'The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy'

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I’m reading a fascinating new book, The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy. (It belongs to the Popular Culture and Philosophy series, Open Court publishers, which includes similar books on the Simpsons, Matrix, etc. – an interesting concept!) Some of the chapters remind me of the great book discussions we’ve had in the past on the Downs. I’d like to introduce the first chapter and hear your ideas on it.

‘The Rings of Tolkien and Plato: Lessons in Power, Choice, and Morality’ is written by Eric Katz. He compares LotR’s concepts with those of Plato’s The Republic. In it, Plato poses the question, “Why be moral?” and tells the story of the shepherd Gyges, who finds a magical ring that makes him invisible. He uses it “to enter the palace, seduce the queen, and kill the king”.

Glaucon, who defends a life of immorality in The Republic, says that people are morally good only because they cannot act with impunity – they fear punishment for their evil actions. Plato refutes with the argument that the immoral life is a worse life than a morally virtuous life because ultimately the immoral life leads to a fundamental unhappiness: mental anguish, the loss of friends and loved ones, and emotional bankruptcy. All the power in the world cannot compensate for the psychological emptiness of an immoral life. The moral person, in contrast, lives a life of integrity and personal fulfilment, even if he or she is limited in power, wealth, and fame. The moral person is at peace with himself.

Now, Tolkien did not write the LotR as a work of philosophy, but he was certainly familiar with the classics. Katz states that JRRT not only illustrates the above principle by showing us the “thoughts and actions of ‘living characters’” but that his stories “improve and augment Plato’s argument, for Tolkien’s Ring explicitly corrupts the souls of its possessors.” Tolkien also shows us the difficulties involved in living a life of virtue: there are burdens to be undertaken and sacrifices that must be made.

While Gollum is the obvious example of the effect of Plato’s principle, the crucial moment in each character’s story is the moment in which they are tempted to use the Ring. Boromir’s story shows that a Ring of Power corrupts even the person who is brave, strong, and virtuous. while Galadriel shows that a strong and virtuous person can refuse the temptation of immense power, even at a great personal cost.

The most interesting aspect of this choice is the fact that the virtuous and strong-willed person can turn away from a life of evil, a life of almost unlimited power, by focusing on his or her true self. This thought I find fascinating!

Galadriel does it – “I will remain Galadriel”.

Frodo does it on Amon Hen: Suddenly he was aware of himself again. Frodo, neither the Voice nor the Eye: free to choose. And Sam does it at Cirith Ungol: The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command.

Katz concludes: All who come in contact with the Ring (except, it appears, Bombadil) lose themselves (at least momentarily) in the desire to be greater than they are.

If you need a Ring of Power to live your life, you have chosen the wrong life.

Still with me? I did want to share enough of this chapter to start a discussion, since many may not yet have read it. Are you familiar with Plato’s The Republic? Do you think the comparisons are valid? What is your opinion on Katz’ conclusions about morality? I look forward to hearing what you think!

[burrahobbit]

That is a surprisingly apt comparison, except that Mr. Gyges is not necesarily immoral, he just has a free shot at it. The Ring in Tolkien's mythos, however, takes an active part in causing immorality.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Plato had a few dodgy arguments, but his quote that you gave, Estelyn, does fit in extremely well with the story of The Lord Of The Rings. I like his definition of morality very much.

It sounds like a must read!

[ October 17, 2003: Message edited by: Eomer of the Rohirrim ]

[The X Phial]

Burra - I'd say killing someone and taking his wife and crown is rather immoral. His ring did not cause him to be immoral, however, he just took advantage of it.

The real comparison I can see is to Bilbo. When he first puts the ring on he is not swept away by feelings of greatness (at least as far as we know) which may mean that the influence of Sauron was simply less strong. Like Gyges, he could have killed using his new powers, but he did not. This seems like a more direct comparison, and even better argument for the morality in Tolkien. It is the pity of Bilbo (and Frodo) that saves them all, to paraphrase Gandalf. So, morality is rewarded far along the way, but not immediately.

[The Saucepan Man]

Smeagol, of course, uses the Ring for nefarious purposes (albeit petty compared to this shepherd chappie). He is punished for doing so by being cast out from his community (and his life doesn't get much better after that, either smilies/wink.gif ).

[Lord of Angmar]

Burra - I'd say killing someone and taking his wife and crown is rather immoral. His ring did not cause him to be immoral, however, he just took advantage of it.

Are we are speaking of immortality as action or as belief and virtue? The ring certainly did cause the sheperd Gyges to act immoraly, giving him the power to kill and to usurp, but it was not necessarily the reason for his rationalizing this immoral action.

Immorality as a way of life, as Plato said, starts with simple immoral actions as a means of achieving goals, and ends with the alteration of one's mind and spirit for the irreparably worse. In this case, Gyges's immoral action stemmed from an opportunity to attain a previously impossible goal, and from that one immoral action he became an immoral man.

