The Ethics of S.P.Y.I.N.G: Are The Moral HighHorses Out of The Barn?

[ChelseaNH]

"I'll learn to control it!"  Followed immediately by "Oh noes, I can't control it!"  There's a shocker.  The problem is that it makes Coulson et al look pretty stupid for being in the Happy Sunshine Optimist Club.  These are seasoned veterans from the war against the weird; blind optimism does not become them.  And how many people on the Index got that same blind faith that they, too, would learn to cope with their powers?  Oh, but it's Skye, that's different.

[Raja]

Is Coulson bad for keeping advanced technology secret, for conducting a unilateral policy for relations with other forms of life and many other actions of this kind? Overall I'd say yes. Which makes something like the killing of guards collateral damage in a bad cause.

 

SHIELD/HYDRA devised a mass preemptive murder scheme, then SHIELD/HYDRA lapsed into an internal conflict over who got to pull the trigger. I'm not impressed with the moral purity of SHIELD/HYDRA. 

 

If Ward betrayed SHIELD, then Simmons betrayed HYDRA when she went undercover and let a man die for what she did. The assumption is that Ward owed  one side of SHIELD/HYDRA loyalty even though he was recruited directly to the other side of SHIELD/HYDRA. Agents of SHIELD isn't written with great sophistication, and the show holds that of course he does because latterday SHIELD is the good guy and others aren't. 

 

I don't think May feeling remorse is all it takes to make it right. The show set it up so that May had the choice of killing a killer about to commit mass murder, or letting them die, then ultimately dying herself. It would have been irrational, as well as suicidal, to have not killed the girl. Her guilt adds nothing at all to the morality of her action. Many people are prone to guilt just from being accused or simply surviving. Feeling guilty is only relevant as a motive for further action or change. I think the premises of the whole incident are so far fetched though that the morality of it all doesn't relate to real people at all and therefore kind of trite. 

 

As to the impact of the HYDRA "betrayal," the real impact I thought was the proof that the day to day operations of SHIELD were for years indistinguishable from those of HYDRA. SHIELD=HYDRA! But Marvel's Agents of SHIELD has been dedicated from day one to ignoring the real consequences of this discovery, which has severely damaged it as a show in my opinion. As for the weirdness of taking into account mind control, I personally feel it is exceedingly weird not to take into account compulsion, whether it's mental illness, severe abuse and unprincipled manipulation, and in general all the circumstances of life that drive us to do certain things and keep us from doing others. It is the assumption that we are all free agents that I find really strange.

 

Yes, Ward did unpleasant things indeed to the main cast. But Black Widow and Hawkeye did equally unpleasant things to others yet they were forgiven. 

 

In my view, Ward's redemption arc is already underway. As Coulson noted, he's trying to help 33, just as he tried to help Skye. What I question is whether he could be redeemed by becoming a SHIELD agent. Frankly I have no idea why Black Widow or Hawkeye are still regarded as having been successfully redeemed by working for Alexander Pierce! How is is really relevant to Ward's redemption if he helps send Skye to a prison cabin in the woods, or hunts down Inhumans? I think that would be more of the bad stuff, not redemption.

From The Frenemy of My Enemy episode thread> I agree

 

In the end I think that Ward remains gray at best. Besides despite any gentleman's agreement with the US and other governments I doubt if either new SHIELD has the power to offer blanket immunity anymore. On one side of the war if he is hunting down Inhumans for the Real SHIELD side of goodness and right he remains a villain to us since Skye even if she has Magneto like power potential is more of a X-man then the we are superior to humanity thaher mother seems to be pushing.