Talk:Kyubey

Redirection

Requesting name change to Kyubey. reason : [1] Mic2070 10:38, 24 January 2011 (CST)

Anyone object this? Otherwise I'm going to move it. --0x99 19:53, 24 January 2011 (CST)

Go for it --MomoiroKakarichou 15:02, 26 January 2011 (CST)

I'll just leave this here ◕‿‿◕

◕ ω ◕

／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼

Shouldn't we add somewhere that he uses telepathy?

I only today realized that the page was renamed from Kyuubey to Kyubey recently. Just finished updating the spelling everywhere. --KFYatek 16:44, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Multiple Kyubeys/Respawning Kyubey

I remember there was quite a lot of speculah as to whether there is only one Kyubey, or multiple 'Kyubey' clones. Since it's mentionned in the 'Obervsations' section, I wondered if that theory has been mentionned in one of the articles? If so, it should be a good idea to add a link here. --Homerun-chan 21:23, 24 February 2011 (UCT)

Maybe I overlooked it, but I couldn't found any article stating about respawning QB. --0x99 22:06, 24 February 2011 (UCT)

I'm not sure about the respawning, but I think mutiple instances of QBe has been discussed at some point (hence the 'Kyubey Army' image macro). It may not be on the wiki though. I'll look for it in depths tomorrow if nobody's done it before, I have stuff to do now (like sleeping, for example) --Homerun-chan 22:11, 24 February 2011 (UCT)

What's this about him being a cat? I don't think he looks like a cat. I think he looks like a little demonspawn.

--

"Familiar"

I'm not really sure where the term "familiar" comes from in his description? --Fallacies 02:30, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Incidentally, Kyubey is the romanization of the name of a restaurant in Ginza, Tokyo. --Fallacies 03:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Where's that "familiar" you're talking about in this article? --0x99 03:13, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The diff before I edited it, at the top. I replaced it with Mahou no Shisha, per the description on his official chara profile. --Fallacies 03:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Also, in plot synopsis on main page, the "there exist familiars" part obviously refers to Kyubey and possibly others of his kind. --KFYatek 03:18, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Edited. Though, again, I'm not sure where "familiars" came from. It seems like it's always been there, but nobody ever noticed. In any case, it's not really accurate. --Fallacies 03:20, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Energy

the article states that he needs energy for the earth. But as i understood he is an alien who needs energy for his planet and stores the energy that get´s released while using magic or transform into witches.

Anonymous: In actuality, he needs energy for the entire universe. Even though the show's understanding of thermodynamics is flawed (the amount of usable energy in the universe will decrease over time, but not the total amount of energy), we can't treat Earth or any other planet as a closed system; thus, when Kyuubey says "sekai" (I think that's the word he used?), he's almost definitely referring to the universe as a whole.

--picture- the mangaka of kuroshitsuji actually made a fanart crossover of kyubey and sebastian http://d-6th.com/blog/images/110217_qseba.jpg quite ironic since sebastian also has a faustian pact with ciel and will rip his (ciel´s) soul of as payment to fullfill his wish

Contract

Fight with witches it's a part of the contract? Or contract mean only become to puella magi? A 06:30, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Kyubey is incredibly vague about the contract, so it's unclear if puellae magi must fight witches outside of ensuring their own survival (as they need Grief Seeds to counteract the corruption caused by the use of magic and/or the build-up of negative emotions). I suppose a girl could contract, get her wish, and never fight witches, but she would likely end up a witch herself very soon. Momoism 18:21, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Kyubey and Utilitarianism

I am working on Kyubey's utilitarianism, this space is for a rough draft.

Urobuchi's view in energy conservation and connection to Kyubey's utilitarianism kyubey's belief and the overly romanticism of (good) reality (false perception) and good intentions with bad results of unhappiness. By the way I am reading Michael Sandel's book "Justice" and it is a good source of understanding philology. Will finish when I can. --Mutopis 04:11, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I take it that the words below are your voice (and not an attempt at translation), right, Mutopis? I ask for purpose of response. ;) -- preceding comment by NS 16:46, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I can confirm these are not Urobuchi's thoughts. --randomanon 16:53, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

This is a philosophical essay with my words, I use some comments and information from interviews and some material from the book "Justice" to interpret the anime series in a philosophical way. I am using the same method that I did with Madoka and her motives to appreciate and get a better understanding. I want to see if Kyubey's utilitarianism is that simple or it is more complex than that, and why it seems justifiable (I am playing the devil's advocate), but more importantly to demonstrate that Kyubey is not evil, but just follows what he was created to do. --Mutopis 20:54, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

• Guys, if you like to contribute or express an opinion about the essay, you are more than welcome. This is just a rough draft. I think I will be working on this for a while and I would like some opinions to make sure it remains consistent. --Mutopis 22:29, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

What is Utilitarianism?