The Ring in Professor Tolkien's work is far different, I think. The Ring is inherently a corrupter, and though the moral characters in Tolkien's works can fight it, it will ultimately overcome even the most moral mind (as long as that mind belongs to a being of lesser power than Sauron). In the case of Gyges, the ring is but a springboard into the immoral, a means of achieving a great feat through immoral action.

In other words, Tolkien's Ring is corrupts and demoralizes by nature. Plato's ring tempts by its virtue (invisibility) alone, not by any actions or 'mind-control' of its own.

The book you bring up, Estelyn, sounds like an excellent read. I think I have seen it at my local Barnes & Noble, but I usually have no patience of the nit-picking of Professor Tolkien's works by scholars in philosophy and English.

[mark12_30]

Esty,

I've been picking thru the book rather casually, enjoying enough of it to make the book purchase worthwhile, and shrugging off the rest.

Your quote from Plato struck me afresh:

the immoral life is a worse life than a morally virtuous life because ultimately the immoral life leads to a fundamental unhappiness: mental anguish, the loss of friends and loved ones, and emotional bankruptcy. All the power in the world cannot compensate for the psychological emptiness of an immoral life. The moral person, in contrast, lives a life of integrity and personal fulfilment, even if he or she is limited in power, wealth, and fame. The moral person is at peace with himself.

Frodo initially felt peace when the Ring was destroyed, but that peace faded. Isn't it sad that Frodo cannot remain in the "moral person's" personal fulfilment, but rather slowly and steadily falls into mental anguish, the loss of friends and loved ones, and emotional bankruptcy At the Mount Doom meltdown when all is over and Gollum gone, it looks like he'll be okay-- that his victory at Amon Hen will prevail. But slowly, his defeat at Sammath Naur eats him away, and we see him broken, bereft of friends, peace, and health, until he must leave Middle-Earth for any chance of healing.

I wonder how Galadriel would have fared if she'd had to carry the One Ring all the way from the Shire to Mount Doom and try to throw it in. It's hard to compare the two, isn't it? Galadriel passed the test, and didn't accept the Ring; but if she had accepted the burden in order to destroy it and made the journey herself, would she have fared better than Frodo? Tolkien seems to think she would not, nor Sam either; he essentially says in Letters that no one could have fared better than Frodo given his same circumstances.

So the tests differ. Frodo would have passed Galadriel's test, I think, as would Sam.

"I am wounded by sting, blade, tooth, and a long burden." That long burden culminated in the defeat at Sammath Naur, there unmentioned, yet certainly the seed of the self-doubt that gnaws at Frodo more and more with the passage of time. The Sammath Naur defeat was Frodo's ultimate undoing as long as he remained in Middle-Earth, and thus the moral man was worn down to an immorality that he never intended nor desired, and could not by himself escape.

Tolkien never said it was fair...

(edit)

L.O. Angmar, you bring up an interesting distinction between immoral actions and immoral desires. Man can only judge what he sees or understands, and so, judges actions since they are visible; but most men will take desire, or intent, into account when considering mercy. In contrast, I believe God judges desire for its own sake, and then on top of that, considers what actions resulted from the desires.

That's what makes Frodo's case seem so unfair. He initially had no desire for the Ring (unlike Galadriel or Boromir) but due to long exposure, it became his desire (I would say through little or no fault of his own and from the letters I think Tolkien would agree) and that (initially undesired) immoral desire turned into immoral action.

the virtuous and strong-willed person can turn away from a life of evil, a life of almost unlimited power, by focusing on his or her true self.

This to me implies judgement of intent. And according to this definition, what was Frodo's true self? I would argue that Frodo's true self appeared on Amon Hen, not at Sammath Naur. But according to Plato's rule, in Frodo's own conscience rather than being rewarded for Amon Hen, Frodo was punished for Sammath Naur.

Considering all that, I'm quite glad Arwen showed him mercy, and gave Frodo her westward berth.

[ October 17, 2003: Message edited by: mark12_30 ]

[The Saucepan Man]

Tolkien never said it was fair...

Not always for the good guys, no. But Tolkien seems to be scrupulously fair when it comes to the bad guys. I cannot think of one principal bad guy in all of Tolkien's works who did not ultimately get his or her "come-uppance".

In this respect, Tolkien adheres to the proposition put forward here:

the immoral life is a worse life than a morally virtuous life because ultimately the immoral life leads to a fundamental unhappiness: mental anguish, the loss of friends and loved ones, and emotional bankruptcy. All the power in the world cannot compensate for the psychological emptiness of an immoral life.

Applying it to fiction, it works well. The reader (or viewer of a film) is satisfied when the baddie receives his or her just desserts. But it is, unfortunately, not applicable in real life. There are many examples of people who have acted immoraly (judged by reference to standard norms) and yet who reap the rewards of their immorality and suffer no (earthly) punishment. So, this proposition cannot form the basis of a sound philosophy.

