Forum: Story Ideas

I'm working on a story series (don't expect to see it before the end of the year at the earliest) but on of the points I'd like to do is examine ethical theories such as greatest over all good with or without least harm etc.

The idea for the story is to look at an ethical theory in each major sector of the story. Say 5 or 6 ethical theories. I've done ethics as University so a quick rehash of my notes will be required but I like the idea of injecting a theory in each 'book' not chapters as they're part of a very long arc with minor ones in each book/story.

the source of the premise is that there is a plot device driving 'development' but it too is learning. It's been around for about 200 Years at the start of the story. It may have kick started the industrial revolution. but I have to do a reasonable amount of reading on that to see what I can cherry pick as caused by the influence of the device.

love to hear some thoughts on this especially schools of thought on which ethical models to include and how that will affect the story. the order of them will be more based on how well they fit the story rather than any perceived rightness of each theory.

I would like to be able to use the standard two axis diagram. Legal and ethical / Legal and not ethical.
Illegal and ethical / Illegal and not ethical. I'd like to have to make some sort of decisions for the MC on that matrix. So that for each book he explores a school of ethics and learns from it each time.

the overall path is one of degradation then final redemption when all the schools are put together. but i see this Idea getting very messy very quickly. I want to do more than shoehorn the ethics in. I want to use them as a guide to the MC's actions even though they may not make the 'best' decision for that model by the end of each book. but by the end of the last book he puts together a 'vision' that mixes and matches these schools into something that can work over all and finally redeem themselves and perhaps humanity too.

Discussion here is good. if you want to have a more rigorous to and fro, we can start with the message system and maybe move to email if that's a good way to go. but for here at least I think a 'High school' level of theory will be fine. it give me time to find my notes and refresh my memory a bit. then we can look at at tertiary level of debate.

Looking forward to all your responses, what ever they are.

Legal or illegal depends a lot on the time period. Many subjects change either way over time so, assuming it's a fictional story, you can maybe use that to fit into what you need. I think I personally have a pretty high standard of ethics but I have no idea about the theories surrounding the subject.

In a general sense, ethics are a subjective mess however they are treated.
Due to that, you can make whatever you want of them.

ethicks would be something thick on line, like email is mail on line. Something fat? ethins would be its opposite.

Looking forward to all your responses, what ever they are.

Start with a study of spellcheck.

One area where the law may not have caught up with tech: incest.
Incest is illegal in most western societies because of
A) The chance of negative recessive genes being expressed.
B) The possibility / probability of covert coercion being used to obtain sexual compliance.
C) Lack of outbreeding causes tribalism.
D) Molested people tend to be mentally broken.

What if siblings or parent & child conceive a baby using artificial insemination, with the female using the hypothetical turkey baster. No sexual penetration has occurred, yet all four negatives above are potentially in play. Legally would that be incest? I would argue its definitely unethical but is it illegal? What if the female is underage? A true virgin birth is possible today, even if it is undesirable to most.