In The Last of Us, Joel Had It Right

[Lightknight]

Thanks Shamus, I'd been wanting someone to delve into this aspect and I appreciate the lengths you went through to dissect it.

 

[Olas]

Joel, objectively, does an immoral act.

Only if you abide by a moral code in which the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. That it is 2015 and people still believe in objective morality flabbergasts me.

Oh please.

There's a certain logic to sacrificing one person to save two, no? Values may be subjective, but that doesn't mean our decisions with respect to those values have to be.

In this case the only value we have to assume is the value of human life, which is pretty universal.

 

[drummond13]

As a father, I had no qualms mowing down any and all who stood between the two. If the game had let me I'd have burnt the building down too.

THANK you.

I wonder how many of these people who brand Joel as "evil" have kids.

I'm not saying he made the "right" choice, but I had no problems understanding the choice he made.

 

[beddo]

Is a society that would kill a child to save itself worth saving? I'd argue that it is not.

What Joel did was the right thing though it was also horrific in so many ways. As for lying to Ellie, he took the burden of an awful scenario so that she wouldn't have to cope with he guilt. This was a good man who was destroyed and turned into a monster by circumstance but he was redeemed by his paternal love for Ellie and willingness to do anything to keep her not only safe, but give her a life with a chance of happiness.

 

[MirenBainesUSMC]

You also have to take into consideration that Joel for the most part.... is a bad guy. You have to remember when Ellie was attempting to make him stop in the city for the guy whom was pretending to be hurt. He basically said he knew the guy wasn't hurt because he had done the same technique before when he was doing his own raiding and ambushing.

At the start, he could have cared less about her because to him, she was a client's asset instead of a person. He was basically a smuggler for hire along with his counter part whom showed the first signs of caring for something beyond her self when she realized that her luck ran out in Boston. He was still in the mind frame of " When do we get this done so I can get back and paid?".

Joel was turning his own soul slowly but surely and I think his turning point was when he met his brother again later on and saw what he was accomplishing in which he felt would never see again. This probably triggered the turn-around...but it only really came full circle when Ellie proved she was also just as much of a competent survivalist as he was after the College incident where she was pretty much having to become what he was for her.

So tragic "Hero".... ehhh... I didn't see him as a Hero. I saw him as an animal of survival whom was slowly finding redemption within himself and the memory of his daughter through his experience of escorting Ellie to an unknown fate. I don't think Joel even believed she was immune... it was just a job. The situation with the two brothers probably also made him second guess as to his own feelings about the situation.

What was really heroic in the end? It was a natural act of the self. His logic finally came to the conclusion that he was finally over his own child's death, what he had done thus far, and saw Ellie as his means to offer something different than what he had been doing so far in his life of survival. A tragic character whom was --- in RPG terms " Lawful-Neutral". In other words he lived by a code, but left that gray area in which he could walk away without getting too attached if the situation dictated that he should act in such a way.

 

[Leonbelmont64]

The thought process I had when it came to the ending and that's with audio logs and such from the game was there was no guarantee that a cure would of been found anyway and even though Joel's decision was somewhat immoral and greedy, it may of been the right thing for humanity for all you know. Some people who have immunities to infections pass them on to offspring so who knows if they would of ever of actually gotten a cure from her? If she has children and the immunity passes on, that is what will save humanity in the future anyways. From what I got there was no certainty in the outcome either way, Joel's decision could ultimately be the desired outcome in the long run so long as Ellie survives and so does her offspring.

 

[MirenBainesUSMC]

Well that was the beauty of TLOU. You either walk away thinking he just messed up humanity's last chance, OR , he did the right thing because it didn't seem the supposed " saviors" actually knew what they were doing.

Open ended.

It was a cliche ridden tale done many times but the characters and thought processes were well done for a game.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

If they can kill Ellie because the life of one innocent girl is less valuable than the lives of all of humanity, then someone in Joel's position would be justified in wiping them all out for trying to stupidly waste the one immune test subject on bad science. After all, the lives of a bunch of belligerent asshole hack scientists are also worth less than all of humanity.