[Eladar]

But Tolkien seems to be scrupulously fair when it comes to the bad guys. I cannot think of one principal bad guy in all of Tolkien's works who did not ultimately get his or her "come-uppance".
Looking at the other side of the coin, we do have a good guy who reaps nothing but sorrow, Turin.

Melian did nothing wrong, but she definitely suffered.

It is possible that some of the Nazgul were evil to begin and were rewarded for following Sauron. True, they ended up dead, but this was thousands of years after they should have died.

[ladyhwi]

Thank you Estelyn Telcontar. I am not familiar with Plato's Republic. I have heard the story of Gyges. You've all made me think whatever choices we have to make in life moral or immoral a most important thing is to know thyself.

[Arwen1858]

Mark, I really like what you said in your post.

Saucepan Man, you said:
There are many examples of people who have acted immoraly (judged by reference to standard norms) and yet who reap the rewards of their immorality and suffer no (earthly) punishment.
That's true, but the key is earthly. They will suffer punishment after they die.

mark12_30 said:
Considering all that, I'm quite glad Arwen showed him mercy, and gave Frodo her westward berth.
I am, too. Frodo suffered so much, both while bearing the ring and afterwards. I'm really glad he was able to go into the West and live out the rest of his days in peace.
Arwen

[hobbit punk]

I agree with what someone said about Plato's ring and Tolkien's ring being different. It is true that in LOTR the ring is itself evil and has the power to corrupt those it comes in contact with. In Plato's Republic, the ring only serves to help the shepard live out the things he would have liked to do but were only possible with the aid of his magic ring. In other words, he would not face public ridicule and punishment if they did not know it was him. Another example of this is the truly awful movie Hollow Man. In it, the Kevin Bacon character is made invisible through some experiment and goes on to commit some very immoral acts. It is not the formula itself that made him invisible which corrupts him, it is his own nature coming into play. The feeling like he can get away with anything. He then goes on to rape a girl, kill an innocent animal, kill a man and attempt to kill his former team mates. It is the lure, the temptation of being invisible that makes the person feel like they can get away with anything. It gives them what they think is the ultimate power. In LOTR, the ring does have a mind of its own. So it is an outside force that corrupts and puts these thoughts into the mind of people who come into contact with it. The ring can make you believe sometimes that by using it, you will be doing the right or moral thing. Such was the case with Boromir. The ring corrupted him, but it did subtley, making Boromir believe that if he took it, he could use it to save his people. This was, however, not the reality. In Plato, the ring just makes you invisible. It is not an outside force, so when you use it, you are acting entirely out of your own influence, your own thoughts, wants and desires. In the case of the shepard, these were evil desires. In LoTR, the characters on the good side who come into contact with the ring, only do so in order to benefit others in some way. Boromir wants to defend his people, Frodo wants to undertake the mission to destroy it in order to save the free peoples of ME, Sam takes it when he believes Frodo to be dead because he also understands the importance of the mission. In conclusion, I feel that the rings seen in Lotr and Plato's Republic are very different.

[ October 19, 2003: Message edited by: hobbit punk ]

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I’m happy that this topic has gotten good responses – thanks to each of you! There are several points which have prompted me to continue thinking about it.

Yes, the rings are different – Tolkien’s does play a much more active role in corruption of a person. In LOTR, the ring does have a mind of its own. (hobbit punk) I agree with Lord of Angmar that Plato's ring tempts by its virtue (invisibility) alone, not by any actions or 'mind-control' of its own. However, I do not agree that from that one immoral action he became an immoral man. I would say that it is the other way around – one who is intrinsically immoral acts immorally. For that reason, I also disagree with burrahobbit’s statement that Gyges is not necessarily immoral. As TheXPhial said, His ring did not cause him to be immoral. and hobbit punk adds, the ring only serves to help the shepherd live out the things he would have liked to do but were only possible with the aid of his magic ring. Since the ring itself (Plato’s) is neutral, the person determines which course of action he takes.

hobbit punk, thanks also for the interesting comparison to the “Hollow Man” movie – I haven’t seen it, but it sounds like a modernisation of Plato’s story! Again, as you say, It is not the formula itself that made him invisible which corrupts him, it is his own nature coming into play.

True, Saucepan Man, real life does not deal out justice to wicked persons as we would like to see it, yet I would like to think that they do experience some of those effects - mental anguish, the loss of friends and loved ones, emotional bankruptcy … psychological emptiness…

Mark12_30, you bring up the tragic aspect, the fact that Frodo did suffer those unhappy consequences though he was not himself an immoral person. How aptly you phrase it: The moral man was worn down to an immorality that he never intended nor desired, and could not by himself escape. I too am glad that he experienced the grace of his final journey to Elvenhome and hopefully, complete healing there.

[Mister Underhill]

Others have challenged this point, but it caught my notice too, so I’ll add a few remarks. There are many examples of people who have acted immoraly (judged by reference to standard norms) and yet who reap the rewards of their immorality and suffer no (earthly) punishment. So, this proposition cannot form the basis of a sound philosophy. I’m not sure I follow your logic here, Sauce. The quote you reference does not refer to “punishment” per se – unless the punishment is a miserable internal life. Certainly there are numerous examples of people who have reaped all the material, outward “rewards” of their immorality, but do they have fulfilling relationships, clear consciences, peace of mind?

