Blogger Posts 7/7 - Making Characters Part 3: Morals
Morality is a HUGE topic, but in this entry I want to highlight 2 important points:
1. How the character themselves perceive their own morals?
2. How does others perceive the character's morals?
Before we begin, there are 3 important dimensions we need to think about: Intention, Action and Consequence.
Intention refers to what the person's initial hope was out of a certain situation. Action refers to the execution of Intention, and what is done to achieve the hoped situation. And lastly, Consequence refers to the result(s) of the Action. These 3 dimension are the main topics of every ethical and moral debate.
“We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior.”
This quote is a good starting point when it comes to adding a moral dimension to both your characters and your story. It can also help us answer the 2 questions!
How someone perceives their own morals can be clouded by their knowledge of their own Intentions, and even justifying horrible actions by simply saying stuff like: "It's for the greater good," or "Ends justify the means," or "It doesn't matter what it brought, I had good Intentions!". And they may be saying the complete truth when they say they had best of Intentions. However, even if they are telling the truth, it is impossible for other characters to be 100% sure of what they claim, unless they can read minds that is :D But assuming they can't, they will probably judge the character based on what they did, and what it caused, what results it brought. Even if the character's Intentions were completely pure, the other characters might not forgive it easily if they couldn't execute it, or worse: if it brought disastrous results. Same thing goes for a character with bad Intentions. If they were nice and it didn't hurt anyone, their redflags might get swept under a rug.
Another thing to consider is that not all well executed Actions, or "good" Actions bring good results. Maybe the Action was good but did they consider other factors first? They may execute the good Action perfectly, and yet it might bring bad results because it was the wrong time, right place, or they didn't consider whether if it was compatible with the current situation. Same thing applies to bad Actions. They might be executed so well that they blend in and bring good results, perhaps even as a manipulation tactic!
Sometimes results matter more than the other two... Let's say you are writing a scenario where a leader does a certain thing. And it had the best of Intention, it was well executed, but the results were not as expected! What would the people think? They wouldn't care about neither Intention nor Action but they'd focus on the result and criticize the leader for it, maybe even overthrow him depending on how catastrophic (or unlucky) the leader is!
An individual character might like to highlight one of these dimensions or try to be more objective and listen and investigate the truth of all of these dimensions. One thing to remember is that even if there is an immoral character it doesn't mean they are not giving importance to any of these or just justifying as I mentioned above, but it could -and usually- means that they cannot perform well in one of these areas or more. This would add nuance to the characters' morality and you could have pretty balanced and realistic characters :D An immoral character might:
- Be awful at executing their good Intentions and often fail miserably (due to a lack of observational skills, anxiety or by being a little ignorant towards what the situation even is, for example.)
- Bring bad results despite having good Intentions AND Actions (sometimes the character is just unlucky :( and a little bit of chaos, if done correctly, can bring a sense of realism. Orrr maybe the results were manipulated? Or the perception of those results were manipulated? This way, creating a good rivalry begins :D)
Lastly, I want to add the issue of Accountability. Most people would want someone who wronged them to be punished. They wouldn't just let go of unfair treatments or ignore them for the sake of the plot, ok? There needs to be a reason WHY. There needs to be CONSEQUENCES. This way you can even write a very sneaky, evil character. If they are skilled enough they might get away without consequences such as punishments, but this isn't to say they can run away from ALL of the consequences. Under Accountability, there are many other issues to consider:
- Objectivity/subjectivity
- Mutuality (or the lack of)
- Dilemmas such as: "Can a mentally disabled person really be responsible for their Actions?" or "Are you accountable according to your own morals or the laws or the common ethics? (Basically: Can you be punished for something you think is right? And is it right to punish you?)" or "How is the accountability going to apply? Is there any standards?"
Edit: I wanted to add for those who want to write a believable, well-put justice system, or a detective story that how laws are executed is also based on these three dimensions.
1. To understand someone's intentions, your detective character(s) will have to figure out what the motive of the crime was. Yes, it might still be the exact intention that they figure out, however this motive will help the court navigate the reasoning behind what was the criminal trying to achieve.
2. The action is usually the reason why something is considered a crime. It often involves hurting someone directly or in some way (financially or hurt their reputation for example). This action needs to be proved by the methods used during it's execution.
3. The result can be the reason why something is a crime as well. Maybe the action was innocent, but some laws are there to prevent certain problems that can be caused by unsuspecting behaviors. (Such as swimming in a certain pool or lake, swimming itself isn't a crime but since people could die swimming in dangerous places, it is forbidden or strongly dissuaded.)
