf, I said:
In writing an adventure story, the author can always find a clever way to let the hero win against all odds. In real life, most of us depend on other people, and sometimes even on the government, a whole lot more than that. So, explore away in sf and ethics, but remember that individuals come from families, and live in communities, and connectedness matters in many ways that the lonely hero does not always appreciate.
In an article Terry Cox says:
True enough. But most of us aren't fictional heroes. The essence of the hero's journey is the sacrifices he makes to achieve his goals, and that sacrifice often involves loosing the sense of connectedness to community, family, or his love. The loss is always, ultimately, a loss of innocence.
To which I respond:
Drama and sacrifice are indeed far more central to a hero's journeys than to most peoples' daily lives. The original query, however, was about the link between ethics and sf. To the extent we are seeking to understand ethics in our own lives, including the importance of community, we should be cautious about basing our ethical views or decisions on the lonely hero, ruggedly rebuking the universe.
1. Do you think that sf is a good medium to discuss ethics? Why or why not?
Yes, because a good writer can set up a situation where the ethical issue appears in sharp focus without the background considerations of practicality that you'd have to put up with in this world.
2. What ethical points are being discussed in sf and in few other places?
The question of what it means to "be human" or deserve full human consideration (apart from the endless flamewar about foetuses). It's not necessarily being discussed very deeply, but much more broadly than elsewhere.
4. What sf work would you recommend for someone who is not a regular sf reader but has an interest in ethics and/or morals?
Perhaps none; but The Dispossessed has a strong ethical dimension IMHO.
[replying to another post]
And by raising sexual issues in alien beings, sf authors can take a sideways glance at human sex. Asimov's "The Gods Themselves", or Sturgeon's "A World Well Lost". Or Bujold's quaddies...
Or LeGuin's LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS, and a whole slew of other books and stories working on the complex of ideas about sex and gender. I recommend a story at the end of LeGuin's new collection (UNLOCKING THE AIR) called "The Poacher," which is a fascinating and moving take on the Sleeping Beauty legend, and which is indeed all about ethics. But then, the best SF always is . . .
Here are a couple of especially strong examples of innate strengths. Avoid these books. Warning! Warning!
There's a Doc Smith book (probably Sub-space Encounter or Sub-Space Explorer) in which superior people have four-dimensional brains. If you have a flat brain, you just can't think very well. I'm not making this up.
In the Susan Cooper The Dark Is Rising five book series, some people (?) can do magic, but most just can't. There's an interesting sub-theme of wicked servants and a human who treacherously won't go along with the good magic-user's plans.
In an article, BarbK wrote:
I know that it certainly gets in the way of my enjoyment of certain stories. For example (and excuse me for bringing popular culture into such a literary forum *grin*), I was actually irritated when the third Star Wars movie revealed that Leia was actually Luke's sister, and was therefore strong in the Force. I liked the idea that an ordinary farmboy could, with training and some innate ability, follow in the footsteps of his more illustrious father. However, when it became a matter of genetics rather than ability and education, I felt somehow excluded. I can't think off-hand of any stories or novels that address this directly. There are, of course, many that do not make that assumption, although most of them are outside the military/libertarian genre. One military novel that does not is Haldeman's Forever War, which makes very clear that the hero survives several centuries of battles through a combination of intelligence and pure dumb luck, and that many of those who did not survive were just as worthy as he.
As for the idea that some people just have psi and others are genetically incapable of it, there's Zenna Henderson's The People stories, recently collected in Ingathering. IIRC, Blish's Jack of Eagles takes a look at insider/outsider psi stuff. You might also enjoy Heinlein's "Lost Legacy" in Assignment in Eternity.
The only anti-social darwinism story that's coming to mind at the moment is a book by Nourse (?) whose title I forget that had people after the disaster taking everyone who came by into their group and all surviving together. This was made more plausible by the group being somewhat isolated so that they didn't get flooded. I hope that someone can figure out what book this might be from a very sketchy hint.
In an article, Kevin B. O'Brien wrote:
Yes, that is a theme I heard a lot in interviews with WWII veterans. WWI veterans, in England anyway, often made the point that it was the "best" men (in their view, anyway) who died. Hmmm...War does not >produce survival of the fittest, but survival of the least fit. An >interesting idea, anyway. I wouldn't say that war selects for the least fit.....if you're handicapped enough to escape military service and you don't get killed if your country's conquered and you're still fit enough to breed, then you have an advantage, but this is hardly what I'd call being "least fit".
