[OB] Adolin's sense of moral - Sadeas' murder

[aemetha he/him]

Well, as was pointed out by @Willow above, his defence of the prostitute didn't aid his family at all, and was motivated by a sense of right and wrong.

[Fifth of Daybreak he/him]

29 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

I'm only asking for the evidence you base that he has a personal innate sense of moral that doesn't coincide with Kholinar's (and of course Dalinar's) power over the kingdom.

And you're asking me to do that without allowing evidence that attacks the thesis that his moral code is based in aggregating power for his family. Essentially, you're asking me to come up with a differential diagnosis but telling me I'm not allowed to use pertinent negatives to rule out different illnesses. Can you give me a good reason why actions Adolin takes that are inconsistent with a moral philosophy of aggregating power for his family shouldn't be considered evidence in this case?

 

29 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

He admitted to the murder only to Shallan and Dalinar. The Sadeas army wasn't an ally for a long time now, so there was no reputation to lose there in the first place

So now he's admitting in private to protect their reputation but there's no reputation to lose in the first place?

 

29 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

He refuses to be king because he believes he will not do a good job and it will exactly harm the family's reputation.

This directly takes power away from his branch of the family, a contradiction of your view of his morality. Admitting you won't be a good king hurts your family's reputation. Instilling the first female monarch against tradition hurts your family's reputation. Jasnah as Queen was not even Adolin's idea, so you can't even credit that to him, it was Shallan's idea. 

 

29 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

The only example given so far in all these comments is that he stays with Kaladin in jail because it didn't seem right. ( I could still debate that it is in Kholin family favour to gain influence over dark-eyes, but for the sake of the argument, let's say that it's still valid )

Just because it's the only example you accept, Doesn't mean it's the only given. What about his Affability with the darkeyes I mentioned? His willingness to put himself in danger on plateua assaults by doing a shardbearer charge? That especially puts his house in grave danger with little to no benefit to their power or reputation, and Adolin does it anyway because 'they are his men too.'

Edited December 8, 2017 by Ookla the Obtuse

[Willow]

@insert_anagram_here, Hmm, I think you might be misunderstanding me, or I'm misunderstanding you. @Ookla the Obtuse and I are talking about the same event, but from what I can tell we are discussing different aspects of it. I specifically talked about his reasoning for actually committing the murder (and that his reasons for it had nothing to do with consolidating power for the Kholin family), while the other argument was about why Adolin concealed the murder afterwards.

My argument here is that the pre-murder interaction basically went something like this:

Sadeas: So I'm going to keep murdering your family (after my last two assassation attempts within a two-month period failed)
Adolin: I'm not going to let you hurt my father. *stabs*

The result of it was that Sadeas was no longer there to manipulate and scheme, so on one hand it did remove a source of trouble for his family. On the other hand it did turn out that Sadeas' army thought Dalinar did it which led to the Oathbringer finale events, which could've led to civil war in other circumstances. If Adolin's goal was to keep the Kholin family in power, he never would have done it just like this. He didn't actually think about the bigger problem at all, he just thought about protecting his father. If he had, this thought process would have looked very different. The fact that the specific action he 'choose' wasn't actually good for the Kholins is even evident in the part of the book you quoted:

25 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

Dalinar took a deep breath. “We can fix this,” he said. “We can see that atonement is made. It will hurt our reputation. Storms, this is not what I needed now. Nonetheless, we will fix it.”

His action was very, very bad for the Kholin family, and could have easily led to their downfall. Adolin murdered Sadeas not out of the idea that this would be good for his family, he murdered Sadeas because he didn't want to let Sadeas hurt his father again. That's because he loves his family, and he wants to protect them. I do not think it means  that all his choices are weighed by the standard of 'will this bring power to my family', which is why I said Sadeas' murder wasn't a good argument for the moral stance you're suggesting.

Edited December 8, 2017 by Willow

[StormingTexan he/him]

25 minutes ago, aemetha said:

Well, as was pointed out by @Willow above, his defence of the prostitute didn't aid his family at all, and was motivated by a sense of right and wrong.

