Mass Effect Philosophy: Pragmatic Utilitarianism

When we last discussed Mass Effect, I examined the many races of the galaxy within the game, took a look at the council that reigned over the galaxy, and analyzed what tactics and actions the governments of the different races used. The Turians had a meritocracy, the Protheans were all about the survival of the fittest, and so on and so forth.

But now we come to talking about an entirely different new tack. One that you, dear reader, might have taken if you played the game. It's a concurrently running theme in popular fiction and within the storyline. How much do the ends justify the means? How far can you go, or how far are you WILLING to go? What sacrifices are you willing to take? And will they even be your own?

There's a school of thought that fits this argument perfectly. It's called "utilitarianism". The theory of utilitarianism was popularized by John Stuart Mill, and it breaks down like this: the best choice is one that has the best balance between positive over negative consequences. Or, to put it more simply, the "greatest good" for the "greatest number". Now, of course, there's plenty of moments in the Mass Effect series where you have to choose the "greater good" at the cost of something else.

In case you think I might be being too hard on Mr. Mill and jumping the gun in suggesting he was all for the "greater good" the same way those creeps in "Hot Fuzz" were, let me be clear. This isn't ME saying it. It's HIS WORDS saying it. By the virtues of classic utilitarianism,  when confronted with an ethical dilemma, we have to be impartial and be willing to find a solution that will produce the most happiness, even if such a decision means using, disregarding, or directly HURTING certain people. Or, in other words, killing off that Batarian Colony by sacrificing an entire star system will buy the entire galaxy at LEAST several months before the Reapers can arrive. SOME time to prepare is better than absolutely NO time at all. And these are psychopathic machines that slaughter races with the same ease that Clint Eastwood makes his way through a shooting gallery.

On the other hand, there's no denying that you, the reader, will probably feel like scum for not being able to warn the star system "Hey, I'm about to crash an asteroid into the mass relay you guys have, it'll make the thing go supernova. You should probably RUN". And I tried.

UNFORTUNATELY, because the creators of Mass Effect were absolute dicks about this, even the attempted caveat, when you have less than two HOURS to warn the system, gets thwarted. Five seconds into your trying to warn the colonists of the Bahak system, BAM! The crazy indoctrinated doctor that knocked you out in the first place pops up and cuts off your communication.

The GOOD side of utilitarianism is something that can be seen commonly in superhero comics. You are often obligated to adopt a particular role in life if doing so will prove to bring about the most overall good. Superheroes kind of have an obligation, a duty, to be superheroes. As Spider-Man puts it, "with great power must come great responsibility". Of course this has problems. It means, if you're a pure utilitarianism, that you're always going to have to put the "greater good" ahead of everything else, even your own personal happiness.

Now, for me, people who try to make the "but what do I get out of it" argument or "but what have they done for you" argument are selfish bastards, and most of their reasons boil down to three words. "Wahh. Wahh. WAAAAHHH." But I get it, okay? I get it. People need to find some time to themselves. Be able to relax, and love, and have a life, right? Of course! But I'm Mister "Third Option". I don't believe in A and B scenarios in real life because more often than not, there AREN'T any A and B scenarios.

Trying to argue that you need a balance of something in your life often doesn't work in the way you'd think. Sometimes giving up one thing to find time for another doesn't work out at all. Sometimes you find you need time to do a THIRD thing. Sometimes you never needn't to "balance" things out because things work themselves out. A over B to produce the most good, THAT'S the argument of Utilitarianism. And it's the argument that keeps getting shown in Mass Effect, because you continuously have to choose between "Paragon" or "Renegade" options.

But the thing is, we don't always want to be chained to those two unique paths. And the "greater good" argument can be used by ANYONE to justify ANYTHING. This is why utilitarianism is dangerous. It can be used to say that making the right choice boils down to helping the majority. Well guess what? The Reapers are technically a majority! They're made up of GOD knows how many people! Perhaps a SLIM majority, given that they only come around every 50,000 years and ONLY go after advanced races but still...

See how tricky the slippery slope can be? But hey. Let's try and look at a different viewpoint. Not from the Reapers, but from beings far too similar to them for comfort. The LEVIATHANS.

Aria, The Leviathans and the Philosophy of Noblisse Oblige

Earlier in my examination of philosophical ideas expressed in the Mass Effect universe, I brought up the idea of "Noblisse Oblige", or "Nobility Obligates". It also translates in a way to "with great power comes great responsibility". But it more USUALLY translates to "magnamity has to come from those in great power". Which means not only BEING responsible, but acting like it as much as possible. And usually kinda showing off as you do so.