Bad logical flow.

The Fireflies logic is One life lost to save all of humanity it worth it. They're using the basic Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Joel isn't justified in killing them because the logic does not invert. Killing a few scientists that could save all of humanity so that he can save one little girl is not equivalent morally. Joel is effectively saying to hell with the potential of saving everyone.

No, no, no, no. He's not saying "If X is better than Y, then Y is better than X durr how do I logics." He said that, given what the game presented, the Fireflies are a bunch of quacks who are very likely to kill Ellie without getting anything useful out of her, and even if they did, they probably don't have the resources to get that cure to where it will be put to good use. If you can buy that, then Joel did do the right thing from a utilitarian point of view, even if he didn't realize it: He protected the source of the cure from people who can't be trusted with it.

 

[Jahandar]

I didn't realize there was any question about whether Joel was in the right. The collective doesn't have the right to murder an innocent individual just to save itself. Those that attempted to do so have given up any pretense of morality, thus Joel is under no obligation to treat them morally in return.

Ellie was a traumatized child and in no position to make the decision for herself.

 

[Olas]

Joel, objectively, does an immoral act.

Only if you abide by a moral code in which the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. That it is 2015 and people still believe in objective morality flabbergasts me.

Oh please.

There's a certain logic to sacrificing one person to save two, no? Values may be subjective, but that doesn't mean our decisions with respect to those values have to be.

In this case the only value we have to assume is the value of human life, which is pretty universal.

There's a logic, yes, but not everyone shares that logic. Which makes that particular strain of morality, by definition, not objective.

And no, it is not the only value to assume. Certainly not to Joel it isn't.

You want to show me I'm wrong, you're going to need facts that support the position that two lives are intrinsically more valuable than one.

Um... math?

2 > 1

That's why 2 dollars is considered preferable to one dollar, to anyone who values money.

Oh, and logic is never subjective. If something is logically true, it's true regardless of who you are. If your logic and someone else's logic don't match up, (at least) one of you is wrong.

 

[Olas]

2 > 1

You're so clever!

Now tell me, if you had the chance to save the person you loved most in the world or two people you'd never met, who would you save?

"Who I would save" and "what is the morally correct thing to do" are not the same question. Obviously I would desire to save my loved one, but that doesn't mean it would be the morally correct thing if I did.

The morally correct thing would be to save 2 people I'd never met, whether I'd actually do that would be a test of my fortitude, I obviously can't answer such a question without having been in the situation.

Think about firefighters. Do they know the people they risk their lives to save? No. But they do it because they know the person's life has value, even if it doesn't have much value to them personally.

That's why 2 dollars is considered preferable to one dollar, to anyone who values money.

And what about the cost of acquiring that second dollar?

That's what you aren't accounting for here (at least as far as you're making clear); if I have one ice cream cone and one baby, I'm not going to kill the baby in return for another ice cream cone.

I should hope not, a baby's life is clearly worth more than an icecream cone.

I said 2 dollars is worth more than one, not two dollars minus the life of a baby or anything silly like that.

I don't even have to push value onto objects. I don't value some random person's life, whom I've never met, on parity with that of my sister's life. And no one can show me why that is objectively wrong. Remember, for the original poster's point to be valid, there has to be something in nature that shows my value judgement to be incorrect in a factual way.

You're confusing value for morality. Values are subjective yes, but morality is more than values. To make a moral judgement you have to take into account the values of everyone, not merely yourself. Just because you don't value the random person, that doesn't mean someone else doesn't, and to ignore that fact simply because their value to you is less is to act immorally.

If morality was based solely on what's valuable to you, it would be morally right to steal money from someone because the money has more value to you if you possess it than if someone else does. This type of thinking is called ethical egoism, and although it has some proponents, nobody would call it "moral".

