Should you let your evil twin brother die?

Source 

Order of the Stick (commonly shortened to oots) is a web comic that parodies Dungeons and Dragons type games. It features a cast of characters that go around adventuring and smiting evil. This episode centres around Elan, a kindhearted but foolish bard, as he decides whether to let his evil twin brother Nale fall to his death. The two sides of the argument are humorously portrayed as a devil and an angel. I'd like to look at his dilemma from the three perspectives we have thought about so far.

Deontological

From a deontological perspective, this case seems pretty simple. Elan should not let Nale fall to his death as killing is an evil act in any circumstance. Applying the golden rule, if everyone went around killing people there would be nobody left. Clearly Elan should save his brother.

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is a bit more difficult to decide. On one hand, taking Nale's life would cause  considerable distress for his girlfriend, Sabine. However, she would be the only one affected by his death as Nale is not in contact with his family and does not have any other friends that would care about him. Also, if Elan did let Nale die, he would probably feel very guilty about it, especially considering it was his twin brother, which would be another bad consequence. However, if Elan lets Nale die it could be considered to be a good thing in many ways. Firstly, Nale would no longer be trying to kill Elan or his friends. In this case, the death of one person to save six other lives could be justified. Also, if Elan was thinking about the situation in this manner, his guilt would be reduced due to justification of not saving one life to keep six others. From a utilitarian perspective, it would be acceptable to let Nale die.

Virtue Ethics

This is difficult to apply in specific situations so I will appeal to Elan's character in general. He has shown himself to always try and be good. His alignment is good (a feature of Dungeons and Dragons is that you choose to be good, evil or neutral at the beginning) and he tries to do good actions. It could be said that any course of action Elan takes at this point is good, as he is a good person.

You will probably be pleased to know that Elan did save his brother in the end, on the proviso that Nale promised to surrender. However, Nale did come back to be a recurring villain, causing all sorts of problems for The Order of the Stick. It may have been more convenient to kill him but I'm not sure that convenience is worth a life, even an evil one like Nale's.

Note: Good and Evil are very much black and white in the Dungeons and Dragons world, which is interesting. Most people stick to their alignment pretty well but how do they decide what's right or not? There are often conflicts between characters and the pursuit of goodness. I must remember to write about Miko and the problems she caused in her blind quest for goodness. She was crazy.