What am I talking about? Well, let us take a look at what it means to be magnanimous. Usually, we think of regality, of people acting as though they have great moral character, of people who donate frequently to charities, spend large amounts of money on scientific research to help develop cures for diseases…in our world, our celebrities have a sort of unspoken assumption about them, that they have to conduct themselves in a certain dignified fashion, give to others, and, at the same time, be talented and telegenic.

We see SOME degree of Noblisse Oblige in Aria T'Loak, surprisingly. Aria controls all of Omega, the most unsafe, dangerous and grim-and-gritty planet in the entire galaxy. You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. And as Aria puts it, she doesn't just RUN Omega. "I AM Omega. And there's only one rule. Don't fuck with Aria.

I like it. Easy to remember. And if you forget, she'll remind you.

Despite her kind of jackass attitude, she's surprisingly responsible for Omega, recognizing real threats to the planet and to the people on it. She knows almost everyone who anyone, has an enormous guard team to keep the peace and keep the mercenaries and mobs from getting out of hand, and has a surprisingly soft side that gets displayed when talking about her past and how she took control of Omega. Aria likes thinking of herself as the queen of the whole damn place, and if ANYTHING even REMOTELY threatens its security…it is going to be no more.

That's not to say she doesn't care about other people. When Liara, your compatriot, approachs Aria to talk about where Shepherd's body has been taken and talks about how the insidious Collectors are after it, Aria initially wants her and her friend Feron out of Omega immediately, not wanting anything to do with whatever shit is about to go down. But then Liara asks again. Aria gets mad for a moment…but then quietly looks to the side and says they're taking the body to the lower levels of Omega.

Heck, she even gives Shepherd's email to a kid that was about to sign up to be a mercenary taking down "Archangel", who'd been killing scum on Omega left and right. Shepherd talks the kid out of it and breaks the kid's gun. And Aria gives that kid your email just so he can thank you. Wow. Didn't think she'd go that little extra mile, did you? I think she LIKES us! She really likes us!

Then there's what happens when she tries to take Omega back. Nyreen, the female Turian you're working along with…along WITH Aria herself, who is friggin' badass, seems to be a dear friend to Aria. In fact, at one point the two were…well…let's just say Aria gets turned on by boy scouts. Only in this case Nyreen's kind of a GIRL scout. But it didn't work out because…well, Aria's pretty much a crime lord and Nyreen on the other hand is a principled Turian secret agent. So when a VERY particularly surprisingly and touching moment occurs when Nyreen blows herself up to take out some Reaper scum…Aria freakin' loses it. Her concern for those that work for her or alongside her is her saving grace, an example of those at the top showing compassion for those beneath them. Those that have…must care for those that have not.

Unfortunately not everyone in the Mass Effect universe who has power acts as such. I, as Shepherd, did everything I could to do the most good. I got people in love back together. I helped pass along last messages to those missing loved ones. I saved planets through calm words as much as through explosions. I am a "knight" of the Mass Effect galaxy, with a grand title of "Commander" upon me, looking out for my men, not willing or wanting to sacrifice any.

But again, some people like to exploit those beneath them whilst acting like they're doing them SO much good. The Protheans are one such example of the "noblisse oblige" concept twisted around and bastardized. And there is another group still that thinks itself so much better than it really is. No, I do not speak of the Reapers. I'm going to get into them and the Catalyst in the next installment.

No, I speak of the LEVIATHANS, the "organic reapers", the beings that the very first Reaper, Harbinger, was based off of. You remember Harbinger, don't you? That annoying, pretentious, would-not-shut-up glowing-eyed jerk that couldn't stop talking down at you during Mass Effect 2? No surprise when you consider the source material he sprang from, an entire species worth of people who will tell you "Do you really think you know what's best for you" is like having Jon Stewart of the Daily Show tell you "Do you really think you know what's funny".

So what defines a good leader and what defines a bad leader in the first place? It often comes down to who can walk the walk as well as talk the talk when it comes down to "Actually doing what's best for you".

In C.S Lewis's "Narnia", bad rulers are bad due to their idea that they're utterly above the law. They have no humility. As a result, the lands they reign over fall into chaos and unhappiness. As Lewis would say himself, order can be destroyed in two ways: tyranny and its opposite…servility, OR rebellion and ITS opposite, remissness. A failure to act in the fact in the face of absolute tyranny and unjust government is just as much a cause of the destruction of a government as the self-destructive tyranny of dictatorships, a case that was ABUNDANTLY clear with the Protheans.