Oh, and logic is never subjective. If something is logically true, it's true regardless of who you are. If your logic and someone else's logic don't match up, (at least) one of you is wrong.

Bullshit. Joel's logic preferred the life of Ellie to potentially everyone else alive.
Firefly's logic preferred the life of everyone else to Ellie.

Now you're confusing value for logic. Nobody can "logically prefer" anything. Preferences are subjective evaluation, they aren't logical.

Firefly used the logic that saving the whole human race does more overall good to more people than saving Ellie. That's factual. Joel couldn't deny that logic if he wanted to, he just ignored it.

Knowing that Joel gives not one shit for your value judgement on Ellie's life, prove him wrong.

Prove what wrong? I can prove that his decision was immoral if that's what you mean. If he believed what he was doing was the moral thing then I could prove him wrong by showing how he's causing much more despair to the human race than he's preventing by saving one person. However, I don't think Joel was concerned with whether what he did was moral or not, I think it was a snap judgement made out of his own selfish interest. It's an understandable decision, he's only human, but it's not defensible morally.

Um... math?

Let's get this out of the way now. Up to this point you've argued with me as though you were arguing with someone who's never actually considered philosophical arguments before.

I can only conclude two things (there might be more possibilities, but I don't know them):

1. You regard my intelligence less than you should.
I get it, I'm just some face on the internet you've never met and you have no reason to assume I can argue this point. I'm telling you that I can. You want to make a point, get on the level of an adult and argue like you mean it.

2. You argue in bad faith.
I'd really prefer this not to be true, but if it is, please don't waste my time with a response. If this little debate is not going to bear fruit, I'd prefer not to continue.

I try not to make judgments about the people I debate. I'm separating your idea and your argument from you as a person, and debating those. I don't consider who you are as relevant unless you have some unique insight because of it. So please don't take anything I say to be an insult or indicative of what kind of person I think you are. I chose basic math to illustrate my point because I wanted to show how plain and obvious it was, not because of how intelligent I think you are.

 

[Olas]

Values are subjective yes, but morality is more than values. To make a moral judgement you have to take into account the values of everyone, not merely yourself.

I don't mean to disregard much of what you said, but this gets to the heart of the issue and merits the most attention.

So. You have to take into account everyone's values to form moral judgements. What about when those values conflict?

A moral dilemma. To be more specific I'd need an example.

If morality was based solely on what's valuable to you, it would be morally right to steal money from someone because the money has more value to you if you possess it than if someone else does. This type of thinking is called ethical egoism, and although it has some proponents, nobody would call it "moral".

One could also propose nihilism, exclaiming that because nature presents no moral values, there are none in objectivity, and that all morality is whimsical and subjective.

Since when was appearing in nature a requirement for being objective? I'd argue morality is a truth we rationally uncover the same way we uncover mathematical truths. It's a lot messier and more complicated than mathematics, but that shouldn't be confused with subjectivity. The various schools of thought regarding ethics are all supported rationally, and although people don't always agree, people don't always agree on theories in any field.

That many people can agree on a moral code does not make that code any more real than the dragon we can all see on a screen. We know and agree what the dragon is, but it doesn't really exist.

In what sense? Do concepts not exist? Do numbers exist? Would you argue that 2+2=4 is a subjective statement simply because numbers are a human construct? No, of course not. Something doesn't need to exist in the physical realm of things we can touch in order to be objectively true or not.

Now you're confusing value for logic. Nobody can "logically prefer" anything. Preferences are subjective evaluation, they aren't logical.

Firefly used the logic that saving the whole human race does more overall good to more people than saving Ellie. That's factual. Joel couldn't deny that logic if he wanted to, he just ignored it.

But he could respond that saving Ellie does more overall good to Ellie.

And he would be logically correct, but that point isn't relevant to determining the morality of the action. You can't just base your evaluation of an act on how it affects one single individual and ignore everyone else. By what standard would you dictate that Ellie's life takes precedent over any other human?