Plato’s assertion is, I would argue, one of the few bedrock principles that most systems of traditional wisdom, secular and non-secular, can agree on: you can’t put a price tag on the value of a life of integrity and virtue; virtue is its own reward; immorality leads only to unhappiness, no matter how much riches or fame may be obtained thereby.

[Aiwendil]

Mister Underhill wrote:
The quote you reference does not refer to “punishment” per se – unless the punishment is a miserable internal life. Certainly there are numerous examples of people who have reaped all the material, outward “rewards” of their immorality, but do they have fulfilling relationships, clear consciences, peace of mind?

and
virtue is its own reward; immorality leads only to unhappiness, no matter how much riches or fame may be obtained thereby.


I disagree. A view like this rests upon the claim that all immoral people are unhappy; in fact, in order for it to be the basis of any kind of moral philosophy, it would need the claim that all people are unhappy to the degree that they are immoral.

You are right in pointing out the distinction between external signs of happiness and one's internal state of mind. But do you really think that all immoral people are secretly miserable? There's no pressing reason to think that this is so. Such claims have always struck me as unsupportable tautologies that people use to convince themselves to be moral.

But even supposing that this turns out to be true for every human that has acted immorally, it runs into problems. For it is certainly possible to imagine a hypothetical person that lacks a conscience and that genuinely, thoroughly enjoys being immoral. If morality is simply based on happiness, we have no justification for telling this person to be moral.

Maybe it's true that sometimes or even often, immorality leads to unhappiness. But this does not mean that happiness and morality are inextricably bound together.

[mark12_30]

To me this "failure of conscience" (another writer calls it a "seared conscience") points to the major weakness in Plato's theory: he leaves out something that Tolkien would certainly include. We will answer for our actions. Tolkien certainly believed this, although he was also conscious of mercy and grace. The missing peice is some elegantly stated version of "... and besides, Eru said so."

Without that final say-so, Aiwendil is right; we are left with little more than the Dogpatch saw, "Good is better than evil because it's nicer." While that makes a certain abount of emotinonal sense for the individual with a healthy conscience, logically it's less than convincing.

In contrast, Gandalf refers to a higher power when he discusses Frodo's being "meant" to have the Ring; Tolkien agreed that this was so in his letters, stating that in LOTR, Eru is nowhere named but everywhere felt.

Conscience by itself works for a while, maybe, but in the end, knowing we will answer for our actions is a powerful motivator.

[ October 23, 2003: Message edited by: mark12_30 ]

[Mister Underhill]

But this does not mean that happiness and morality are inextricably bound together. As a matter of fact, I happen to think that they are.

Can I prove it? Obviously I’m not in a position to know the secret thoughts and hearts of the six or seven billion people on the planet, so there’s no way for me to mount a logically unassailable defense of this position. If thousands of years’ worth of writings of the wisest men in history haven’t been able to produce a bulletproof defense of the logic of morality, I won’t be able to do it here in the context of these boards, so I won’t even try.

But logic isn’t the whole story. Logic and morality seem to be uneasy bedfellows at best. Yet I think there is a reason why the words of Plato, Confucius, the Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, et al have survived for centuries. I can’t prove it, but I know it when I see it. People seem to respond to the principle in a general way in art and entertainment. My personal experience bears it out. I can't rule out your hypothetically immoral but perfectly happy and at peace person, but I've never met him or her. It may all be some grand illusion propagated by the (secretly) wise and powerful and eminently happy and fulfilled immoral elite to trick the masses into being moral, but I don’t think so.

[ October 23, 2003: Message edited by: Mister Underhill ]

[Arwen1858]

I can't rule out your hypothetically immoral but perfectly happy and at peace person, but I've never met him or her.
I think it would be very hard for an immoral person to be happy. In his heart, that person would know what he was doing was wrong, and while he might try to ignore his conscience, and his heart may harden, to where he isn't as bothered by doing whatever immoral act he's in, he still wouldn't be truly happy. If someone, through immoral methods, gained a large amount of money, he could try as much as he wanted to fill his desires with material things. He could buy the biggest house, the best car, and the most expensive clothes, but those would not satisfy him. If he got the money through ill methods, he wouldn't be truly happy with it, even if he tried to act as if he were.

[Aiwendil]

Mark12_30 wrote:
We will answer for our actions. Tolkien certainly believed this, although he was also conscious of mercy and grace. The missing peice is some elegantly stated version of "... and besides, Eru said so."

That's true; within Tolkien's world Eru is certainly the arbiter of all moral issues. But that's putting it a bit wrong. Eru's judgement is the source and the essence of morality in Arda.