The Human Philosophy known as utilitarianism can be easily breakdown as the philosophy that pursues the maximization of happiness and the reduction of pain, or at least the creation of happiness that surpasses the overall total of pain. If Kyubey's brand of utilitarianism was that simple there would be no need for this essay. But utilitarianism, like all brands of philosophy, have taken several different developments and each one has a distinctive flavor that requires recognition. This will be an attempt to understand Kyubey's own brand of Utilitarianism.

According with Kyubey's mission, he wants to save the universe by offsetting the depletion of the universe's energy (actually, Kyubey's statement is wrong, the correct assessment would be to stop the permanent loss of heat, but who am I to question an advance alien race?). To accomplish this mission Kyubey's alien race has found the answer to the problem, the harvesting of human emotion. The process is simply, give a human magical powers to maximize their sense of hope, then reverse their hope to be turned into despair, during the process the despair energy would be released during the witchfication process thus repairing the damage done to the universe. Repeat the process countless of times until an appropriate energy quota per planet is reached. Sounds simple yet horrifying at the same time. For many this is an example of utilitarianism as its worst, many critics believe that Kyubey is justifying the exploration of little girls to save the universe. However, before we can accuse Kyubey of anything, it is essential to understand the moral nature, as well as Kyubey's reasoning behind it, to determine if their reasoning is justifiable.

Kyubey and Bentham: Let us just enslave the human race!

Invaders from another galaxy have decided that to save the universe, they must harvest energy to repair the damage already done to it. Their race is incapable of producing such energy by themselves, but thanks to their advance technology they have detected a source of energy that is perfect to solve their crisis. They have detected a "bizarre" mental behavior known as "emotions" capable of producing the required energy but it goes unprocessed and it is located in another galaxy. The inhabitants of this alien galaxy are equally strange as primitive, not only do they suffer from this mental anomaly known as emotions, but they are being wasteful by not fully developing its potential. Such a waste of energy would be a crime if left unharvested. The alien race decides to invade this galaxy, enslave the inhabitants, and fully exploit its potential by maximizing the production of energy to meet their quota... or so it should be if this was Bentham's brand of utilitarianism but it is not (at least not completely). This is the first indicator that there is something odd about Kyubey's utilitarianism.

According with Jeremy Bentham, the goal of Utilitarianism is to produce as much happiness as possible. But most importantly, all forms of happiness and all form of pains have their own equal moral value (no pleasure is better or highest than the other). Which means one form of happiness cannot be measured against another form of happiness and the same can be said about pain. It takes people's preferences as they are without passing judgement on its moral worth. It would be presumptuous to judge some pleasures to be inherently better than others. At the heart of it, Bentham's utilitarianism is nonjudgmental, to him all pleasures are equal. The assumption is that by measuring and calculating the values of pleasure and pains into a formula, one can reach an agreeable moral choice that would promote the general welfare and happiness of the populace. Let us consider the issue at hand, the whole universe is going to be destroyed and all Kyubey is doing is extinguishing a few souls to preserve the general welfare and happiness of countless galaxies. Perhaps one whole planet will be annihilated in the process, but what is a few billion souls when you take into account billions and billions of worlds that would be saved. On this cold and calculating equation to save the universe one has to arrive to one simple conclusion. If saving the universe by exploiting the emotions of humans has the same moral value than domesticating cattle to feed society, then it should be reasonable to say that Bentham would not object to enslaving the human race to achieve Kyubey's objective. While one would object that it would be morally wrong to exploit humans, one would also argue that it would be equally morally wrong to allow the universe to be destroyed. In the utilitarian equation it would be better for one whole planet to suffer than the whole universe to collapse. After all, saving the universe at the expense of the human race would create the greatest form of happiness for the rest of the galaxy. It would suck for the human race, but stopping the end of the universe trumps anything and everything.

Yet, as stated before, that is not the case here, at least partially. Apparently, Kyubey and the aliens have some sort of moral code of their own that disallow them to force humans to enter into a contract (slavery) but they are also not allowed to deceive (false advertisement) or lie to them either (this is, of course, up to debate). However, they do not seem to have any moral qualms regarding the harvesting of human emotions to save the galaxy, just the slavery part.

One objection to utilitarianism is the attempt to measure pleasure and pain in a single scale ignoring the qualitative experience of pleasure and pain. For many, certain forms of pleasure are not only higher but also worthier than others. The pursue of a nobler pleasure would allow utilitarianism to the arrival of the greatest good. One could make an argument that saving the universe would create happiness but the quality of that happiness would suffer at the expense of perverse methods used for to attain it. Instead, one could say that Kyubey is trying to create the greatest form of happiness by using much more nobler (albeit questionable) methods to attain it. Rather than force the human race into submission and slavery, why not entice them into a fair contract?