Yeah I don't get this either here is the retort. I do not understand why "not putting himself in danger" disproves a sense of morality. It is kinda like standing up to a bully who's picking on a kid and you are bigger than the bully. The moral thing to do is stand up to the bully because you can stop the situation. The immoral thing to do is walk away and not intervene in my opinion. Now if you are smaller than the bully and you intervene that is being courages or brave but it is amoral thing to do either way. 

7 hours ago, insert_anagram_here said:

After reading it though, I still cannot see Adolin's personal sense of moral here either. He doesn't place himself in danger or against a more powerful person. It could be a public exhibition of power, as he only scared away the Sadeas officer by only summoning his Shardblade. When the prostitute offers him service without charge:

Quote

The young brightlord raised an eyebrow. “Tempting,” he said, “but my father would kill me. He has this thing about the old ways.” 

So he is aware of what happening here will reach his father's ears. He probably did it to show off Kholin power and their ability of upholding the old ways.

Edited December 8, 2017 by StormingTexan

[insert_anagram_here]

3 minutes ago, Willow said:

His action was very, very bad for the Kholin family, and could have easily led to their downfall. Adolin murdered Sadeas not out of the idea that this would be good for his family, he murdered Sadeas because he didn't want to let Sadeas hurt his father again. That's because he loves his family, and he wants to protect them. I do not think it means  that all his choices are weighed by the standard of 'will this bring power to my family', which is why I said Sadeas' murder wasn't a good argument for the moral stance you're suggesting.

I get it. Point taken.

[Willow]

6 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

I get it. Point taken.

I don't want you to feel like we're all dogpiling on you for having a dissenting opion. So if that happened, I'm sorry. I'm just curious to see the parts of the text made you come to this conclusion, or if it was just that one single scene that formed your opinion of Adolin?

Edited December 8, 2017 by Willow

[insert_anagram_here]

Just now, Willow said:

Also, I don't want you to feel like we're all dogpiling on you for having a dissenting opion. So if that happened, I'm sorry. I'm just curious to see the parts of the text made you come to this conclusion, or if it was just that one single scene that formed your opinion of Adolin?

Too late for that

[Yezrien]

My Nightwatcher boon... it’s failing! My lost memories are coming back! I suddenly remember why I usually stay out of these morality threads!

[Fifth of Daybreak he/him]

9 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

Too late for that

I'm not dogpiling in you for having a dissenting opinion. I'm frustrated because so far in this thread you've told me that using established in-universe Philosophies on morality to view Adolin's actions as being based on in universe morality is actually just my personal opinion on his morality.

I've been told that I have to define a strict sense of morality and defend it using quotes from the book from your attacks on whether or not you perceive that sense of morality as accurate based in those quotes, but that I cannot attack your logic on the same basis for your assigned morality for Adolin. 

I've been told that if that's not good enough I should just leave. 

The points I have made where he's acted in a way separately from the alleged morality you've given him have been completely ignored. 

I don't care if someone's opinion is different from mine. What gets me on edge is when my contributions to a conversation are in turn dismissed as irrelevant despite being on topic, then behavior you yourself use to make your point is not allowed to be used against your thesis, and finally the cogent points I do make that you say you're looking for are completely ignored. 

 

Quite frankly, I just don't know what you want from me.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, insert_anagram_here said:

After reading it though, I still cannot see Adolin's personal sense of moral here either. He doesn't place himself in danger or against a more powerful person. It could be a public exhibition of power, as he only scared away the Sadeas officer by only summoning his Shardblade. When the prostitute offers him service without charge:

I haven't read the rest of the thread but I will answer to this one point. I honestly cannot fathom how one can try to craft Adolin is an immoral person because rescuing the prostitute did not involve dire danger to his person, nor can I fathom one can try to make it sound as if Adolin was only doing it "for the public show".

First of, Adolin is within an enemy warcamp: he isn't among his officers. His public display has literally NO value except to save the woman being bullied. 