Prove what wrong? I can prove that his decision was immoral if that's what you mean. If he believed what he was doing was the moral thing then I could prove him wrong by showing how he's causing much more despair to the human race than he's preventing by saving one person.

Again, you would have to show that something in the innate nature of the universe shows that causing more despair than less is intrinsically immoral, and not just a rule that people have agreed upon or generally prefer to be true.

Now you're just getting silly. The fact that a moral goodness is intrinsically tied to the value it creates is explained in the definition of the term. Morality is the distinction between actions that are good and bad. Something is good if it has positive value, and bad if it has negative value. To ask why it's good to do something good, and bad to do something bad is like asking why up is up and down is down. Any further ambiguity that might seem to exist is a matter of poorly defined semantics.

You would have to, in effect, show that conflicting moralities, even though they might disagree with you about what is preferred or good, are in fact wrong about what is preferred or good.

I could and I will if you want. For example, deontological ethics are those based on certain rules or "duties" such as "do not murder" or "do not steal" or "do not lie" regardless of the consequences. However the initial reasoning behind these ethical duties can only be explained by the negative consequences of them, and in separating the act from the consequence we separate it from the original intent. The fact that murder is considered wrong is based on the fact that it usually causes harm, but it is possible for situations to arise where murder can provide more good than the inherent harm. Since there is no reasoning in these situations for why it is bad to murder, I would argue that deontological ethics is illogical or wrong.

I could do this for virtue ethics as well, but I think my point is made. I would argue the very fact that philosophers can rationally argue these various theories of ethics shows they aren't subjective. After all, you can't rationally argue why you like oranges more than apples.

However, I don't think Joel was concerned with whether what he did was moral or not, I think it was a snap judgement made out of his own selfish interest. It's an understandable decision, he's only human, but it's not defensible morally.

"The potential salvation of the human race is not worth the murder of an innocent child."

I find it very defensible.

LOL!!! Then defend it. Defend the deaths of millions, or however how many people are left in Last of Us, many of them children.

Actually, don't defend it, if you defend it then you insinuate there's an identifiable rational behind it which flies in the face of it being subjective.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

See, I don't think the fireflies had bad intentions, or were even really BAD people...

They just had one CRITICAL problem. One that made me not regret mowing them down at the end.

They wanted everything NOW. No patience whatsoever.

Remember the weird psychedelic intro? They're like "We are the fireflies, we want immediate and full restoration of congress". When there's a totally insane disaster going on and there's no time to debate things. And what do you hear in that same intro? They did a terror attack to make their point. -_-

They have their ideals, but they want things NOW. They can't play the "long game". They see a potential cure, they immediately go all in, instead of doing more benign tests first. I was with Joel on saving her. They were taking a massively stupid risk, without her consent, and I was NOT going to let that slide.

My only issue is Joel's really dumb lie. Mine would have been something like "You're not the first one to be immune, others have come to the fireflies before. But for EVERY other one, they jumped straight to 'crack open their skull to experiment on the fungus'. And it failed. For all of them. And when I asked what made them think it would work THIS time, they went 'But it has to! We think Ellie is special! She has to be!' and that was basically their only argument. They had no idea what the hell they were doing. I'm not going to let you die, especially not when it's completely FUCKING POINTLESS. We'll find a way to get a cure another way, and we will NOT let the fireflies murder you when there's no chance they're going to actually succeed. Throwing your life away for literally nothing doesn't make you a hero. It's just stupid".

Essentially, grain of truth to let the bullshit go down easier.

 

[Olas]

Values are subjective yes, but morality is more than values. To make a moral judgement you have to take into account the values of everyone, not merely yourself.

I don't mean to disregard much of what you said, but this gets to the heart of the issue and merits the most attention.

So. You have to take into account everyone's values to form moral judgements. What about when those values conflict?

