Download Duty and Desire

Duty and Desire
Lisa Does Her Duty
1
Three basic questions
• 1) What is the experience of morality?
– Duty against ordinary desires
– Being a dutiful person is a “higher desire”
• 2) How do we know what is our duty?
– E.g., Lisa has a duty to better herself.
• 3) Are dutiful people condemned to suffer?
– =The problem of justice.
– People who are good ought to be happy. It’s the wicked who
should suffer, not the good.
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Opposition/contradiction?
• 1) Desires, feelings, interests (longer range)
– First order preferences
• 2) Duties, responsibilities
– Implies possibility of sacrificing first order of
preferences for a “higher” order
– Do the right thing!
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Morality presupposes desires
• For the Simpson family, duty stands out in
opposition to desire
• If there is no conflicting desire, doing what is
right is not a “duty”
– E.g., it’s not a duty to enjoy a good meal.
– But there’s nothing wrong with that.
– Fulfilling desires is wrong only when they conflict
with a duty
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What is the motive of the action?
• I help a sick Aunt. Why?
• 1) She’s fun to be around and I have nothing
better to do
• 2) I am hoping she will put me in her will
• 3) I’d rather watch TV, but she needs the help
• Morality is about inner motives for an action,
not actions themselves regarded externally
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The moral person
• Resolution, commitment, “engagement”
• To do what is right rather than what she wants
to do.
• Hence sacrifice is implied – for persons with
ordinary desires.
• It’s not easy to be moral
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Homer rationalizes
• Moe to Homer: Destroy my car so I can collect
the insurance.
• Homer 1) wants to please Moe; 2) wants to do
what is right.
• He turns to his idea of moral truth: Marge
• An imaginary Marge in his mind says to him:
the right thing to do is to destroy the car.
• Homer’s “conscience” is satisfied
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Having it both ways
• 1) He must do what is right (duty)
• 2) But he also wants to please Moe (desire)
• He wants to have it both ways, and avoid
inner conflict
• But we see that this is an illusion.
• Moral of the story: don’t do as Homer does.
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False solutions to the dilemma
• His method of solving the dilemma is
comical—but also common
– Rationalize, delude oneself
• Other ways to do this?
– Pick a moral authority who appeals to your desires
and interests
• Is all morality like this?
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Moe has little problem
• Moe is not so conflicted
• He puts his own desires and interests first
• = He is an egotist (me first, and to heck with
others)
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Homer and Marge: marriage on the
rocks
• Homer loves Marge, and wants to do what is
right by his marriage and family
responsibilities
• but he is also impetuous and unrestrained—
doing what appeals to him in the moment
without thinking how this might affect her
– After drinking too much, he makes a pass at Mrs.
Flanders at a party
• Marge: we need marriage counseling
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General Sherman calls
• Reverend Lovejoy holds marriage counseling at
Catfish Bay
• Homer wants to catch General Sherman, a legendary
large fish
• He can do his duty to Marge and what he wants!
• She catches him sneaking off to fish in the morning:
the stern face of duty
• Homer chooses duty, renounces fishing for Marge
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Homer gets what he wants anyway
• Accidentally, Homer is pulled into a boat by
the giant catfish
– It’s not his fault!
• He has the battle of a lifetime (Hemingway’s
Old Man and the Sea)
– The Simpsons evokes high art and literature
• If we put duty first, will our desires be satisfied
anyway, as if by magic?
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Homer chooses duty over desire
• 1) Homer succeeds: and imagines his fame
• 2) but throws the fish back when confronted
by a furious Marge
• =the face of duty! (in the flesh, not imagined
in his mind)
• again, he chooses duty: “I gave up fame and
breakfast for our marriage.”
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Homer’s moral guidance
• He lacks internal control over his desires
– Moe’s proposition (moral role of Moe?)
– Homer’s “conscience” is external: Marge
• But this is here a trick of his subconscious
• In presence of the real Marge he goes straight
– Promises not to fish
– Throws General Sherman back
• His morality is external
– but personal, not based on external rules
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Ned Flanders follows the moral rules
• Ned Flanders has a marital problem with his
wife: he catches her underlining in his copy of
the Bible!
