SPN meta: Dean and His Deal

[patita_fea]

Dean and His Deal

Why he made it, what it's done to him, and whether he'd do it again

We're coming up on the end of Dean's year, and we've had fifteen episodes to find out how he handles living under a death sentence.  Before Our Darling Show closes the book on this chapter, I'd like to throw in my summary of what this arc has meant for Dean's

Comments

[gwendolyngrace]

Jus in Bello differs from the normal societal norms

I disagree. The whole point of JiB was that it's *never* acceptable or necessary to willingly slaughter even if it's for the good of the "many." The only error in Dean's plan occurred by letting the one demon escape and even then, Lilith already knew where they were and was on her way. They had no control over her murders; they resolved the situation and at the time they left, they had saved *everyone* including Nancy. The Lilith effect would have been the same no matter what.

Here's a rather lengthy, but appropriate, section from bardicvoice's meta on JiB:

Moral and ethical choice lie with each of us. That our enemies may have no moral code does not absolve us of the need and duty to remain true to our own. If we abandon our code because it is inconvenient, because it is painful, or because it is costly, then we abandon ourselves. And it can’t be reduced to a simple numbers game, to some arbitrary ledger and balance sheet of lives saved and lives lost. What we choose to do, and how and why we do it, matter. Between them, Dean and Henriksen both said it: We do have choices. We don’t sacrifice people. We do that, we’re no better than them. Your choice is not a choice. That doesn’t mean that we throw away the rulebook and stop acting like humans! If that’s how you win wars, then I don’t wanna win. There are times when the price of physical survival is spiritual suicide, and that price is too high to pay; just ask Dean. Yet that’s exactly the price I see Ruby demanding from Sam.

The unacceptability of the equation wasn’t offset by Nancy’s willingness to be sacrificed, either. Yes, soldiers in wartime may choose to sacrifice themselves in an attempt to take out a stronghold of the other side, and in so doing save others of their comrades, and we call that noble. I would submit, however, that it’s something entirely different to agree to the deliberate murder of one of your own, and someone who’s an innocent, not a soldier for the cause, in order to use her death to kill your foes. The choice to kill your own for tactical advantage is abhorrent.

Regarding Sam's "deterioration" to save Dean...I think it's important to note that when he says he needs to become more like Dean, what he means is more like the way *he* sees Dean. That's different from what Dean actually is. Dean has always had bright, hard lines around human vs. monster. That Sam's lines are blurring, and more importantly that he seems to be actively justifying that degradation of those lines, is troublesome.

For the record, I don't for one minute think that he's unloving or selfish if he can't save Dean. It's not like he didn't buy Dean ice cream. We're talking about Hell. About forces that have had millennia to grow more powerful than Sam dreams of becoming. Whether or not he taps into his demonic powers, not being able to save Dean wouldn't ever be a "fault" we could lay at his feet.

[starbright73]

You do not have free choice in war - that is romanticizing it too much. You don't even have the rules, those rules have to be written because of the chaos that is war. A war is about life and death, for you. for your family and there are no blurred lines when you're in it. It's black and white, life or death.

Dean lives according to these rules in a para-society of hunter:

Kohlberg's stage 4
[i]In Stage four (authority and social order obedience driven), it is important to obey laws, dictums and social conventions because of their importance in maintaining a functioning society. Moral reasoning in stage four is thus beyond the need for individual approval exhibited in stage three; society must learn to transcend individual needs. A central ideal or ideals often prescribe what is right and wrong, such as in the case of fundamentalism. If one person violates a law, perhaps everyone would - thus there is an obligation and a duty to uphold laws and rules. When someone does violate a law, it is morally wrong; culpability is thus a significant factor in this stage as it separates the bad domains from the good ones.
The rules were set by John and Dean never questioned them until 2.03 - Bloodlust. He was ready to kill even if the vampires sacrificed only animals. Thus he was a fundamentalist in his view of the 'monsters'. He's the same reguarding Ruby, where Sam is much more villing to see diferent sides of said monsters.

Sam lives in
Stage six (universal ethical principles driven), moral reasoning is based on abstract reasoning using universal ethical principles. Laws are valid only insofar as they are grounded in justice, and that a commitment to justice carries with it an obligation to disobey unjust laws. Rights are unnecessary as social contracts are not essential for deontic moral action. Decisions are not met hypothetically in a conditional way but rather categorically in an absolute way (see Immanuel Kant's 'categorical imperative'[13]). This can be done by imagining what one would do being in anyone's shoes, who imagined what anyone would do thinking the same (see John Rawls's 'veil of ignorance'[14]). The resulting consensus is the action taken. In this way action is never a means but always an end in itself; one acts because it is right, and not because it is instrumental, expected, legal or previously agreed upon. While Kohlberg insisted that stage six exists, he had difficulty finding participants who consistently used it.

Sam was willing to sacrifice himself, he asked sam to kill him. He killed a vamprie because she asked for it. If she hadn't I doubts he would have because he was already making plans how to let her live, despite being one of the monsters. Nobody is constantly in stage 6, but Sam's reasoning is much more close to these principle that absolute rights and wrongs. If not adhering to societal norms he finds wrong, like killing in the two mentioned eppys, it's because he finds the norms and law unjust. He sees beyond Dean's black and white world, and that is because he sees beyond his father's rules.

Is it bastardly? Not in my eyes.

Insertions from Wikipedia