A moral dilemma. To be more specific I'd need an example.

Person X says killing people is good. Person Y says not killing people is good.

Why does person X say it's good to kill people? Unless he can come up with an incredibly good justification I'd say he's clearly in the wrong. Most people don't want to die, they consider death bad, so forcing them to die is doing something bad to them. Hence immoral.

As far as moral dilemma's go, this one is pretty weak.

If morality was based solely on what's valuable to you, it would be morally right to steal money from someone because the money has more value to you if you possess it than if someone else does. This type of thinking is called ethical egoism, and although it has some proponents, nobody would call it "moral".

One could also propose nihilism, exclaiming that because nature presents no moral values, there are none in objectivity, and that all morality is whimsical and subjective.

Since when was appearing in nature a requirement for being objective?

Since when is it not? Objective means true independent of man made judgement. If it doesn't appear in nature, it's fiction.

That's simply not true. Being independent of man-made judgement, and appearing in nature are not the same or even related.

One can have a judgement of anything, man made or not. In addition, human constructs, like grammar, can exist and function without value judgements. The two ideas are completely unrelated.

Look at computer code. It's a clear construct of man. It only exists as data, or information, and yet it behaves rationally. Would you say the very code that constructs this website doesn't exist? Would you argue that C++ is "whimsical and subjective"

I'd argue morality is a truth we rationally uncover the same way we uncover mathematical truths.

There is no evidence to support this train of thought, so far as I know.

Well, we're way beyond the realm of 'evidence' here. We're talking about very metaphysical concepts. Morals, when not based on a religious system, have always served a function, the betterment of the world. This is distinct from actions that only benefit oneself, or self interest, which can exist in animals and unintelligent organisms which we would not classify as moral. When we understand that morals are fundamentally actions that exist to better society, we can then construct rationally on top of that as to what is necessary to achieve that end. Since all values are subjective, the end goal of those rationally derived values is that which serves those subjective values, but regardless of the end goal, the optimal strategy to achieve that goal is indisputable.

To make an analogy, baseball may have different objectives than soccer, but within each sport there is an objective strategy that optimally achieves that goal. The values of a person or a society are like the goal of the sport, and the morality is like the strategy to achieve it. People may have different views on the best strategy, but that doesn't mean that all strategy is subjective and "whimsical".

It's a lot messier and more complicated than mathematics, but that shouldn't be confused with subjectivity. The various schools of thought regarding ethics are all supported rationally, and although people don't always agree, people don't always agree on theories in any field.

But there is a truth independent of our ability to discover it. The same cannot be said for morality; that is, unless you know something I do not.

Okay, how about hours and minutes? Right now my clock says it's 6:44pm. The concept of 6:44pm has no natural basis, it's purely a man-made construct that only has meaning to humans who understand our system of keeping time. Does that mean it's not objective? Does that mean we can argue whether it's really 6:44pm or not? No. Because humans can create truths that work independent of personal perspective. To a clock it's 6:44pm regardless of what you or anyone else has to say about it.

That many people can agree on a moral code does not make that code any more real than the dragon we can all see on a screen. We know and agree what the dragon is, but it doesn't really exist.

In what sense? Do concepts not exist?

Sure they do. But does the dragon actually exist or not?

???? What does this have to do with anything?

The concept of dragons exists. Dragons don't physically exist, if that's what you're trying to get at, but why should that matter? Morality is not a physical thing by nature, so to say it doesn't exist in the same way dragons don't exist is to completely missing the point.

I often find the concepts of "real" and "fictional" to be very unhelpful in this type of discussion, and in general. Things can have a physical existence, or an informational existence. A concept is informational, and usually not thoroughly defined, but that doesn't make it inherently subjective.

For example, Smaug the dragon only exists as an idea in our heads, and as an image in a movie, but there are indisputable characteristics that define him. He has two wings, two eyes, breathes fire, etc. He's not a subjective entity. Our opinion of him may be subjective, but not he himself.