• 1) No desires and interests of his own
• 2) External basis of moral rules: divine
commands written in the Bible
– “External religion”
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Morality of Flanders
• Seems to be the “super-moral” person
– Goody-goody
• No conflict with desires
– “Flanders has no life” (episode)
• Compare why Flanders is in marriage
counseling with why Homer is there.
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Between Moe and Ned
•
•
•
•
Opposite poles or extremes
Pure egotism and pure moralism
1) Desire without duty
2) “Duty” (following externally based moral
rules) without desire
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Viva Ned Flanders
• Ned reveals an embarrassing fact: he is
actually 60 years old
• Homer: you look so young because you’ve
never had a life
• Ned takes Homer as his guide to living a life
• > A double wedding in Las Vegas
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Morality of external religion
• Commandments from external Source
– Not internally based
• Incentive of external religion is selfish
– Heaven or hell?
• External religion: treats people as children
• That’s why Ned looks young
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Morality and motivation
• Why do the right thing?
– Because it will bring a reward and avoid a
punishment?
– Because it is the right thing, whatever the
consequences
• External religion teaches egotistical
motivation
– Jessica Lovejoy reveals the meaning of this
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Dark side of religion
• Bart has a crush on Jessica Lovejoy
• So he thinks he has to go to Sunday school
• But religion for her is a façade—she steals
from the collection plate in church
• “If you tell, no one will believe you.
Remember I’m the sweet, perfect minister’s
daughter, and you’re just yellow trash.”
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Moral hypocrisy
• Jessica plays the moral/religion game
• She uses external appearances of the goodygoody child for selfish purposes
• Such hypocrisy seems worse than
straightforward, honest egotism (Moe)
• But her father’s religion suggests this, because
its morality is externally based
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Bart’s morality
• “Stealing from the collection basket is really
wrong! Even I know that.”
– How does he know?
• Bart has limits—moral ones
• He breaks some rules: external conventions
• But he respects other, more serious ones: it’s
wrong to steal
– Not because the Bible says so
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Morality and mores
• Mores: conventions of proper behavior
– Spike your hair; make super-loud noises, use rude words
– Bart loves to break these.
• Teacher to Bart: “There was no Roman god named Farticus”
– Indicators of social class hierarchy?
• Morality: deeper requirements of social life
– Stealing from honest people
– Bart respects these
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Bart’s instinctive morality
• Sources of Bart’s knowledge of morality?
– Not a Book of Rules (Ned’s religion)
– Not an authoritative person (Marge for Homer)
– > Internal source, but not clearly thought out, like
an instinct
– “from his heart”
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Bart’s guilty conscience
• “Bart the mother”
• He acts on impulse without foreseeing
consequences (like father like son)
– Accidentally kills mother bird
• Becomes their mother:
– he feels guilt after the fact, and tries to make
recompense
– He sees a duty here, and sacrifices his normal
pleasures
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Fickleness of public morality (that’s us)
• Bart has fun like a healthy boy. “Good Bart!”
• Bart accidentally kills the mother bird. “Bad Bart!”
– (He aims his gun to miss, but the gun is crooked)
• Bart wants to help the unborn baby birds. “Good Bart!”
• The birds turn out to be lizards that kill lots of birds,
but Bart protects them. “Bad Bart!”
– They are his “children”—it doesn’t matter that they kill
other’s children
– Other examples of this outlook?
• The birds that the lizards kill are just those pesky
pigeons. “Good Bart!”
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Consequentialist, utilitarian morality
• Morality of action is determined by its
consequences.
• The public (is that us?) judges this way—
consequences for itself.
• The morality therefore shifts with the
unfolding consequences: bad, good, bad, good
…
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Lisa’s critique of Bart
• “I don't get it, Bart. You got all upset when you
killed one bird, but now you've killed tens of
thousands, and it doesn't bother you at all.”
• =Lisa looks at the principle of the action and
demands consistency
– I.e., logic
• She gives an argument for why Bart’s actions
are not moral—i.e., are morally wrong.
– What is Lisa’s moral approach?
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Duties … to whom?
• Is morality = altruism?
• There are duties to self, as well as to others.
– How can there be a “duty” to oneself?