It's possible that the middle range of soldiers have a survival advantage. The worst soldiers make deadly mistakes, and the best are more apt to take risks than the middle.
Also, war selects whatever traits help civilians avoid battlefields.
War might select for *something*, but it's going to be complicated-- or possibly just Teela Brown genes.
Terry Cox wrote:
In an article Peter Swire
wrote:
The ethical explorations in sf are often colored by
authors'
libertarian leanings -- Heinlein, Bova, Pournelle, and the cyberpunks'
suspicion of state authority. The freedom to explore outer space, the
freedom of the author to imagine an alternate future, and the freedom of
the individual from state authority all seem to have often linked
together in a satisfying emotional package. Now, some of my best friends are
libertarians, and I have spent much of my adult life arguing (sometimes
sympathetically) with libertarians, but a reader exploring ethics and sf
ought to at least be put on notice of the over-representation of
libertarian leanings in much of what is classified as sf. Harry
Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series wonderfully illustrates a typical
pattern in sf -- the rugged and brilliant individual opposing the cow-like
herd of people satisfied with their community.
The rugged individual as protagonist isn't limited to sf, of course.
Consider the western drifter, the stubborn private investigator who
won't quit no matter how many times he's beaten up, the romantic
young woman who goes after her man no matter what the town thinks of
may be more common to sf heroes than in other genres, but then, the
villains need to be smarter, too, so the contest isn't too lop-sided.
In writing an adventure story, the author can always find a clever way to let the hero win against all odds. In real life, most of us depend on other people, and sometimes even on the government, a whole lot more than that. So, explore away in sf and ethics, but remember that individuals come from families, and live in communities, and connectedness matters in many ways that the lonely hero does not always appreciate. True enough. But most of us aren't fictional heroes. The essence of the hero's journey is the sacrifices he makes to achieve his goals, and that sacrifice often involves loosing the sense of > connectedness to community, family, or his love. The loss is always, ultimately, a loss of innocence. Said "loss of innocence" is rather well represented in Lord of the Rings, when the prodigal hobbits return home from their exhaustive quest only to find that it's not the home they left...
An intriguing study in ethics, IMO, can be explored in A Clockwork Orange...you don't even *have* to read the book, since Kubrick (again) makes a wonderful movie adaptation.
But most of us aren't fictional heroes. The essence of the hero's journey is the sacrifices he makes to achieve his goals, and that sacrifice often involves loosing the sense of connectedness to community, family, or his love. The loss is always, ultimately, a loss of innocence. Said "loss of innocence" is rather well represented in Lord of the Rings, when the prodigal hobbits return home from their exhaustive quest only to find that it's not the home they left... An intriguing study in ethics, IMO, can be explored in A Clockwork Orange...you don't even *have* to read the book, since Kubrick (again) makes a wonderful movie adaptation.
It's always wise to start at the beginning:
Frankenstein, by Shelley The Time Machine, by Wells 1984, by Orwell
Anyway, there's a *long* list, but this is a good start :)
1. Do you think that sf is a good medium to discuss ethics? Why or why not?
The best. If there is one thing that is sure about the future it is that ethics will evolve because technology evolves, if only because of the new choices that have to be made (like tampering with genes). Good SF explores every facet of human existence, in every possible context.
2. What ethical points are being discussed in sf and in few other places?
You name it. Euthanasia. Genetic manipulation. Shoot to kill or try to communicate with aliens. Terraforming a planet with indigenous lifeforms or leaving them to their evolutionary destinity. Longevity and its problems. Any ethical question that pops up has been explored decades before by SF. (example: breakdown of privacy through technology: 1984)
4. What sf work would you recommend for someone who is not a regular sf reader but has an interest in ethics and/or morals?
Iain M. Banks Culture novels, if you want to explore a radically liberal, down-to-earth ethical system and enjoy yourself in the process.
In an article, Peter Swire wrote:
Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat series wonderfully illustrates a typical pattern in sf -- the rugged and brilliant individual opposing the cow-like herd of people satisfied with their community.
I don't see how your example illustrates libertarian leanings in SF. If you are willing to accept that a society's main purpose could be to give as much liberty of action and thought to its citizens as possible, then there are some other SF authors you may find interesting (Banks, for instance)
The ones you take as example do not advocate a libertarian ethics, since they assume from the start that it is impossible to base a society on that. Liberty, in their worldview, is only possible for outlaws. So I would consider that a *very* conservative viewpoint. Also, as another poster mentioned, it is a very American viewpoint. Many of the SF-books written here are just westerns in a futuristic setting.