Second of, Adolin has absolutely NO jurisdiction over the Sadeas's officers, so on which ground was he supposed to trial the guilty officer? He doesn't have this authority and even stepping in was him trespassing as illustrated by him cancelling his appointment and leaving. Why? Because he knows his altercation will get known and is likely to get him into trouble, better to move out now while he can and reschedule for after the dust has the time to settle.

Third of, there is absolutely no benefit in Adolin saving this woman, the idea he did for his reputation is projecting thoughts into the character on no valid ground basis. Lighteyes do not lower themselves to rescue prostitute: saving her is not increasing his reputation, it is damaging it. It makes him appear weak as opposed to commanding: no one behaves this way. It was a very un-Alethi thing to do. It was something Evi would have done, but be laughed for afterwards.

So yeah, really the desire to want Adolin to be an immoral person because he killed Sadeas is really pushing it thin.

I guess I could write so much more, but it's become a moot point for me lately.

[king of nowhere]

32 minutes ago, Ookla the Obtuse said:

I'm not dogpiling in you for having a dissenting opinion. I'm frustrated because so far in this thread you've told me that using established in-universe Philosophies on morality to view Adolin's actions as being based on in universe morality is actually just my personal opinion on his morality.

I've been told that I have to define a strict sense of morality and defend it using quotes from the book from your attacks on whether or not you perceive that sense of morality as accurate based in those quotes, but that I cannot attack your logic on the same basis for your assigned morality for Adolin. 

I've been told that if that's not good enough I should just leave. 

The points I have made where he's acted in a way separately from the alleged morality you've given him have been completely ignored. 

I don't care if someone's opinion is different from mine. What gets me on edge is when my contributions to a conversation are in turn dismissed as irrelevant despite being on topic, then behavior you yourself use to make your point is not allowed to be used against your thesis, and finally the cogent points I do make that you say you're looking for are completely ignored. 

 

Quite frankly, I just don't know what you want from me.

that's pretty much my angle too.

though I admit I have enough admiration for adolin to react about him a bit as if he was a real friend and not just a fictional character. I have a lot in common with adolin, so you could say he is my role model.

[Awesomness]

Hello! 

I don´t really have time to elaborate a post, but I´s like to point something out quickly. Here we have a sort of cognitive dissonance. We have a great guy, who we know does great things and is caring, friendly and kind to everyone. AND, he "snapped" and killed a person. 

We all want Adolin to go on being this incredibly good guy, and there are a lot of good interpretations about the morality of that murder. 

But it is still a Murder. 

[Greywatch she/her]

7 hours ago, insert_anagram_here said:

He admitted to the murder only to Shallan and Dalinar. The Sadeas army wasn't an ally for a long time now, so there was no reputation to lose there in the first place. They were practically in civil war, that's why he killed Sadeas, to cut the problem from the root. He refuses to be king because he believes he will not do a good job and it will exactly harm the family's reputation. Instead they let Jasnah be a queen because she obviously will do a better job than him. At the end nobody didn't even abdicate the throne, because Elhokar's son is still alive, Jasnah will only be a Queen Regent until he comes of age.

There's no indication that he believes he thinks not doing a good job is because it will harm his family's reputation. You read that in the text, but it's not there. And that is not the textual reason they "let" Jasnah be queen. Jasnah was - presumably! - asked to be queen because Adolin refused. If it was because "she obviously will do a better job than him" then they never would've let Adolin have the opportunity in the first place, they'd have made plans for it to be Jasnah right from the start. 

And this is totally an aside, but it may be the case that Jasnah will step down when Gav comes of age, but there is no "Regent" in my copy of Oathbringer when Jasnah is introduce as the ruling monarch of Alethkar.

[insert_anagram_here]

I started this as a logical discussion, placed an argument and challenged you for in book text as factual counter examples to prove the invalidity of that initial statement, because it is the only sure and logically way to prove invalidity (at least that's what I learned from Discrete Mathematics classes)

Otherwise we will argue until eternity, exchanging misunderstood speculated theoretical opinions at one another, in danger of ending up bullying instead of discussing.

