Father is pretty hypocritical when he blames the Railroad for Libertalia, though, considering it's the Institute's fault the Commonwealth is teeming with Super Mutants.

Gabriel actually developed whatever personality from interaction with people and whatever his initial memories were.

Again, you are talking about a being with the ability to learn and free will and holding their original creator responsible for their actions.
That's the same as holding your parents personally responsible for all of your actions.

They're anarchists effectively though because they want freedom for everyone really but with freedom comes bad choices.

No actually he was given a whole new personality by the Railroad (Harkness for instance was given a personality that led him into protecting people after being a Courser), so they are responsible for every life he took after they made that choice. Without the Railroad intervention in reprogramming a machine the people who died wouldn't have fell at his hand or orders.

Also again I'm not talking about a person, I'm talking about a machine that is programmed to act like a person, in the same way many robots in Fallout are also programmed with personalities, then reprogrammed by a 'doctor' with limited knowledge of the field with a new personality.....is it really surprising that she made some mistakes over the years as she learned by trial and error.

They are Gen-3 activists, they are tightly focussed on the Gen-3 Synths and literally do nothing to help anybody else during the game......I hear that they set up checkpoints after the main story like the other factions (BOS do at least). Which as an aside seems to be way to find power armor since they are all next to or near power armor sites so far in my first playthrough.

Yes very hypocritical, but he is right that the Railroad bare some responsibility for their reprogrammed Synths actions otherwise we are led to the decision that the Railroad can do anything in the cause of FREEDOM! While ignoring that the guy leading the Raiders was programmed with that personality by the Railroad.

So your assumption is that the Railroad programmed the synth to become a Raider because they're just machines and can only do what they have been programmed to do?

So Gabriel is anologous to Ironsides in your opinion.

No my assumption is that the Railroad, is reprogramming a machine without the knowledge that went into its creation......they are in effect trying to recreate an VI (or AI if you believe they are sentient) personality without the actual knowledge of how it was created originally and they are unsurprisingly not perfect in their new personality creations. So while some become raiders, some are just mindwiped (like the one Curie was downloaded into) some become doctors, traders or farmers but to be fair we have to acknowledge that the Railroad bares some responsibility for when their efforts lead to the deaths of others unconnected to their struggle.

They are also willing to take the unethical decision to base themselves so that they are using civilians as cover.....not much different from a group using a hospital as a base in a warzone in my opinion.

I personally see no difference between a Synth with a personality and a Robot with a personality, they are both machines and I'm more than willing to argue over whether all synthetic 'life' should have rights.

As an aside.......are the Synth 'infiltrators' that occasionally go loco and attack your settlements Institute or Railroad ?

I'm wondering since them being Institute plants makes little sense, but them being reprogrammed Synths living in your settlements who you only know about because of the occasional loco moment makes more sense.

Dr Zimmer says in FO3:
"You see, in the Commonwealth, we've made artificial persons. Synthetic humanoids! Programmed to think and feel and do whatever we need."

False dichotomy on like 3 fronts. The idea that "saving the Commonwealth" and "destroying the Institute" are mutually exclusive. The idea that "saving the Commonwealth" and "being any level of militaristic/authoritarian" are mutually exclusive. The idea that "grabbing tech" and "giving a crap about anyone else" are mutually exclusive. I don't have to pick one or the other because you are setting up two extremes that are both inaccurate.

I list the factions ethics something like this from most ethical to least ethical.

From a human rights perspective: 1. Minutemen 2. Railroad 3. Brotherhood 4. Institute

From a utilitarian perspective: 1. Brotherhood 2. Minutemen 3. Institute 4. Railroad

From a non-moral/pragmatist general effectiveness POV: 1. institute 2. Brotherhood 3. Minutemen 4. Railroad (and even then it depends on what your end-game goals are)

The resl question at the heart of this debate is do you think human rights are or aren't the cornerstone of moral thought? This will radically shape your opinion. I do not think human rights are the cornerstone of morality. I think they are a very Western, modern invention and nothing about this method is inherently superior or a guarantee of success, general happiness, or rightful action.