• Conventional mores: housewife, serving
others
• Feminism: duty to self as well
• Standing up for oneself can be difficult
– it goes against thousands of years of patriarchal
society
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Marge as feminist
• Conventional housewife
• Serves husband and children,
– That’s her (conventional) duty!
– Externally imposed morality
• but wants a larger life for herself
– Is that “selfish”?
– Or is there a duty to oneself?
• At first this is a desire, but then when
difficulties emerge, it becomes a duty
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Two radically different perspectives
• Marge’s first words on hearing Lionel’s job
offer, and Lionel’s reply:
• Marge: Helping people find homes.. that must
be really rewarding!
• Lionel: Yes, the money’s good, but the beauty
is, you get to stay in the house until it's sold!
• Morality v. self-interest
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Conflicting motives
• Lionel’s motive: self-interest, to make money
no matter what the cost
• Marge’s motive: to help her friends, even if it
means not to make a sale
• She will not tell a lie to make a sale
• But what about “bending the truth,” or hiding
it?
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Two mottos or maxims
• Marge: “Well, like we say, ‘The right house for
the right person!’”
• Lionel: “Listen, it’s time I let you in on a little
secret, Marge. The right house is the house
that’s for sale. The right person is anyone.”
– -> Moral hypocrisy
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Problem of truth
• Marge: “But all I did was tell the truth!”
• Lionel: “Of course you did.” “But there’s the
truth” (here he frowns and shakes his head
negatively) “and the truth” (here he looks
cheerful and shakes his head positively.)
• > Lionel plays a game with the truth
(hypocrisy)
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Underlying social conditions
• Competitive economy > bottom line
• Individualism of “homo economicus”
• Circumstances seem to require and reward
self-interest or selfishness, and punish
honesty, helping others (duty)
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Marge’s choice (1)
• 1) Be a “closer” and “bend” the truth
• 2) Tell the whole truth and lose your job
• But Marge believes she needs the job to prove
her worth as a person
• To realize a duty to self, can she betray her
duty to others?
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Marge’s choice (2)
• She makes the sale to the gullible Flanders
family by hiding the secrets of the house
– Gruesome murder
• She looks at her check
– Symbol of success as a person?
– But not at the expense of the truth, of friendship,
of duty
• She decides to tell the truth, and offers the
check back
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Is honesty the best policy?
• The Flanders are delighted to hear about the
murders
• She tells the truth, and she gets the reward
• Isn’t this how life should work?
– Do what is right (because it is right) and get
rewarded for it
• = Justice
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The Highest Good
• 1) Do the right thing in order to get the reward
• 2) Do the right thing because it is the right
thing
– And suffer for it?
– And be rewarded for it?
• Marge does the right thing, and gets rewarded
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The Just Society
• A society in which
– people who do their duty are rewarded
– And those who violate it are punished
• Happiness, satisfaction of desire, is not the
motive of duty
• But the consequence of it
• Highest duty (Kant) = to create a society in
which this is the general rule
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Exception that proves the rule
• Marge does her duty, and gets rewarded
– Conforms to her original intention
– Belies Lionel’s bottom line philosophy
• = This is an exception to the rule
– Those who are successful are the ones with the
“killer instinct” (says Lisa), such as Cookie
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Marge does the right thing,
and suffers for it
• Reality intervenes in this idyll of Justice in the
form of Homer
– He crashes his car into the house and it is
destroyed
– Marge tears up the check she got from the
Flanders
• =She does the right thing, and suffers for it
• Is this the way it has to be?
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Marge is one of a kind. Why?
• Marge does her duty
• As a result she is fired
• Marge: I'm sorry, Mr. Hutz, but I just can't lie
to people!
• Lionel: You're one of a kind, Marge!
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The Just Society anyway?
• But her family acclaims her: they love her all
the more
• Lisa: I'm proud of you, mom. You refused to
compromise your integrity!
– Lisa’s morality?
• Bart: Yeah, you did the right thing...
eventually.
• Is the Simpson family an example of a just
society?
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Final comment
• Marge: $300 unemployment check for doing
nothing? “I feel like such a crook.”
– What is the morality of our social welfare state?
– Versus pure capitalism
• = Unjust to get something for nothing?
• Review the nature of the Highest Good
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