Telepathic Ethics

[norj]

Psychics in the MU good guys included have a tendency to use their powers in some less than wholesome ways, so my question to all of you is what rules telepaths follow concerning the use of their powers, who do think is most ethical telepath and who is worst. When I say telepath I am including empathy (both passive and manipulators), mind-readers, mind controllers, illusionists and memory alteration.

[Tofali]

Psychics in the MU good guys included have a tendency to use their powers in some less than wholesome ways, so my question to all of you is what rules telepaths follow concerning the use of their powers, who do think is most ethical telepath and who is worst. When I say telepath I am including empathy (both passive and manipulators), mind-readers, mind controllers, illusionists and memory alteration.

Is there really ethics in mind reading and mind control? the whole point of whoever is wielding that power is to intrude and in not asking for consent to get what they want regardless to their target. I wouldn't mind the creation of a new body that governs all this but how will it work in application.

[Chris0013]

Is there really ethics in mind reading and mind control? the whole point of whoever is wielding that power is to intrude and not asking for consent to get what they want regardless to their target. I wouldn't mind the creation of a new body that governs all this but how will it work in application.

Ethics in when and how to use the power. For example...if someone pulls a gun and starts shooting it is acceptable to use telepathic powers to take control of their mind and stop them. The flip side of that being taking control of someone and using them to commit murder so no one knows it is you is not acceptable.

[MichaelC]

Psionic powers are pretty much all incredibly violating, something that gets glossed over both because it is sci-fi, and because we want heroic telepaths. If telepaths were real, and common enough for laws to be written for them, pretty much everything they do would be a hard felony with penalties comparable to rape.

[jwatson]

Depends on how you write the story. If someone was about to be shot and a telepath instinctively stopped it as easily as breathing then the story could be in what their morals say to them about that. so i guess depends on the story. aside form that no real personal opinion on it.

Oh and it depends on the world in which it is taking place which i guess is the story too. I mean i use real life morality as the basis for things i read but i know there is a clear difference between real world morals and fictional ones. I do think the line seems to blur sometimes though which is interesting to me. I expect the moral code in walking dead to be different than in Greenwich CT in the real world. lol.

[jwatson]

I mean not to beat a dead horse but Walking dead is a perfect example. It's universe has me so desensitized that as soon as characters start acting "dumb" or letting people out of cages like Henry or some starts screaming over seeing something they've been dealing with for years now i'm like "lost cause, leave them." they aren't the ones who live. That is the moral mindset the show put me in when i watch which is completely different than the connors. lol

[scribbleMind]

Ethical telepaths!? If you can control it, and you're using it on someone without their permission, it's unethical. Are there circumstances where one must do something unethical? Absolutely. Should those circumstances affect or victimize the common man? Absolutely not.

There are almost no ethical telepaths in fiction. There are examples of telepaths using their powers ethically for therapeutic and restorative purposes, but every example of someone using it in this manner is also by someone who is guilty of using it to hurt someone.

However, consider psionic and mystical beings. Sleepwalker may not be the most ethical entity, like a Ghost Rider, he hijacks the body of his host. He is, however, a cop working for the good of both humanity and entities like himself. It is hard to say that what Sleepwalker does is invasive because your dream is part of the mindscape and literally his home, his world, his birthplace, and he's trying to protect his home.

There are entities in the world of Sandman who reside in the world of dreams and are nice people who just want to do good or are just pursuing their intended purpose for what is ultimately humanity's benefit.

These, imo, are the closest to ethical telepaths. However, it can be argued that what these entities do isn't even telepathic in nature for real.

[mung]

Hard to say who is the best or worst because of different writers holding different moral standards. As far as I go I'm fine with most things with reasonable cause. But then you have dumb things like telepaths reading someones mind and getting angry about something they were keeping to themselves.

[Sutekh]

Hard to say since it doesn't exist in the real world, but if it did, and was as common and ubiquitously available to *everyone* the way telepathy is in the Marvel universe (where literally anyone can be *trained* to be a telepath, through alien training (like Mantis and Moondragon) or mystical training (like Dr. Strange and Jennifer Kale)), I wonder if, eventually, a passive use of telepathy might be seen as much a common sense as sight or hearing. It's not illegal to see someone do something they didn't want you to see, or overhear someone say something they find embarrassing after the fact. It's on the person who wants a sight to be private to keep their shirt on in public, and who wants a conversation private to not talk about killing their spouse in a public restaurant. It should perhaps be incumbent on someone who wants to prevent telepaths from accidentally overhearing their secrets to purchase some of that incredibly common telepathic shielding that all the bad-guys have, or learn some of that telepathic resistance training that others hand around like candy.

But that's for a society that knows about and has accepted that telepathy is a thing, no more freakish or special than being able to see or hear. At the moment, telepaths are the one-eyed men in the kingdom of the blind, and all the blind people get worked up unreasonably about their special means of perception, because it is not yet common.

But I could see it being different in some close knit communities. In New Salem, a community of witches, where pretty much *everyone* has some level of mystical training (or Olympia, full of telepathic Eternals, or among the priests of Pama, who taught Mantis her telepathy, and presumably share it!), it wouldn't surprise me if it's incumbent on the rank-and-file to practice a little mental discipline and keep their damn thoughts to themselves, not on everyone else to suppress their ability and walk around 'blind' because some lazy idiot can't keep their own thoughts in their own heads.

[danielsan52]

If anyone had that power they would for sure abuse it. It would be human nature to do so.

[DigiCom]

The classic novel The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester goes quite deep into the topic.

[Grapeweasel]

I want everyone posting on this thread to cluck like a chicken.......

[Ultimate Captain America]

Ethics and telepathy? I'm just going to leave this here and walk away silently...

[Sutekh]

The classic novel The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester goes quite deep into the topic.

I just read that last week! Been reading all sorts of old school psi related sci-fi and fantasy like Demolished Man, Psi High and Stormqueen.

And I'm not gonna blame Jean for what Bendis had her do anymore than Wanda, who mysteriously flipped out over something *she already knew* and did something *her power never could do before anyway.* Just, plot device. Anyone could have done it. They were just vehicles for a story he wanted told.

It could have been Opal Tanaka showing up and telling Bobby she broke up with him all those years ago because he was obviously gay, only that would have required Bendis to have the slightest effing clue who Opal Tanaka was.

[JudicatorPrime]

I am likely in the minority here, but I think it's a foolish standard to ask a telepath not to read minds for any reason. It's like prohibiting all persons with eidetic photographic memory from ever participating as a witness, scholar, or heck, even a librarian. Or telling Superman to turn off his super hearing and never use his prodigious strength or invulnerability to subdue a normal, run of the mill human criminal.