I'm going to disagree to an extent. The question is less about human rights and more about if you believe gen 3 synths qualify for human rights. Looking at it through that question changes things drastically. The Railroad isn't interested in helping humans. They're focused on saving synths. If synths do not deserve those rights, their rating should drop significantly. At the same time, the Brotherhood is doing a great deal to protect the ordinary people of the Commonwealth. Far more than the Railroad is. Far more than the Institute, who are directly responsible to at least one of the threats the Brotherhood is fighting.

But it still comes down to whether you think human rights is the foundational issue or not. In my case, I believe Gen 3 synths are persons, but their personhood doesn't necessarily mean anything because my formulation of morality isn't based on the idea that anything that's a person must be given certain rights simply because it's a person. Questions about who is or isn't a person doesn't shift whether someone believes in morality based on human rights or not. This is precisely why whether synths are people is such a contentious debate in the first place, because people have an ideology that *if* they are people, they *must* be treated a certain way just because they are people.

*Edit* Also, synths aside I think the Brotherhood would still fall short of the human rights equation because super mutants are unmistakably persons (albeit homicidal, cannibalistic ones), but the Brotherhood doesn't base their chief rhetoric for their destruction around them being evil persons - they base it around them being non-person abominations.

If synths do not qualify for human rights, then the Railroad is doing absolutely nothing for human rights. They may not be committing the atrocities that the Institute is, but they're not doing anything to help, either.

I'd still consider them one up on the Brotherhood, which doesn't even claim to be advocating for human rights as the Railroad claims it does.

How does doing absolutely nothing for humans or human rights trump actively fighting threats to the people of the Commonwealth, making it a safer place to live?

That right there is an inherently utilitarian argument (or perhaps a consequential one). "Making the Commonwealth a better place to live" isn't an argument that necessarily has anything to do with human rights. A human rights argument would run alongside the Railroad's rhetoric "liberating people from slavery because all people have the right to self-determination."

I'm not arguing the Brotherhood isn't better - I think they are, but their ideology isn't based on human rights.

Okay you know what? You win. Satisfied?!

Forget I said anything.

I think that the freedom of fear of being terrorized daily by super mutants and raiders seems like a basic human right to me, which would be "Making the Commonwealth a better place to live".

Also what the Railroad think they're doing and what they actually are doing is so different.

If we use that logic the Institute are actually doing the most for human rights. That's what they think anyway.

I guess all factions believe their ideology is based on human rights.

To some degree this is true because they are descended from various groups in the United States and human/natural rights is a very Western/Enlightenment train of thought.

I would say more like it's impossible for any of the groups to not get flavors of it in their speech because of this.

So in the case of the Institute and the Brotherhood, I *don't* think they think they are operating in terms of human rights, but they still employ it in their rhetoric because they almost can't help themselves. This is why they are so insistent on referring to synths, super mutants, et al as non persons.

To me at least it does not matter weather Synths have humanity or not, I will assume that they do simply because it is not up to me to judge their humanity, it is up to God and it is better to foolishly welcome a wolf in sheep's clothing into your flock than to turn away an innocent sheep in fear of it betraying you.

and this is the proof in stone that you don't get fallout's setting and wouldn't survive in it.

True, there is only one law in Fallout......kill or be killed, he whom turns the other cheek will have that cheek light roasted on a Raiders camp fire.

Lack of flexibility in quest resolution is my biggest complaint about FO4. FONV enabled much more nuanced decisions which resulted in a remarkable variety of potential endings. Some of my decisions had ramifications that were surprises to me, positive and negative. The one thing FO4 has in its favor is that FONV didn't do a good job of making Caesar seem a desirable ally, whereas all the factions have their backers here.