Do numbers exist? Would you argue that 2+2=4 is a subjective statement simply because numbers are a human construct? No, of course not. Something doesn't need to exist in the physical realm of things we can touch in order to be objectively true or not.

Yes, it does. 2 rocks plus 2 rocks will always be 4 rocks, regardless of whether the universe has a word for it or not.

Fine, if you're going to be stubborn I'll take this further down the rabbit hole.

What about i^2 = -1

i is imaginary, by definition. This is no rock equivalent. Yet we use it in calculations that allow planes to fly. It's a construct that humans discovered/created that has no physical or natural basis yet works objectively.

The same it not true for morality. The universe is amoral.

Until intelligent organisms come into existence to formulate it.

Now you're confusing value for logic. Nobody can "logically prefer" anything. Preferences are subjective evaluation, they aren't logical.

Firefly used the logic that saving the whole human race does more overall good to more people than saving Ellie. That's factual. Joel couldn't deny that logic if he wanted to, he just ignored it.

But he could respond that saving Ellie does more overall good to Ellie.

And he would be logically correct, but that point isn't relevant to determining the morality of the action. You can't just base your evaluation of an act on how it affects one single individual and ignore everyone else. By what standard would you dictate that Ellie's life takes precedent over any other human?

By the standard that Ellie's life is more valuable to Joel. Exactly the same standard utilitarians use (the standard that more lives are more valuable than less lives), only the values have shifted.

That's not utilitarian, or moral, it's self-interest. Ignoring the needs of others in favor of the needs of yourself is not moral. Moral isn't "whatever I want" or else we could say that all unintelligent living creatures are moral because they all just do what they want. Raping someone is moral, murdering someone is moral, as long as it's what you want it's moral. In fact it would be immoral to donate money to a charity because it's not what you want.

The only argument you seem to have is that the word "moral" can be redefined to mean something else. In this case, whatever Joel wants. I can redefine an acorn to be a "moral" and then go outside to collect morals off the ground. And by that standard any concept humans have worked out can be relabeled to mean something else. But that's just pure semantics. There's no philosophy there.

Prove what wrong? I can prove that his decision was immoral if that's what you mean. If he believed what he was doing was the moral thing then I could prove him wrong by showing how he's causing much more despair to the human race than he's preventing by saving one person.

Again, you would have to show that something in the innate nature of the universe shows that causing more despair than less is intrinsically immoral, and not just a rule that people have agreed upon or generally prefer to be true.

The fact that a moral goodness is intrinsically tied to the value it creates is explained in the definition of the term.

And that that value is subjective makes morality subjective.

Ughhhhh no... it doesn't....

Sorry, I'm just getting frustrated because I feel like I've been trying to explain this same point over and over.

Okay, here's an example:

Boy A likes apples.

Boy B likes bananas.

Both boys only value the one fruit.

One could say that stealing an apple is immoral if it's done to boy A, but not boy B. So is that moral subjective? No. The statement "If the boy likes X, it is immoral to take X" works regardless of the boy or fruit in the equation. The input values may differ, but the methodology of determining what is right and wrong is the same.

Different values, same morality. Some people may pray in a church, others in a synagogue, but the fact that people should be free to worship in their venue of choice is true regardless.

That's why subjectivity of value does not mean subjectivity of morality. The two are inseparable, but they function independently.

Morality is the distinction between actions that are good and bad. Something is good if it has positive value, and bad if it has negative value.

You don't determine positive value. Neither do I. Neither does anyone.

Ummm... wut? Yes I do. I determine what has positive value to me, and you determine what has positive value to you. If nobody determines positive value, how does it exist?

I value things, you value things, and although I may not value the same things as you, I can recognize that you value those things and not deprive you of them. An action that leads to more positive value for people has positive value. This is the only sensical basis for morality.