Without that final say-so, Aiwendil is right; we are left with little more than the Dogpatch saw, "Good is better than evil because it's nicer." While that makes a certain abount of emotinonal sense for the individual with a healthy conscience, logically it's less than convincing.

Note that I wasn't saying that a logical basis for morality is impossible. Rather, I was criticizing the Platonic/Aristotelian view that morality is to be identified with happiness.

Mister Underhill wrote:
Obviously I’m not in a position to know the secret thoughts and hearts of the six or seven billion people on the planet, so there’s no way for me to mount a logically unassailable defense of this position.

It's not just that one can't make a logically unassaialbe defense of this view. It's rather that this view seems to depend critically on a claim that is - at best - supported only by personal anecdotes and folk wisdom.

If thousands of years’ worth of writings of the wisest men in history haven’t been able to produce a bulletproof defense of the logic of morality, I won’t be able to do it here in the context of these boards, so I won’t even try.

You make it sound as though every moral philosopher more or less agrees with Plato about this. But there are a great many who do not. Take Hume, or Kant, or Mill, for example.

I can't rule out your hypothetically immoral but perfectly happy and at peace person, but I've never met him or her.

Note that I'm not saying that there must be no relation whatsoever between happiness and morality. Perhaps it's a good approximation to say that behaving immorally makes one feel bad. But, considering hypothetical cases like this one, I think it's a mistake to assume that morality must at it's most basic level have to do with happiness.

[Finwe]

I think the first principles of morality were founded on just what "felt" right to early (or relatively early) Man. For most of us, killing, stealing, committing adultery, etc. don't "feel" nice. They (usually) leave one feeling a bit "dirty" or "tainted." To simplify things, mankind condensed "what felt right" into a code of laws or morals, that we continue to follow today. It generally makes for a much happier society. (Although I don't claim to speak for all those sociopaths out there who truly enjoy killing.)

[Lord of Angmar]

JRR Tolkien and Plato believed what you are saying Finwe; that immoral actions have, in essence, a bad aftertaste. The reason we define things as 'moral' and 'immoral' is for this very reason; if immoral things felt good and proper, then they would not be considered immoral by the populace. Since, however, immoral acts (arguably, at least in the majority of cases) lead to degradation of the spirit and a feeling of uncleanliness and unhappiness, they are not pursued as a way of life by those seeking happiness (which is most of us).

Look at Turin; the more blood he shed, the more psychotic he became, until at last he became suicidal. He did not start out as an immoral man per se, but when one looks at the individual acts of immorality he committed in their context, one can clearly see the steady degradation of his reasoning process when faced with decisions of morality vs. immorality.

The Ringwraiths are another example; they did not start out as fixtures of immorality, but because they became subservient to Sauron and became evildoers, they were (as I believe Aragorn put it) torchured and tormented souls.
Their torchure was a result of their obedience to a cruel and immoral leader.

To simplify things, mankind condensed "what felt right" into a code of laws or morals, that we continue to follow today

That is exactly what I think: we consider things immoral because they lead to unhappiness, a feeling of taintedness, a feeling of being at odds with one's inner-self, and, in extreme cases suicidal/homicidal tendencies. These, of course, are subjective terms and ideas, but it is generally agreed on by members of the human race what it feels to be 'happy' and what it feels to be 'sad.'

The idea of happiness and immorality being able to coincide within one person is one that is never really addressed by Tolkien. All of his evil characters tend to degrade into hatred of everything and inherent unhappiness.

Note that I'm not saying that there must be no relation whatsoever between happiness and morality.

Morality and happiness are relative terms. One can be perfectly happy who has never learned the Western ideology of 'morality', and who lives in what we would consider to be a barbaric and immoral manner. In this sense, there could be people who are "immoral but perfectly happy and at peace," but they would only be immoral by subjective standards, and would not be immoral by their own reasoning.

[ October 23, 2003: Message edited by: Lord of Angmar ]

[the phantom]

Although I don't claim to speak for all those sociopaths out there who truly enjoy killing.
Well, sociopaths believe that they are moral. In fact one of the identifying marks of a sociopath is that he believes in the absolute perfection of his beliefs, judgements, and perceptions.

[Arwen1858]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although I don't claim to speak for all those sociopaths out there who truly enjoy killing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Well, sociopaths believe that they are moral. In fact one of the identifying marks of a sociopath is that he believes in the absolute perfection of his beliefs, judgements, and perceptions.

So I guess just because a person doesn't feel that what they're doing is 'immoral' that doesn't mean it's right.

I think the first principles of morality were founded on just what "felt" right to early (or relatively early) Man. For most of us, killing, stealing, committing adultery, etc. don't "feel" nice. They (usually) leave one feeling a bit "dirty" or "tainted."
I think that's our conscience at work, when we feel something like that isn't right. But sometimes, people probably ignore their conscience so many times, and commit immoral acts anyways, their heart hardens, and what they once knew as wrong becomes second nature to them, and they see it as being a perfectly fine thing to do.

[Mhoram]

In regards to the argument over the results of an immoral life, I offer as a hypothetical example, Machiavelli's Prince.