And a similar thing occurred to the Leviathans. They themselves didn't "rule" in the traditional sense unless you were close enough to them, allowing them to completely dominate the minds of those around them. Otherwise, they had to extend their influence through spherical artifacts. The constant relegation of proper duty to essentially glass balls completely ruined their empire. Why? Because they couldn't move across the empire, use their full power, to halt the Reapers that were swiftly being created by the very being THEY'D made to STOP their Empire from falling apart.

Here's how it happened. The Leviathans reigned over other races. As the races got smarter, they in turn built beings of their own…synthetic life forms. UNFORTUNATELY, conflicts between organic masters and synthetic servants kept popping up. So they created the Catalyst, a grand synthetic construct, to find a solution to stop this from happening.

Well, it didn't end well. Once again, instead of trying to come up with a solution of their own, their relegation of an important duty, their passing of the buck, led to chaos spreading across the galaxy. They were remiss in their duties, and rebellion spread swiftly, rebellion in the form of the complete extinction of countless trillions.

Now, time to get a bit confrontational. I myself am a firm believer in democracy and liberty. Y'know. All that "Patriotic bullshit" people regularly make fun of Conservatives for having too much of. It is very, very easy for people to point and laugh at you for being a patriot, especially if your country has recently been engaged in very suspect actions. "What's so special about where YOU live?!"

But the thing I love about America is that we, like other great countries, have a hearty focus on discourse. Different opinions and ideas can be displayed in the public field. We're allowed to have our own ideas on what should be done. We can freely express our will. Why, without it, we might as well just be mindless machines, doing what we're told!

Now the "Leviathan" or "Prothean" response might be "Yeah, what's so special about freedom? It's nice and all, but people can "freely" hurt you, steal from you, kill you. Do the mixed benefits of reedom really outweigh the social goods their coercion could secure"?

After all, surely we all think people should not be free to openly murder or steal, right? There are RESPONSIBILITIES we have to consider. As John Stuart Mill himself said "The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people".  After all, we have a paternalistic government in the US of A. We're reminded to "click it or ticket". Big Government isn't as big as you think, and it can do some genuinely good things. Nobody who's got any real sense denies that.

But the problem is how far you go. Just as individuals have responsibilities, a government must have responsibilities. The failure to live up to these is why the Leviathans failed so deeply. And most societal ills could be fixed if we actually paid real heed to them. The Leviathans would ask their lackeys to do it. Kind of like how the Council would hire a subcommittee to see if the issue rises to the level of a REAL committee, which would schedule a hearing and attempt to pass a bi-partisan resolution which would be brought before the Council under review-oh no I've gone cross-eyed.

But of course you probably want to ask "So who's worse? The Protheans or the Leviathans"? Well…that's…complicated.

On the ONE hand, the Protheans were not above, y'know, killing you if you openly rebelled. And they were violent, warlike and cruel. You might remember if you brought Javik to the "Ardat-Yahkshi" monastery in Mass Effect 3…along with Liara…that Javik makes a comment on how things like the Ardat-Yahkshi would never be allowed to exist in HIS people's empire. To which Liara calls him out on his hypocrisy in an instant. 'Monster"? His people wrote the BOOK on monsters. Death only made them worse, they got turned into Collectors who will liquefy you to make you into a Reaper!

Then again, the Leviathans were pompous, arrogant and enslaved just as many people, if not more so. Worse still, they have the blood of MANY more races by refusing to step in and aid the species that were having issues with their newly-built synthetic servants. Yes, they were done in by irony at its finest, and perhaps they deserved it. If they'd actually spent time being among the people and less time "under the sea", maybe they could have developed some type of a conscience.

Perhaps the best way to compare them is to look at how they conduct themselves in "noble" fashion. The Leviathans are "regal" and act by certain rules because they think that, as the apex race of the galaxy, it is to be expected of them. I doubt they'd eat a baby just to make themselves look better or anything, so you could make the argument that if you can convince them that doing good makes THEM look good, they might not be too far from being redeemed.

And the Protheans? You gain a Prothean compatriot to fight alongside you in Mass Effect 3. Javik slowly warms up to you and to the world he's woken up in, and actually begins to soften considerably. He even admits that had he grown up in this time period, perhaps he could have been the noble scholar that Liara wishes he had been, and talks about writing a book with her as he travels the galaxy…y'know, once the Reapers are all dead and gone. This seems to imply that by showing the Protheans that the grass CAN in fact be greener on the other side, they could have, if they'd had time, gotten better.

