Conflicting views

What's makes someone a hero? What about a villain? If someone robs a bank to help other people, are they good or bad? If a hero protects a city from a bomb, but then kills the bomber to get rid of the threat permanently, he is still a hero? My roommate and I were discussing ethics and apparently, I have odd views of what is wrong or right.

The way I see it, if someone breaks a rule, they are bad. I don't care why they did it. If a hero kills a villain to get rid of the threat permanently, that is just someone being efficient.

In short, what makes someone good or bad and at what point does someone just the dark side?

 

You've worded this, at certain parts, incoherently or hypocritically. For example, saying it's bad to break the rules but if a hero does it they are being efficient. Also, The last line about dark side doesn't make sense.

Anyway, to answer the entirety of your question, the thing that makes someone a hero or a villian is a combination of both actions and perception.

First, the actions we take shapes the outcome of things and the events that occur, from rescuing someone to killing someone, actions that follow are a result from such actions.

Second, perception is how a person observes and sees the event and action as either positive, negative, beneficial, unbeneficial, logical, dumb and so on. Through how we filter the actions into our mind makes us judge how we feel about someone and therefore label them. If someone rescued a friend of mine, they would be a hero to me because I feel positive from my friend being safe, however if someone rescued a murderer who had killed my parents I would observe the rescuer as an equal villian because of how I perceive the negativity of the murderer of my parents.

Ethics are another way of how we class people's actions, and how we wish to be classed and class others.

 

Robing a bank is wrong. The person is bad or good depending about the why, if it is to help other he can be a good guy (to the one who he is helping) doing wrong things. But nothing changes the fact he did something wrong, the pretext of being to help someone doesn't matter, he did a wrong thing and have to face the consequences.

Kill someone, even evil ones, mean end with their life. I believe people can change, they just have to want it. If someone protects a city from a bomb and then kill the bomber, would he be doing any different them the bomber was trying to do? This "hero" is nothing better than the bomber. I think a true "hero" would take to bomber to a jail.

Each one has their own "view of a Hero". They can do things "wrong", but be someone "good"; example:
"Your friend is captured by evil ones, you try to help him, but if you don't rob a million from a bank; they kill him. Result: you rob a bank, save your friend's life but is judged by yours acts".
Before the law, you're a bad person; before your friend, you're a hero. Before the ethic, you did this with a reason, so the law can lower your judgement, I think.

The way I see, if someone breaks the law, they are just outlaw. Don't matter the pretext he will have his consequences.

 

If this were a comic book or anime series, the person in both cases would simply be described as an Anti-Hero, and that's pretty much as far as I feel the need to go into it. Just doing morally conflicted things is not outright villainous; the reasons are what makes a hero or villain.

 

Technically If your purpose to stop killing and you kill someone you are still good. If one bad person is killed many more are saved. and that's how I look at it. For example, Once Alkeida is terminated every single member is killed then thousands of lives would be saved so in my opinion that is a hero.

 

With the exception of someone being completely selfish and greedy... everyone is a hero to someone.

For example: The Crusades. The Crusaders were warriors blinded by religious zealotry to claim the Holy Land in the name of Christianity. For some Christians of the era, they were heroes. To the Muslims and Jews of the same era they were mass murderers. Even some Christians were slaughtered brutally in the name of Christianity. In hindsight, we know they were evil.

Another example: The Nazi Party. To Germans, they were the solution to the major economic problem. Within a few decades, they took Germany from what could best be described as a dead empire on its last leg, to a new empire stronger than it ever was. They brainwashed their citizens into a fervor towards cleansing the human race of all its flaws. The most loyal, truly believed they were doing good. In hindsight, they were one of the cruelest, and evilest empires in history.

 

Appeal to law, check. Position one.

Appeal to efficiency, check. Position two.

But wait! In this case, being efficient is against the rules. Murder is illegal unless you have a badge or they are in your home. Isn't this a direct contradiction?

I consider someone who both believes that the law is a basis for morality and contradicts this one sentence later to have reached the point at which 'does someone just the dark side'. I must conclude that both your personal morals and understanding of ethics are baseless and inconsistent, allowing you to do whatever you want if you think it looks heroic.

It makes little sense to me.

Pretty much this, put as simply as possible.

 

Mak, generally it's good courtesy (at least outside of the Debate section) to discuss the topic as a primary and the poster as a secondary. Not the other way around. Anyway...

Depends how far back you wanna go. The Greek "hero" was liable not to be very "heroic" at all; at times, they were even thieves or murderers. They were nevertheless written about and honored in religious ceremonies. Joseph Campbell links the hero inseparably to the hero's journey, consisting of several steps: Leaving home, facing harsh trials, undergoing some manner of transformation (could be physical or mental), and returning home. Campbell himself had a much brighter view of heroes, but by that definition, any number of disreputable characters can be considered heroic. It certainly flies in the face of the definition we understand today.