Brushing aside idealism, Machiavelli outlines what a good ruler must do to best maintain the stability of the state and his own power. He states that "It is much safer for a prince to be feared than loved." A good prince would need to use his force in every facet, be it the putting down of rebellions, the interrogation of citizens by torture, executions, invasions of neighboring states, breaking of promises, every supposed immoral action can be justified for the good of the state and the security of his power.

Agree with Machiavelli or no, it can easily be seen that a person could do these things with full confidence in their justification and in their moral rightiousness. Afterall, what he does is done in the interest of keeping the state safe and secure, and in keeping himself in power, which is a moral good in and of itself because so long as he is in power, the state will be kept strong and secure. Perhaps somewhat delusional, but by all means sane and possible opinions.

(Machiavelli seemed to hold no delusions about his tactics being morally unsound, just the better of two evils. However we can allow our hypothetical prince to hold that these tactics are indeed morally sound.)

And so, I offer that a person can act in such an immoral way and remain happy in all aspects, both worldly (by joy of his power and position) and internally (by confidence in his believed rightious actions)

My point is to discount the 'immoral life = unhappiness' argument as a _proof_ of the virtue of morallity. It is at best, I think, only an example of what 'works'


On the original topic, I also think Tolkien's ring and Plato's principle are too different to make a fair and balanced comparison. And I can't really see the benefit of doing so, Plato's example is clear enough, not sure what value there is in trying to pin another on Tolkien's work.

[Mister Underhill]

Hume, Kant, Mill... we’ve wandered into this neighborhood before in previous discussions, and I confess that I am just as ill-equipped now to discuss them in any depth as I was then. Could you perhaps elaborate a bit here? Though they come at the question from different angles, these men all seem to fundamentally agree with Plato. My impression of Mill is that he draws a direct correlation between morality and happiness. Am I way off base? Hume also seems to draw a correlation between virtue and good feelings, and vice and bad feelings. Even Kant’s very rational morality seems to argue for a moral life as the means by which higher meaning and purpose in life are realized, or perhaps I should say that we accept moral imperatives on faith that there is a higher meaning and purpose in life.

The “philosophies” I cited are all agreed that the path of virtue leads to a fulfilling life and inner peace, while the path of vice leads to misery and disharmony, and none of the more modern philosophers you mentioned seem to dispute this notion at first glance.

We sort of went over Machiavelli in chat, Mho, but I’ll just state for the benefit of others on the thread here that I don’t follow you that Machiavellian immorality can lead to a life of fulfillment and inner peace. The fearfulness of the Machiavellian prince and his feeling that he is justified in using any means to maintain his position is not compatible with true happiness as I understand it. I would reiterate this argument with regards to other sorts of hypothetical situations put forward. Is the hypothetical sociopath who feels no moral qualms truly happy, fulfilled, and at peace? To what degree a person is able to justify or harden their heart against immoral actions isn’t really the question – the question is, what is the result of this sort of lifestyle? Is it better and more fulfilling than a lifestyle spent in the pursuit of virtue? I think not.

I suppose I’m sort of shocked to find so many people willing to argue that a life of amorality can be just as fulfilling and happy as a life of virtue; perhaps it’s simply that words like “morality” and “virtue” have acquired certain ominous and hypocritical connotations and associations in our modern world.

[the phantom]

the question is, what is the result of this sort of lifestyle? Is it better and more fulfilling than a lifestyle spent in the pursuit of virtue?
Fulfilling? Yes. More fulfilling? No.

I don't have my Bible handy now, but I recall a quote about choosing sin and that it would yield "pleasure for a season".

I believe that those who reject virtue can obtain fulfillment through immorality, but their fulfillment will be less deep and shorter lived. And even if their happiness lasts until their Earthly death, they will pay dearly for their choice in eternity.

[Mhoram]

I suppose I’m sort of shocked to find so many people willing to argue that a life of amorality can be just as fulfilling and happy as a life of virtue; perhaps it’s simply that words like “morality” and “virtue” have acquired certain ominous and hypocritical connotations and associations in our modern world.

I would suggest that this is a reaction to living in a world where what is moral is a very relative abstract notion, being so hard to define...and that seems to be necessarily at odds with itself. You must take food that belongs to John in order to save the life of the starving Henry. Henry's right to help takes precedence over John's right to his property; nevertheless John's right remains, and John in wronged by the act which saves Henry. Once again, the lesser of two evils. Daily we are confronted with decisions of one immorality versus another.

It seems better to spend time justifying the immorality that is matter-of-fact in everyone's life than to spend time musing over the morally virtuous lifestyle that seems so alien and perhaps even idealistic.

Estel: Does this book cover other topics of philosophy, comparing them to Tolkien's writing? If so, you might wish to start a new thread on another topic at some time.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Nice to have you posting here, Mho! Yes, the book does have other chapters and yes, I will open new threads to avoid cluttering this one with a completely different discussion.

