Ethics of invisibility

In My Humble Opinion
1

Yeah, I know the word’s “ethics” is in the title. But since I’m talking about an entirely hypoethical situation I don’t see how it can be a real Great Debate. But if anybody wants to move it, feel free.

As mentioned in these threads and a few others from last year, I’m working on a fantasy novel. Specifically it’s a urban fantasy (at least in the first half), by which I mean it’s set in the real world, albeit one with magical intrusions.

One of the characters in my novel is a vastly-powerful creature whose name I shall name share out of sheer cussedness. Said character, though not terribly bright (because when you’re nigh-omnipotent, you never have to develop the intricate reasoning skils) has the ability to become invisible; specifically it can be SELECTIVELY invisible, so that it could be in the presence of several people at a time but only the person it wished to be seen by would be able to see it. It can also extend this selective invisibility to others.

Now, in my first draft, I described this Creature’s power as basically telepathic; it could prod people not to notice its presence. If it chose to be invisible to you, in other words, light would still be striking it, but you’d have the impression that nothing was there, because it was screwing with your head (or perhaps making you immediately forget it was there). If you walked toward where this invisible Creature was, you’d unconsciously turn so as not to bump into it, and no one who wasn’t under the spell would realize you’d turned either.

Working on my second draft, this has seemed to be a problem to me. The Creature having this ability is supposed to be a paragon of good, charged with protecting mortals from magical dangers and natural disasters, but otherwise not interfering with free will. It seems to me that such a code is inconsistent with telepathic invisibility, as the Creature is by definition interfering with the minds of other people without their consent. (and, yes, this is a plot point.) So I’m thinking I should rewrite this.

Bringing me at last to my question: Is my second impression the right one? Is the sort of invisibility that, say, Professor X & Emma Frost are known to demonstrate ipso facto unethical to use, even if the person using it is not trying to harm anyone? If so, why? If not, why not? And is Sue Storm’s light-bending abiliity unethical in any way?

Thoughts?

2

If he doesn’t realize how he does it, much as i had no idea what happened to my food once inside me until 7th grade, it wouldn’t be any more unethical than the effect Angelina Jolie has on my brother. Here, here, stop drooling on the telly before it sparks you, dear…
I’m talking about AJ with no makeup, padded bras, or any of that. Just dump some jeans and a T-shirt on her and wipe the drool off the TV.

If I’m reading you correctly we’re not talking exactly about the brightest lightbulb on the tree. And it can create some interesting plot twists if he ever figures things out.

3

If he’s profiting from his invisibility, it’s getting on to the unethical side of things. If he just doesn’t want people to see him, it’s not so bad. So, if he just wants to have a private signlanguage conversation with his friend in a crowded bus station, it’s fine. On the other hand, if he wants to stand and stare over peoples’ shoulders as they enter their PIN numbers at ATMs, not so ethical.

In the comic books, the ethics of the situations tend to scale according to the power level and importance of the characters. Dr. Strange will reach into the minds of a whole group of people and adjust their memories “for their own good.” If the manager of the Cluck Hut reached into the minds of all his employees and made them think they had already been paid, that would not be a good thing, or if he convinced all his customers that the chicken sandwich they just had was the best ever, that’s unethical. “I like it a lot… It’s better than Cats… I’m going to see it again and again…”

4

OK, I think I see the “ethical” part of your dilemma. Please forgive me if I misinterpreted your post.

I would say, first of all, this is one of the few believable scenarios where invisibility would really be possible or practical.

However, as you said, this being IS screwing around with people’s minds w/o permission.

If my synopsis is correct, I do have a few observations to offer…

Yes, the Creature is interferring with people’s minds. But I think y ou should keep it as a plot point. After all, where is the dividing line whereby this becomes unacceptable? And to what people or other creatures? I’d posit that since it is doing no harm to the people and they are unaware of it, it is at worst a minor sin, and if it supports the Creature’s good works, is not a bad thing.

Interesting dilemma, really, and I hope you don’t get rid of it.

Does your Creature stay strictly with this, or is he/she/it tempted or really needs to do more, like make the people see him as a really gorgeous guy/gal to get invited somewhere? What if they fall in love or lust with the Creature? When the Creature goes, do they feel sad, despondent at unrequited love?

If the Creature stays in character and has some sort of love connection to help them get something out of the deception, was that a kindness or some sort of rape?

It can go on and on. The very dichotomy is what makes this interesting and I’d encourage you to investigate it more fully, it’s reallly kind of a fascinating viewpoint.

5

So… this Creature of yours.

is it Fabulous?

6

Take as a given that the Creature knows exactly how its magic works. (Also, I wanted to talk about other persons with such abilities.) It is, after all, the person who explains how the effect is created.

It’s not so much that the creature is unintelligent; it’s more that it’s impetuous and not necessarily given to reflection unless absolutely necessarily. I think of it as Superman. (There’s a Jerry Seinfeld bit about Supes not needing to be as smart as Batman because, if he can’t stop a giant meteor from hitting the earth with what nature has provided him, extra brains won’t help.)

7

How old is this creature? Does he go through adolecense? Because if he does you can bet he’s all invisible in the girls’ locker room for hours on end while abusing only himself. Not that I ever wished I could turn invisible in high school.

But seriously, isn’t the use of any ability in the furthering of one’s own agenda unethical? And this character’s agenda, “good” is defined as what? Surely good/evil must be clearly defined before ethics can get dragged in?

