"You know, I have a moral code," however practical it is, "but I don't think I have a conscience. I don't think I ever had, not as I understand the concept."
He knows beyond all doubt that Lark has a moral code. He knows because he's seen Lark enforce it, and react to it being breached. "How do you understand the concept?" It's obvious but like fuck he's stupid enough to assume when it comes to Lark.
"It's what guides you to modify your moral compass, what lets you know when something is reprehensible to you." He shrugs. "Or if you listened to my mother, it's God telling you to stop kicking people on the playground and not to steal candy bars."
"I think in most cases it's the inwardly punishing side of the equation." He should be bugged by lack of conscience on Lark's part, but he just... doesn't care. Probably because Lark reminds him so much of Emma, in some ways. "Not not kicking people on the playground because God tells you not to, or because it's disgusting to you, but because you find the idea of making the kid cry more unpleasant than you find the idea of kicking them rewarding."
Lark has never been that person. He has never once felt that hurting someone else was worth giving up his own rewards. But that's not something you say out loud, so he just nods slightly.
"Do you still feel that way? Do you still feel sometimes that it's more unpleasant than doing what you want?"
Scott isn't judging. He doesn't have energy to judge, he doesn't have the desire to judge, and maybe some part of him even envies Lark just a little bit, even while recognizing it.
"This is where I'm supposed to take advantage of the question and come up with some kind of inspiring story about the rewards of morality, isn't it?" He smiled, twisted and tired. Not going to happen. "I do what I have to do. It's almost never what I want to do. It's more unpleasant now than it's ever been."
"There are a lot of sects and religions and paths that believe that not doing what you want is the only way to be truly righteous. Or whatever word the group prefers." And maybe Lark believes in some of that. The Ukan path is all about denial, about taking the hard way around.
"The rewards must be worth it to you even if you hate the way you get there. Right? The ends justify the means?"
"Sure," he agreed, easily. "The reward is that I don't give up on everything I've ever believed to be possible, who I want to be, and have to live with all those deaths having been for nothing - and all the deaths that will follow if I walk away and do nothing." And he means that, by god he means that with every fiber of his being.
But.
"I'm not sure that means the ends always justify the means, but I think sometimes the ends require some pretty unpleasant shit."
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"Do you still feel that way? Do you still feel sometimes that it's more unpleasant than doing what you want?"
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"This is where I'm supposed to take advantage of the question and come up with some kind of inspiring story about the rewards of morality, isn't it?" He smiled, twisted and tired. Not going to happen. "I do what I have to do. It's almost never what I want to do. It's more unpleasant now than it's ever been."
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"The rewards must be worth it to you even if you hate the way you get there. Right? The ends justify the means?"
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But.
"I'm not sure that means the ends always justify the means, but I think sometimes the ends require some pretty unpleasant shit."