Perhaps it is unfair of us to judge them, given that they're radically different species from us and we should hold all races accountable to different standards which fit said species. Perhaps. But as I said earlier, the galaxy is one big sandbox. You want in, you've gotta play nice with everyone else inside it. That is just the way it has to be, and the way it should be. You're under obligation.

With great power comes great responsibility. And speaking of "great power"…as we all know…knowledge is power.

The Shadow Broker and the Overlord: Pragmatism in the Mass Effect Universe

In the Shadow Broker DLC for Mass Effect 2, you, as Shepherd, get a chance to call out a fellow Spectre for what you see as selling out the Council in the name of doing the Shadow Broker a favor.

"You think I betrayed the Council, like Saren? Go to Hell! The Broker's given me damn good intel over the years! Intel that saved lives and kept the Citadel safe! So if the Broker needs a few people to disappear…I'll pay that price without hesitation."

Being the Paragon I was, I called her out for THAT to. A Spectre doesn't blow up buildings filled with innocent people. But she argues that sure we do. We dirty our hands so they don't have to. And above all, "Don't you DARE judge me".

The view that it is perfectly acceptable for people to engage in morally dubious behavior in the name of the greater good can be analyzed every which way. The usual justification for this type of work is the idea of "pragmatism", that the Citadel government has to take a practical approach to things. It's about doing what WORKS, not what is actually ETHICAL.

It's been said in the USA that the government is always going to be pragmatic in everything it does, an idea reflected in how the Citadel governs. The Constitution is, in many ways, very pragmatic. It's about ensuring domestic equality, establishing justice, providing for the common defense. You could make the argument that the Constitution is a contract we entered into to achieve a certain good. When the government tries to be anything but pragmatic, problems arise.

What am I talking about? Let's try Chief Justice Taney in the Dred Scott case. His approach to the case wasn't pragmatic. It was based on the dogmatic belief that slaves were inherently unequal. From a PRACTICAL standpoint, Slavery was slowly hurting the USA and killing the South, and was more of a drain on the economy than a boon. It was keeping the South from progressing as rapidly as the North was, and was making the South look worse and worse in the eyes of the world as time went on. It would have been more practical to just either try to shift the case to somebody else and keep kicking the can down the road…or to say "screw it, he's a free man" and let him go.

But no. Taney had to piss everyone off.

Moving on. The Shadow Broker is the head of a vast criminal organization built around the accumulation of knowledge and intelligence, be it about military operations, what a world leader is going to be doing on a Sunday at precisely 11:32 in the morning, who's keeping what weapons stashed where, etc, etc. And relying on him is…morally dubious at best. Especially when you consider that the Broker is perfectly willing to let innocent people die to keep his or her identity safe, or to keep an "investment" safe.

You might be wondering "What the hell's the difference between the Citadel and the criminals they condemn? If they're using the Shadow Broker, how DARE they try to claim the moral high ground!"

Well, the answer can be found in the "Overlord" DLC. Within what may be the most heartbreakingly horrifying of all the DLC for Mass Effect 2, you discover that the head of Cerberus Project Overlord used his autistic brother as a guinea pig to try and gain control of the synthetic race the Geth. Doctor Gavin Archer's justification is that "If my work can spare a million mothers from having to mourn a million sons, my conscience will rest easy." Again, pragmatism.

But here's the thing. One, it proves unnecessary, because the Geth aren't genuinely interested in fighting with organics, and two, what it did to David was so absolutely horrifying that I am unable to watch the ending to the DLC without crying a little.

Yeah. It's that bad. THAT. BAD. Looking at it, all I could think of was "are you insane?!?"

I get it, okay? I get it. "Right intent". Every government has the right to protect itself and its citizens, and the use of the Broker to engage in perhaps "preemptive" tactics, or the use of "Overlord" could have, to an extent, been justified. After all, there's no virtue in waiting for a bloody nose whilst the other guy is swinging his fist at you. The problem comes when the use of the Broker or the use of your own BROTHER goes from being "trying to keep citizens of Council Space safe" or "Saving the lives of sons" to "political expediency", aka "This guy knows too much. We need him gotten rid of", or other lovely uses of shadowy organizations.