Kyubey and Mill: Humans are not Cattle.

One of the biggest flaws regarding Benthram's utilitarianism is that it doesn't give adequate recognition to human dignity and individual rights. In its attempt to measure, aggregate, and calculate happiness in a nonjudgmental manner (democratizing all forms of pleasures equally) it eliminates the qualitative and unique moral value of pleasure and pain. What Bentham has done is reduce everything of moral importance to a single scale. John Stuart Mill tried to recalculate utilitarianism into a more humane and less calculating doctrine (a more human-friendly form of utilitarianism less prone to enslaving the human race) to achieve a munch nobler form of Utilitarianism that tries to promote the greatest good while recognizing the liberty of individuals.

Let us go back to our scenario regarding an alien race looking for a solution to save our universe. They realize that the human race are the perfect source of emotional energy to be harvested to repair the damage already done. Kyubey's aliens know that humans are still primitive and prone to their mental illness known as emotions. Why not put them to better use by enslaving them and harvest all their energy? At least they would suffer for a noble cause. According with Mill this is wrong for two reasons, one it violates the liberty and rights of the human race and its individuals, no one should force them to be used as resources, no matter the cause. Another issue at stake is that the noble idea to save the universe gets tainted because of the process that it is used to achieve the result. Why is this important? It could be damaging for the promotion of general welfare and happiness. Bentham would just suggest that "the end justifies the means" as long as the highest form of happiness is achieved. But Mill's issue is that such inhumane methods may create the greatest form of happiness today, but in the long run it could promote reckless behavior with devastating results.

Let us take for example the danger of creating a Superwitch like Kriemhild Gretchen. We saw the devastating results that took place in Episode 10 in which the Earth would be destroy soon along with all life on the planet. According to Kyubey the creation of Kriemhild Gretchen allowed Kyubey to meet its energy quota in the short run. Of course, this slash-and-burn method was very profitable for Kyubey but what about the loss of future energy collection now that the Earth is dead? No problem, according with Kyubey there are other planets to exploit and using his cold logic the benefits outweighed the risks. Let us assume that what Kyubey probably mean is that Gretchen produce more energy in a single day than a lifetime collection from the Earth. If this is correct, then losing the planet Earth was an acceptable loss to attain a large reserve of despair energy. But what about the consequences?

Kriemhild Gretchen is a Superwitch, but apparently at the moment she is no threat to the galaxy. She may be powerful enough to kill one planet but she still small and powerless enough to be no threat to the alien race or to the whole galaxy for that matter. But let us say overtime she could be, perhaps with time she would find a way to travel to other planets and start growing. Wont this become an issue in the future? And what about the reckless behavior that it promoted? Wont there be a danger that other Kyubey's from other planets would try to recreate the same scenario to meet their quota? Soon it wont just be one planet, but perhaps a few docents and even more. Yet, that is what could happen in the worst case scenario. Of course, no one knows what the consequences would be like if such scenario were to take place (could it promote the accelerated process to end the whole galaxy, instead of saving it?). But that is one dangerous scenario regarding utilitarianism that Mill would like to try to avoid.

So, what is Mill's advice to Kyubey regarding utility? Well, not slaving the human race for one. Which in fact that is what they did. As stated by Kyubey it is against the rules to force humans to become Mahou Shoujo and it is their individual choice to decide if they want to become one. This would seem to indicate the Kyubey respects the rights of individuals rather than violate them. Kyubey can be found promoting the Mahou Shoujo lifestyle without forcing anyone to join in, as it is per rules (at least, that is the idea). But what about the recognition for human dignity? Isnt it implied that by harvesting and using humans they are no better than cattle to be consumed? Let us not forget that Kyubey recognizes humans to be unique creatures with a noble goal and purpose, Kyubey knows that humans are not lower life forms like cattle just to be harvested and consumed to save the universe, regardless of how humans treat each other or other lower lifeforms for agricultural purposes. Kyubey states that while it would be for the greater good to harvest human emotions, regardless how Madoka feels personally, at least Kyubey and the alien race took the effort to recognize their uniqueness. Of course, that seems like a nice speech but it still requires substance and evidence behind his words. Remember, as a sign of such recognition, Kyubey states that is one reason why humans are allowed one wish for accepting the contract. While it is true that Kyubey is using humans as a resource, they are neither slave nor cattle, nor no one is forcing them to join in. Instead mahou shoujo are like employees and they have been given the opportunity and honor to sacrifice their lives for a noble goal. It is not slavery if a mahou shoujo gives consent and it is not exploitation if they accept a wish as a form of payment.

Let's Make a Deal: The Meaning of Consent.

Kyubey: CEO of Entropy, INC.

Puellae Magi: a PR Illusion and the Issue of False Interpretation.