Now, I admit my initial assumption that people commenting on this post are aware of "Proving Invalidity: The Counterexample Method" was the one that was moot to begin with, therefore before you all attack me for trying to do what seemed to me the logical thing to do at that point, I'd ask you to chill the storm down and ignore this thread (until I find a way to delete it and the end the streaming notification feedback), because quite frankly it has indeed turned up in a one sided dog-piling of illogical phallacies that provide nothing to the original argument.

[Calderis he/him]

One moment of justified anger doesn't invalidate the rest of Adolin's life. 

He's a good kid. His actions, generally, are moral. The murder was, at least in my opinion, justified. Nothing was going to feasibly be done to Sadeas because of his political position. The Tower proved that.

His defense of the prostitute. His self imprisonment in support of Kaladin. His rescue of the child in Thaylen city. 

He's a stand up guy. There's no need to prove a sense of morality. He obviously lives by one. I can fully understand someone not agreeing with his choices, but painting him as an amoral character... I don't see how that's possible from the character I read. 

Edited December 9, 2017 by Ookla, the Incalculable

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine he/him]

I am stepping in to completely and irrevocably back @insert_anagram_here, Adolin is the closest thing we have seen to an amoral actor in all of Storm Light Archives.

He acts instinctively without moral compunction, every instance you could possibly bring up, the refutation will always be the same: Did he stop to consider the moral implications of his actions? The answer will always be NO!

There is a great divide between the Intuitive man (Michelangelo) and the Analytical man (Leonardo Da Vinci), one acts without conscious thought and lets intuition guide their actions, the other analyzes everything synthetically, breaking everything down into its constituent partst to understand the whole through the sum of its parts. One approach is not more correct than the other.

Adolin is not a person that analyzes a situation, he's a person that responds on an intuitive, visceral level to all the problematic situations that life presents him with. He has a solid foundational morality, from his Mom, he has respect for authority and the chain of command from his Dad, but in the grey area between these two Poles of his Morality there is nothing other than a desire to be a good and likeable person.

From WoR, we know that the great desire of Adolin is to get back at Sadeas for the wrongs he has done to his family. Insults to Dalinar, the betrayal at the Tower, and generally just being an unrepentant prick. Adolin has been wanting to get Sadeas for a long time. Is he held back from seeking his retribution by a strong internal prohibition against killing? No, he is held back because of an external and accepted moral code for the exacting of personal retribution.

The thing that is striking is that he is presented with this golden moment, this point in space and time where he is given due cause to fulfill his long suppressed wish to take out the most active force working against his dad and really the cause of humanity as Adolin sees it, and instead of seeing the murder of Sadeas as a noble act for the greater good of humanity, he is immediately ashamed of what he did. This is the heart of the conflict, this is what makes this whole discussion interesting. I posit (and since I am playing devil's advocate for @insert_anagram_here I hope he/she agrees, this is the point at which his action is immoral. I personally believe that he did the right thing killing Sadeas, the better time to do that would have been at the I'll swap you Oathbringer for a bunch of dirty bridge men meeting, but I can see the moral underpinning of both murders. But instead, what he does is he Murders Sadeas in a pique of rage (the thing that piqued his rage would be justifiable as the reason for killing him, but Adolin drops it in short order) and then hide all the evidence that he did it).

Adolin has led, up to this point, the classic unreflected life. He hasn't had any struggles or adversity where he has had to question the deeper mysteries of life. I am not calling him dumb, just inexperienced in hardship. This is where his amorality comes from. He's never known adversity, so he's never had to struggle. Life has been black and white for him, mirroring Szeth's journery but less obvious. He intuitively does what he thinks is right, but this is not based on a solid, reasoned morality. He is noble in a lot of what he does, but this does not come from a moral code, it comes from an intuitive sense (inherited from his mother) of what is right. This is all A'priori not synthetic. He has led a life that causes him to question that which doesn't fit into his understanding of the world and not to question how his understanding doesn't fit with the world.