War is getting less and less "traditional" in this day and age, I freely admit that. The enemy wore a uniform, ships flew flags identifying who they were. Now the enemies are different. They see civilian populations as primary targets instead of collateral damage. So the question becomes "how far are you willing to go to stop that"? Or to put it bluntly, you need to stroke the devil to defend the righteous.

Buuuuuullcraaaaap.

I am not now, nor ever, going to try and say that this viewpoint is right. Because it is simply far too much of a slippery slope. To the Citadel and to our own current governments on Earth, just war principles aren't real LIMITS to them because they will change the limits as often as modern military circumstances change. The only defense most people ACTUALLY have of this sort of thing when they're confronted with how blatantly black they are in comparison to the teakettle they're fighting is "If you've got a better solution, be my freakin' guest and tell me".

I'm not going to say I have all the answers. But I'd never claim my answers were absolutely right on the grounds of pragmatism, because that can be used to justify anything. Which is why I was glad when Liara becomes the new Shadow Broker, and her moral compass is able to turn the organization into much more of a force for good, especially in the face of an imminent Reaper invasion.

Without limits and responsibilities on ourselves, anything can be justified as being practical the same way anything can be justified as being morally right. But simply saying that something is one way doesn't necessarily mean that it is true.

But perhaps you need a more thorough examination of what it means to take the practical route. When does the line get crossed? When does what is "practical" end up being, in hindsight, "horrible"?

Time to draw a comparison to World War II. No, NO, not the Nazis! I am not invoking Godwin's Law. I am talking about the Enola Gay.

The use of the Shadow Broker is a good comparison to the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Questionable motivations. Dubious means. A usually unfortunate loss of civilian life that often seems inevitable no matter what you do. And above all, the feeling that "I never should have done this in the first place". In trying to defeat a greater evil, you commit an act you feel is a lesser one. For the Citadel, they felt the Shadow Broker was a lesser, necessary evil. For Gavin Archer, he was willing to sacrifice his brother's happiness for the sake of his grand project. For the USA, it was the dropping of the atomic bomb.

Using the Shadow Broker, engaging in Project Overlord, is probably a bad idea, as was the dropping of the bomb. Let's take a look at what Admiral William D. Leahy, Truman's chief of staff, had to say. He denounced the bombing as adopting "ethical standards common to barbarians in the dark ages", and General Eisenhower claimed in 1948 and at other times that he disagreed with the bombing as well.

In fact, Leahy's judgment was "It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material success in our war against Japan" and "the Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of our effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons." Eisenhower himself said Japan was "seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of face" and that "it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing".

This isn't some liberal flower child on the street saying it. This is freakin' Eisenhower. Who was not known for being a Democratic bleeding-heart.

And then there were American airmen like Henry H. Arnold, the commanding general of the US Army Air Forces, along with Generals Carl Spaatz and Curtis LeMay, who also felt that the bomb should ONLY have been used as part of an invasion, and not in any other way.

And the bomb's dropping wasn't necessarily done solely out of a desire to end the war, according to other sources. Racism played a part. After all, this was during a time when "We're Gonna Have to Slap the Dirty Little Jap" was a hit song on the radio after Pearl Harbor. People were calling for yellow blood. And the possibility of showing off our power to the Soviets has to be addressed.

All can be likened to a use of the Shadow Broker or the creation of "Overlord"…you might do it because you think it is the SMART thing to do. But also because you might genuinely want somebody dead. Or to show how the Citadel Council has eyes everywhere. Pragmatism is only a part of the story, only one side to how governments do things. Which, in a way, is how it needs to be.

However, I argue that every OTHER motivation should be based on calm, reasonable moral examination of issues, not on whether or not you think the Collectors and the Reapers are going to succeed regardless of what you do, Mr. Broker, or whether you think the Krogan are backwards barbarians who eat babies, oh Citadel Council.

Of course, I'd make the argument that the Council doesn't know any better than Cerberus did with "Overlord" because they're only human but, again, they're not. So…what is even the hell.

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…

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…Well! This was quite a lovely discussion of ideas, wasn't it? I encourage open discourse, naturally. But next time…well, next time we get even more topical. I'm gonna have to address the issue of the ENDING to the Mass Effect universe and, of course, talk about the Catalyst.

…this is not going to be easy. Worse still, I'm going to have to actually try and DEFEND the more unpopular choices that you're given. Yes. Even "Synthesis".

Don't roll your eyes, there's a case to be made for even the Synthesis ending! But this is going to take going in with an open mind and an open heart.

Deep breath…

Okay. I can do this. I can do this…

…this is gonna suck. -_-