What is it I'm failing to explain here? Value is inherently subjective. If morality is the distinction between "good" and "bad", and "good" and "bad" vary from person to person, there is no objective standard for morality.

No, I didn't say morality is the distinction between good and bad. I said morality is the distinction between actions that are good and bad. A good action has to consider the values of the person or people it is being made for. What is good and bad may vary from person to person, but choosing to do what each person considers good is always good.

To ask why it's good to do something good, and bad to do something bad is like asking why up is up and down is down. Any further ambiguity that might seem to exist is a matter of poorly defined semantics.

That everyone agrees what "up" and "down" represent tears this argument to shreds.

No

We're not talking about what specifically is good, we're talking about the CONCEPT of good. Earlier you asked me to prove why causing despair to lots of people is inherently bad. It doesn't matter specifically WHAT causes the despair, the fact that you are doing something which causes people despair is what matters here, and I'm saying that causing despair is the DEFINITION of immoral.

You would have to, in effect, show that conflicting moralities, even though they might disagree with you about what is preferred or good, are in fact wrong about what is preferred or good.

Since there is no reasoning in these situations for why it is bad to murder, I would argue that deontological ethics is illogical or wrong.

Perfectly fine. Now tell me why this is illogical or wrong; Joel values Ellie more than every other person on Earth.

Is it safe to say I've already explained the difference between values and morals?

I could do this for virtue ethics as well, but I think my point is made. I would argue the very fact that philosophers can rationally argue these various theories of ethics shows they aren't subjective. After all, you can't rationally argue why you like oranges more than apples.

Sure you can.

1. I like things that taste good.
2. Oranges taste more good than apples.
3. I like oranges more than apples.

Fine, I guess I should have been more specific in my language, you can't rationally argue why oranges taste more good than apples. And don't try to turn this into a game just to annoy me, you know what I'm saying.

However, I don't think Joel was concerned with whether what he did was moral or not, I think it was a snap judgement made out of his own selfish interest. It's an understandable decision, he's only human, but it's not defensible morally.

"The potential salvation of the human race is not worth the murder of an innocent child."

I find it very defensible.

LOL!!! Then defend it. Defend the deaths of millions, or however how many people are left in Last of Us, many of them children.

Already did. That you find "More people are worth more to me than less people" perfectly logical and reasonable, but cannot understand why "This girl is worth more to me than any people", does not show for the latter to be indefensible.

Here's where you're confused.

I never claimed more people are worth more to me. I claimed more people are worth more overall, because each of them has value both to themselves, and the people who know them. My own evaluation here is less than 0.000001% of the total evaluation of these people's lives. This is as true of me as it is Joel, or any single person. The fact that Joel values Ellie more than the millions of other people is not untrue, it is simply of little relevance to the overall morality of the action.

Not caring about people yourself doesn't make it more okay to kill them.

If you disagree, you have a warped, inaccurate, and in my opinion disgusting conception of what "moral" means. You'd probably be a fan of Ayn Rand I guess.

Actually, don't defend it, if you defend it then you insinuate there's an identifiable rationale behind it which flies in the face of it being subjective.

I like apples more than oranges.

You like oranges more than apples.

Both are defensible, and neither insinuates an objective truth to the excellence of oranges or apples.

That's not a defense, that's a statement of facts, the axiom onto which one builds a defense. And in this statement of facts you listed both people's preferences. But when it comes to Joel's decision you only bother to include HIS preference, and not the preference of every one of those millions of people.

I hope to god you don't actually apply this view of morality to your decisions in the real world. Really, please tell me this is all a big joke. I said I try not to judge people, but it's hard not to judge someone who condones genocide.

 

[Azure23]

As a father, I had no qualms mowing down any and all who stood between the two. If the game had let me I'd have burnt the building down too.

Same (got a bun in the oven anyway). All I was thinking while Joel was driving away was "damn, I didn't get them all."

I for one welcome the daddening of videogames.