 

He intuitively killed Sadeas (he had wanted to for a LONG TIME) and he feels no guilt or shame. The implicit morality of this action is simple expediency, that's it. It was convenient for him to kill him and he has no fear of repercussions (to me this is extreme amorality).

 

Edited December 9, 2017 by hoiditthroughthegrapevine

[Fifth of Daybreak he/him]

1 hour ago, insert_anagram_here said:

because quite frankly it has indeed turned up in a one sided dog-piling of illogical phallacies that provide nothing to the original argument.

Hit the report button at the top of the post and request them to take it down. There's no record of the report, it just flags it for mod attention.

 

Pro tip, you aren't going to gain future good will by insulting people by misspelling 'fallacies' to resemble 'phallic' as you leave without backing up your assertion that our points are based in logical fallacies. I'm challenging you to name one logical fallacy I've used here and now.

Edited December 9, 2017 by Ookla the Obtuse

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine he/him]

18 minutes ago, Ookla the Obtuse said:

Pro tip, you aren't going to gain future good will by insulting people as you leave. I'm challenging you to name one logical fallacy I've used here and now.

He's arguing from the hardest position, the position of Devil's advocate. I too have experienced what he is going through, the shard is perhaps the greatest collection of individualist thinkers/philosophers that the interweb has known, but there do seem to be unwritten rules that are hard to gauge for the newly initiated. Part of the problem is that this is serious, scholarly work that is done here, and not everyone realizes that. Also, not everyone appreciates that their pet theory will clash with a lot of other people's pet theories and an unholy poop storm (with incredibly well reasoned arguments and many WoBs to back them up) will rain down on them. It's a bit disconcerting to be shut down for simple speculation. I think that @insert_anagram_here took an unpopular position, created a very SOLID OP for it, and defended it doggedly. Isn't it time to say, like Dalinar did to Teleb, you might be on the wrong side son, but you sure have amazing skills?

Just my two cents, but you know what I will do, is plug my Stomrlight the musical thread, particularly the Song "Szeths New Knife" sung to the tune of Mack the Knife.

I poop you not, this is entertainment at it's finest. Have the video with the song going in a separate window while you read the lyrics. It's solid gold.

[Fifth of Daybreak he/him]

9 minutes ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

and defended it doggedly.

Nope, I'm sorry, he hasn't. He refuses to address my points, and tells me to leave when I ask why they aren't sufficient evidence. Then he comes and intentionally (notice how the ph is bolded) misspells fallacy as phallacy as an insult before leaving while having the gall to accuse us of using logical fallacies. This is clearly a violation of the site's policies btw, and I have been more than reasonable in my attempts to have a discussion with him.

Quote

Don't flame (deliberately attacking someone) or troll (making a post that's designed to upset or get a rise out of someone). 

 

Edited December 9, 2017 by Ookla the Obtuse

[Chaos he/him]

Time for you both to chill the hell out, @Ookla the Obtuse and @insert_anagram_here. 

EDIT: Going to be honest, this thread would be a great discussion of Adolin's morality. I think everyone has valid opinions on the matter. For the most part, despite people generally reacting negatively to the OP, it was a pretty cogent discussion.

As always, if people attack an opinion, one should not take that as a reflection on you. Those are different things. Take it with grace, anagram. 

People's emotional reactions aren't always going to fit with a pure logical stance, and most people aren't trained mathematicians. (I say this as a mathematician.)

Quote

Now, I admit my initial assumption that people commenting on this post are aware of "Proving Invalidity: The Counterexample Method" was the one that was moot to begin with, therefore before you all attack me for trying to do what seemed to me the logical thing to do at that point, I'd ask you to chill the storm down and ignore this thread (until I find a way to delete it and the end the streaming notification feedback), because quite frankly it has indeed turned up in a one sided dog-piling of illogical phallacies that provide nothing to the original argument.

You could also take your own advice, too, and also chill. 

As for you, @Ookla the Obtuse, you really ought to tone your indignation way down in the future and chill the hell out. Your tone sure didn't help, so I guess I'll have to watch both of you. 

Edited December 9, 2017 by Chaos