Though there is one unifying characteristic, present from ancient times right up to the present: The hero is mortal. Simply a man or woman who has undergone a transformation. It is an attainable status. Anyone can be a hero.

That one's a bit trickier. We understand the "villain" to be the exact and equal opposite of the "hero," but the etymology is significantly different. From Wikipedia:

"Villain comes from the Anglo-French and Old French vilein, which itself descends from the Late Latin word villanus, meaning "farmhand", in the sense of someone who is bound to the soil of a villa, which is to say, worked on the equivalent of a plantation in Late Antiquity, in Italy or Gaul. It referred to a person of less than knightly status and so came to mean a person who was not chivalrous. As a result of many unchivalrous acts, such as treachery or rape, being considered villainous in the modern sense of the word, it became used as a term of abuse and eventually took on its modern meaning."

So it seems, if we take this as reputable, that prejudice and misunderstanding are built into the word. Funny, then, that the break-down and humanization of the classic "villain" is a popular topic in contemporary fiction. Either way, in order to define the word, we must decide how we are going to use it, and if another word would not be better depending on the definition we choose. Is a villain simply someone who opposes a hero? Then he is an antagonist, and not necessarily evil. Is a villain simply a bad person? Well, despite the simple phrasing, that statement would take a long time to effectively break down, and likely would end in a subjective conclusion. My personal definition is "one who, by his/her own standard of moral rightness, chooses freely, knowingly, and willingly to do wrong." I find it the most practical, effective, and moreover entertaining definition.

Depends. Who needs the money the most? What does the robber think? Why would he be moved to commit theft? I could ask plenty of questions to complicate the example. A universal constant under the circumstances, however, is that the person is taking from someone else. This creates an imbalance. It does not right any previous imbalance, such as the robber's personal poverty or that of anyone else. Two wrongs do not make a right, though they may wear its skin; a man who robs once may find he needs to rob again, and again, and again, unless he finds a more permanent solution to whatever money problems prompted the theft. Morally speaking, perhaps it is not bad or wrong. But it is unwise. I would say that is bad, but I don't expect this to be the consensus.

Well, that last word there has already been jostled around a bit, but again we have the taking. It is unwise to kill, especially without knowing the full ramifications. Perhaps those threatened by the bomber wish to deal with him in their own way. Perhaps he is (or was) supporting a family, and the "hero" has just destroyed the pillar that kept them aloft. Perhaps his death will trigger another bomb, or signal another group of calamitous intent to mobilize. Perhaps he can be persuaded to see reason and discontinue his efforts. Is it right? Is it worth it? If the "hero" can already protect his people--If he can already right the initial imbalance--it's hard to imagine there is any necessity to create another by killing the bomber. Death, and furthermore murder, is an unknown surrounded by a thick shell of unknown with a rich, creamy unknown center. Imprisonment may be prudent in this situation, if prevention or protection are the goals. Even then, it should be a last resort; it still creates imbalance.

Ok. Then being "bad" is a matter of following rules.

Bad, but efficient. Correct?

Reminded me of a Jackie Chan episode for some reason. The one where he gets split into good and evil halves? Eh.

I'll take the "dark side" here to be the "point of no return," a more popular, slightly less clichéd, and barely less ambiguous phrasing. That point is reached when a person cannot return. It is deceptively simple. When a person's way of life is so drastically altered by a course of action that they find it near impossible to return to their former way of life, or when some wrongness becomes a fundamental part of them without which they are mentally of physically crippled, then it can be said that they have the dark sided, so to speak.

 

But... But... Fine.

I do not view people as heroic and see heroism as a ridiculous concept. I respect people for both skill and choice of action, but I do not view them as heroic. I may view someone as villainous, but there are no heroes from where I am standing; everyone is equal until someone does something to the detriment of someone else. Acting to prevent or counteract that detriment is not heroic, it is just what anyone should do. Heroism is a flawed mindset for the hero because when you think you are acting heroically, you are likely to get arrogant and make many mistakes while appealing to publicity rather than actually doing something for the sake of doing something. A hero gets praised, and he is a hero because he is deified by someone. If you feel that that you need to be seen as a hero to be doing something right, then you have missed the point entirely and are far from heroic to me.

Many people who fancy themselves heroic are self-righteous and do things because they have fans as much as because they care about something. In fact, they may get upset if someone steps up to do the same thing; they like that spot light. Someone who does not care about heroism is both less likely to be called one and more likely to get my respect than than someone who does. False modesty does not help a hero's case in this. The kind of people that I respect rebuke the praising crowd for not doing the same, for being the kind of people who would and wait and then praise when someone actually did something. Both the confident and accepting hero and modest hero would not look down on everyone for having less spine, and I do not look kindly on anyone who likes being the only one of his kind in acting 'heroically'.