8

Hell yes. It comes from a world in which unicorns, mermaids, centaurs, and other creatures from myth & FABLE are real, but no humans exist. (From their point of view, of course, this world is simpy called “Earth.”) Humans who know of their world call it the Fabulous Plane; they call our world the Decimal Orb (because humans have only ten fingers instead of the usual twelve).

You interpret it exactly correctly. Stop reading my mind! :smiley:

Except that this Creature–hell, let’s call it the Gryphon, though that’s not what I’m using–has a very specific mandate in life. It’s basically a guardian angel for its entire world, specifically charged with (a) protecting mortal creatures from magical threats, (b) minimizing the effects of natural disasters that mortals cannot protect themselves from, and (c) making sure mortals are free to make moral choices of without interference, and (d) avoiding, as much as possible, taking sides in fights between mortals.

As I conceive the Gryphon’s character, it would have (had it been a resident of Narnia’s world) intervened to help the Narnians depose the White Witch, because she was a magical foe beyond any mortal power. But it wouldn’t have directly helped the Narnians repel a Calormene invasion unless the Calormenes were threatening to exterminate Narnia (though it would have thought the Calormenes odious) because that would be taking sides in a political dispute. If it were a resident of our world, it would have acted to protect New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina; but even though it probably has the POWER to compel Donald Trump to give half his fortune to help hurricane relief, the Gryphon’s basic mission wouldn’t do that.

So my question is this: Is using its magic powers in such a way, given that it knows full well how they work, unethical in the Gryphon’s view?

Well, the Gryphon in my story is inherently sexless: Only one of its kind exists at a time, and I doubt it even has the capacity to feel romantic or sexual life. That said, mortals who are “good” or “innocent” naturally feel comforted by its presence, and perhaps enheartened; though they can fight off such feelings if they wish, and it can dampen. And the Gryphon desperately wants the love of one of the characters (though not, as I said, in a sexual way), and I see it as consciously “damping” its natural effect on this character because it sees COMPELLING such love to be wrong.

So would such a character see the telepathic invisibility as being unethical on its face, given that it would have no motive to use such powers for ill?

As I originally wrote the scene in which the Gryphon discusses invisibility, it explained it thusly. It doesn’t want to appear unneccessarily around humans, because its appearance is quite alarming and it sees no point in frightening people. Its magic can create invisibility in two ways; it can bend light so that it’s untouched by photons, or it can "prod’ people to ignore its presence by affecting their minds directly. It prefers to do the former (in the original conception) because moving photons around is hard in itself; doing so while remaining able to see itself is even harder, and gives it a headache.

But then, as I wrote in my OP, I began to wonder if that were a good enough excuse to justify telepathically screwing with people’s heads. (The villain of the story, incidentally, has no qualms at all about using the telepathic mode of invisibility.)

9

OK, since he knows how it works, then I agree with several other people’s responses that then it’s a matter of what he does with the power.

Using it to steal - wrong.

Using it to steal the Ammo Of Ultimate Bang from Winston Smith’s Warehouse of Ultimate Evil - well, that would depend on whether it was designed by Mouse_Maven and myself or not :slight_smile: Of course if it was Goldfinger’s Warehouse of Almost-Ultimate Evil - right.

A closed fist can be used to hit someone or to carry safely to the garden a bug that’s entered your house. What the Gryphon has is a closed fist - having it is not per se ethical or unethical, using it is not ethical or unethical per se. It’s what he uses it for that’s unethical.

Of course there is the question of whether-or-when things should be done to people “for their own good” - but that’s a different question altogether!

10

We can take as a given that the Gryphon isn’t stealing. Again, it’s like Superman. He has no motive to ever rob a jewelry store; he can turn COAL INTO DIAMONDS. He’s way up there on maslow’s hierarchy.

I guess my dilemma is this. In terms of simplicity–keeping Chapter 12 under 4K words–I’m better off if the Gryphon simply uses telepathic invisibility. But, as you said, there’s a moral element here, and the Gryphon’s ethical uprightness vs. its enemy is, as I’ve mentioned, a plot point.

One way of resolving a moral issue is to ask how you’d feel if a given action were done to you…so here goes. You discover that two different persons used magic to keep themselves hidden from you. One used the light-bending method; the other entered your thoughts so that you would see it but, before you could react, instantly forget that you’d seen anything…and not think that anyone was there. In neither case does the person hiding do anything to harm me or anyone else physically or financially, or to gain any unfair advantage of any innocent.

Am I splitting hairs to see a moral difference in the two scenarios? Because I think I’d feel MORE violated in the second case than in the first. The second one smacks of … I don’t think … imposition…violation … in a way the first doesn’t to me.

Am I wrong?

A closed fist can be used to hit someone or to carry safely to the garden a bug that’s entered your house. What the Gryphon has is a closed fist - having it is not per se ethical or unethical, using it is not ethical or unethical per se. It’s what he uses it for that’s unethical.

Of course there is the question of whether-or-when things should be done to people “for their own good” - but that’s a different question altogether!
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11

I agree there’s some ethical gray area there.

What if the Gryphon first obtained mental consent for its invisibility, then not only erased its presence telepatically but erased the fact that it ever asked for your consent? Or, more simply, its powers didn’t work on you if you were opposed in principle to such tampering?