BioShock is one of my favourite games ever, so I was really pleased to find this great thread.
As much as I love almost every aspect of BioShock, the one thing I found disappointing was the morality of the kill/spare little sisters system. Basically, you can kill them and get a dose of Adam on the spot, or spare them and get a dose of Adam a bit later. For me, this weakens the impact of the choice you are making. What would have been more profound is to make it a much more difficult decision: kill the girl and get the good, or spare her and get nothing. Even though it's just a computer game, I would almost certainly have felt guilty about killing the girls and taken the harder (but morally correct) option of sparing them.
What did you think of this system?
This is part of what I want to get into in my second thread (part of my ScholarShock series). But I will answer this quickly as I have answered others.
If you kill a Little Sister you fail BioShock. You failed the ethics test that positions you in a sociopolitical conundrum that is the most central theme of the whole game: capitalism.
You have two choices: Take every resource for yourself at the direct expense of others or only take
what you need and respect the needs of others. This is why killing even one Little Sister gives you the bad ending. Because by doing so you do not heed the loudest message BioShock is trying to deliver to you.
Imagine instead the Little Sisters are the rainforest. The rainforest is full of resources that everybody needs to survive. You, as a powerful force interested in his perpetuation, have the choice of safely and responsibility cultivating the land for its resources or simply destroy it all as quickly as possible for your immediate benefit at the detriment of others. You have also destroyed the rainforest forever and have taken everything it produced for yourself.
Ken Levine specifically made the necessary resource children because he couldn't believe a player would murder a little girl for money. Which is exactly what you're doing. Adam is a resource everyone wants and everyone needs. You have a choice between enough to survive comfortably and not hurt anybody or, again, murder a child so you can have more than you need for no reason.
By looking out for others and only taking what you need you not only don't hurt anybody to advance yourself but you also gain more Adam than you would have just killing them all because society gives back to you.
The question is to you, as a person. The question is whether or not you understand the dangers of unregulated capitalism and libertarian extremism.
And how would you justify killing a child for money? It's just a game so it's okay to be detached from your actions? Ever heard the phrase "it's just business?"