 

Strange that you don't find villainy ridiculous as well. At least the contemporary definition is founded on similar constructs. And what if someone does something to another's benefit, without provocation? Taking the term "heroic" as an equal opposite of "villainous," would that not be heroic?

But does the term not apply to people who don't get swept up in their own hype? There are plenty of so-lauded "heroes" who did not consider themselves very heroic at all.

Also: I notice you have failed to define "heroism" and "heroes" as you see them. Makes it difficult to figure out exactly what you are negating or finding ridiculous.

 

I do not see it as an opposite. Villainy does not require publicity. Heroism does.

Being a decent person should be standard, you should not have reason to deify a kind person. They should not be an exception. Villains are special because they are nonstandard, or should be. If you view something as heroic, then you should do it. I see nothing else to it. If everyone is a hero, then no one is, but then not everyone would be villains.

False modesty. The kind of people that I respect do not get much publicity.

I do not see anyone as a hero. I look down on other people for considering their existence. As such, I do not have my own definition; I let others define them. I defined my version of them as the kind of people who hate being special in doing the right thing. I find people who call another a hero without being like him ridiculous, that whole mindset of deity and worshipers.

 

The Nazi Germany was a good example... I have a question to you all... Hitlers main goal was to make everyone pure which would mean everyone would be blond haired and blue eyes but he was also trying to take away all dissablilities so basically any form of genetic dissability would have been whiped from the earth by about 2050. Don't you think he would have been a hero for the fact that people in their every day lives wouldn't suffer any longer. There wouldn't be albinism (even though it's super cool lol pink, red, or purple eyes with white/blonde or silver hair is amazing! :D lol), autisum, cleft foot, cerebalpaulsy, etc.... and personaly I like white blonde haired and blue eyed boys + no form of genetic disability would be really nice especially since I have a cousin who is missing a chromosome and I know the sadness and pain that comes along with it so yeah :[ What would you guys consider hitler then? a Hero? or a Villan for all the people he had to kill to accomplish it?

 

He and the people that he killed probably would have died by 2050. I do not care about future generations, and would rather we did not have them, so I see absolutely no reason to praise his efforts. He did nothing to better the lives of those who lived in his lifetime, including himself, and instead he did things to the detriment of more people than ever before in history. That is a fault if I have seen one.

 

The thing is though that it would have affected us greatly and lets say you know someone with a disability. They most likely wouldn't have it and wouldn't be looked at differently (I'm not saying the way to get to this is good just the cause is good.)

 

We probably wouldn't be here, so it is a moot point. I exist because those people with disabilities exist. That's how it works. If my family were killed off or converted to some radical philosophy, then I would not exist as I am today. They might not have been able to marry each other because of a separation of races or something, or one of them might have gotten injured in the war and been killed off because of it. And so on.

The point is, the world wouldn't be better for you and me, because you and me wouldn't be here to enjoy it if Nazism got a chance to change things. We wouldn't be able to have this conversation if we did exist. The list goes on.

 

Honestly I don't care for myself just as long as others don't suffer i'm happy... and we would exist just in a different body I think...

 

A lot more people would have suffered. I hold that you have to be living to suffer, and those who lived would have suffered greatly under that regime, as those who were under it did.

Why do you think that? People are made up of genetics and experiences, and both of these would be different, so we would be different people; we would not exist.

 

The thing is though that after 200 years more people would have lived better lives.

 

What makes you think that? Human nature doesn't change. There would be a lot fewer people, and a lot of people would lose family members in the culling. You would have large groups that were humanitarian and were against the system to deal with, even within the country. Radical regimes are self-destructive, and I can't see it surviving for very long. At the very least, a huge number of people would be killed off or enslaved, and so there would be far fewer people to have better lives. Your argument seems to be that if we kill off all of the (potentially) unhappy people, then we will have happy people. This does not make any sense because those people will still have consciences, a need for diverse culture and artwork, a wish to see something different every day, senses of adventure, wishes to go out after fascist curfews, and many other things that you are ignoring. The racism that exists within Nazism would lead to inbreeding and deformations very quickly as soon as they found a family that they considered Aryan.

 

Err ... no. Poor Hitler didn' t even know how genes work, turns out it' s not that simple.

No they wouldn' t. Thousands and thousands of years of natural selection weren' t enough to get rid of diseases and inabilities, do you really think any kind of "superior race" selection would do a better job at it ? Diversity is actually a good thing : on one hand the more diverse we are the more situations we can survive, on the other hand inbreeding says hi (mating with people who have genes too similar to ours leads to bad things). Shortening the pool of available genes would only make us weaker as a species, it' s an utterly ******ed idea. Eugenics can only be harmful on the long run.