[Arwen1858]

The Phantom said:
I don't have my Bible handy now, but I recall a quote about choosing sin and that it would yield "pleasure for a season".


It's in Hebrews 11:25, talking about Moses. It says: v.24 By faith, Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharoah's daughter; v. 25 Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, that to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.

I think that when someone is going to commit an immoral act, say he had a way to steal some money without anyone ever knowing, he would know it was wrong, yet would still take some pleasure in it. He would enjoy being able to buy a huge house, and a fancy car. He would love to drive his car and show it off to people. He would enjoy the money to some degree. But only for a season. His conscience would still prick him at times, and it would also be harder for him knowing the money was gotten through ill means.
Mister Underhill said:
the question is, what is the result of this sort of lifestyle? Is it better and more fulfilling than a lifestyle spent in the pursuit of virtue? I think not.
I don't think it could be more fulfilling. To fulfill means to satisfy, and while there may be some enjoyment from whatever is gained through the immoral act, I don't think it could be fulfilling.

[Sharkû]

Call me cynical, but I like the posts which manage to combine philosophy with Tolkien best smilies/biggrin.gif

[The Saucepan Man]

Well, I am amazed that my somewhat "off the cuff" comment has caused such debate. But, I stand by what I said and therefore feel beholden to defend it (even though I would very much like to believe that I am wrong on this one).

My original point was an observation that, while Tolkien clearly adhered to the Platonic view that:

the immoral life is a worse life than a morally virtuous life because ultimately the immoral life leads to a fundamental unhappiness

... it does not reflect the realities of life. I therefore concluded that Plato's analysis cannot form the basis of a sound philosophy.

First, to address Tolkien's view on this, the following comments by mark12_30 and the Lord of Angmar are pertinent:

We will answer for our actions. Tolkien certainly believed this, although he was also conscious of mercy and grace. (mark12_30)

JRR Tolkien ... believed ... that immoral actions have, in essence, a bad aftertaste. (Lord of Angmar)

Precisely. As I said in my original post on this particular subject, I cannot think of one "bad guy" in Tolkien's works who does not get his or her "come uppance", either physically or spiritually (or, more often than not, both). Lord of Angmar cites a prime example: Turin Turambar. Not a "bad guy" per se but, whether through the curse of Morgoth or bad (moral) judgment on his part, he acts immorally (sometimes) and unwisely (often), and is he is punished in his life both spiritually (he certainly did not have a happy life) and, ultimately, physically (in the act of taking his own life) as a result.

Mister Underhill wrote:

People seem to respond to the principle in a general way in art and entertainment.

Well not always (good art does not always punish the wrongdoer) but, as a general rule, yes. Since the majority of us adhere to moral norms (of which more later), we respond better to art which punishes those which refuse to adhere to them. Tolkien is squarely within this tradition, since he makes sure that his immoral characters (even those, such as Boromir and Denethor, who are noble characters seduced into acting wrongly) receive punishment in some way for their wrongful deeds. Even Frodo, for all the bravery and herosim that he displays, does not escape the consequences of his final temptation.

However, much as this might offer us some comfort when neatly packaged as a work of fiction or as a philosophy, it does not reflect reality.

I’m not sure I follow your logic here, Sauce. (Mr U)

Well, in response to this, let me first say that I endorse everything that Aiwendil and Mhoram have posted. And also, to clear another point up at this stage, Underhillo posted:

I suppose I’m sort of shocked to find so many people willing to argue that a life of amorality can be just as fulfilling and happy as a life of virtue

Well, while I do believe that such a life can be just as fulfilling and happy (as I will explain), I don't, of course, believe that to be a desirable state of affairs. It should not be so, but I believe that unfortunately, it is.

In mounting a defence of my position, I feel that it is first necessary to explore (tentatively) why we (society as a whole) act morally.

To simplify things, mankind condensed "what felt right" into a code of laws or morals, that we continue to follow today. (Finwe)

That is exactly what I think: we consider things immoral because they lead to unhappiness, a feeling of taintedness, a feeling of being at odds with one's inner-self, and, in extreme cases suicidal/homicidal tendencies. (Lord of Angmar)

Well, I think that this is putting the cart before the horses. I don't think that moral action evolved because it makes us feel better. Rather, I think that moral action makes us feel better because that is the way that society has evolved. Finwe went on to say:

It generally makes for a much happier society.

And I think that this is much closer to the truth. We act morally, because society works better that way. As mankind developed, it found that coming together in groups afforded a better chance of survival. Mankind flourished by coming together in a society. And, as it coalesced into societies, it discovered that there were certain ways of behaving that enhanced those societies and other ways of behaving that did not. So, society developed "moral norms": ways of behaving that allowed societies to flourish. Murder, assault, theft etc were not conducive to the furtherance of society, and were therefore branded as immoral. And because it has become ingrained in us that we should act in a certain way for the benefit of society, acting that way makes us (or at least the majority of us) feel better in ourselves. There are grey areas, of course, but there are also instances of clear immoral behaviour, such as murder for pure personal gain.

So why do people act immorally? Well, broadly, I can perceive three general bases for immoral behaviour. First, there are those who (whether through their upbringing or by reason of biological abnormality, or perhaps both) simply do not respect moral boundaries. These are the psychopaths and paedophiles whose behaviour I cannot begin to understand. Secondly, there are those who act immorally because they truly believe that it is in the wider interests of society to do so. These are the Machiavellians that Mhoram referred to, and this category would probably include the likes of Hitler and Osama bin Laden. These people really believe that what they are doing is right, however misguided they might be. And finally, there are those who act immorally because they perceive a personal gain in doing so which outweighs the risk of behaving contrary to the moral norms that I mentioned earlier (and therefore, frequently, contrary to the law). Examples of those falling in this category would range from drug barons and mafia bosses down to burglars and shoplifters. There is, of course, much overlap between these groups. So, someone with a psychological imbalance or a poor upbringing which causes them to respect moral boundaries less is more likely to perpetrate immoral acts in the "common good" (Stalin) or simply turn to a life of crime. And the converse is true, so that much of society (most of it, I would hope) is able to act morally even when they perceive that it might be in their personal interests to act immorally.

So, to the question - does acting immorally necessarily lead to a life of unhappiness? As Mr U asked:

Certainly there are numerous examples of people who have reaped all the material, outward “rewards” of their immorality, but do they have fulfilling relationships, clear consciences, peace of mind?

Well, unfortunately I think that some of them do, Mr U. Not all of them admittedly. Those who act contrary to society's moral norms run a greater risk being caught and physically punished. And I am sure that their chances of living a happy and fulfilling life are lessened, if for no other reason than, by virtue of their chosen lifestyle, their relationships (and quite possibly their freedom) will be limited.

But Aiwendil made an extremely good point when she said that:

A view like this rests upon the claim that all immoral people are unhappy; in fact, in order for it to be the basis of any kind of moral philosophy, it would need the claim that all people are unhappy to the degree that they are immoral.

I simply (albeit reluctantly) cannot believe that every immoral person will inevitably live a life of unfulfillment and unhappiness. What about the serial killer who murders with impunity and without regard to moral values, but who is never caught? What about the brutal dictator who is able to live a privileged life without ever being challenged? What about the powerful drugs baron who is beyond the reach of the law? Although I do so with a heavy heart, I cannot but conclude that there are such individuals that do lead their lives happily and (on their terms) with a clear conscience. Their conscience is clear because they have no regard for moral boundaries and/or because their own interests are furthered by what they are doing and/or because they truly believe that what they are doing is for the greater good.

Obviously I’m not in a position to know the secret thoughts and hearts of the six or seven billion people on the planet, so there’s no way for me to mount a logically unassailable defense of this position. (Mister Underhill)

Perhaps this is the nub of it. Even if you were to know their secret thoughts, you would not understand them because their idea of happiness and fulfillment is different from yours and mine. A drug baron is happy and fulfilled because he has enriched himself beyond measure, and that means more to him than any kind of fulfillment that moral action might bring. The Machiavellian Prince is happy because he is secure in the knowledge that his actions are for the greater good of society. Place you or I in those positions and we would find ourselves with inner turmoil, not inner peace. But they don't bother themselves with such qualms.

I believe that those who reject virtue can obtain fulfillment through immorality, but their fulfillment will be less deep and shorter lived. And even if their happiness lasts until their Earthly death, they will pay dearly for their choice in eternity. (the phantom)

Their fulfillment might well be more short lived (the risk of being caught or ousted in a coup d'etat), but is it really less deep? We would like to think so, but they would not, so does it really make any difference? If they believe themselves to be happy, and don't get caught, then they are not really suffering inwardly.

Will they pay for their choice eternally, in the afterlife? Well, I would like to think so, but my faith is not strong so I am afraid that I cannot be sure on that one.

Wow, making that post has really quite depressed me. But that's reality for you. smilies/frown.gif

Edit: Sharkû, you are cynical (sorry, couldn't resist it). smilies/biggrin.gif

While I did study a bit of philosophy at university, my detailed knowledge of the concepts is long gone. But I did manage a bit of Tolkien-related comment at the beginning of my post. smilies/rolleyes.gif smilies/wink.gif

[ October 24, 2003: Message edited by: The Saucepan Man ]

[mark12_30]

Mho wrote:

It seems better to spend time justifying the immorality that is matter-of-fact in everyone's life than to spend time musing over the morally virtuous lifestyle that seems so alien and perhaps even idealistic.

That's a popular outlook these days. But would Tolkien agree? Why or why not? Or... which of his characters would agree or disagree and why or why not? What would Frodo say to that? Gandalf? Strider? ....

[Mister Underhill]

Mho, is the problem you described really the sort of moral quandary you face in your daily life? I agree that large scale moral quandaries (How do we help the homeless? Was it right to invade Iraq?) can leave us feeling powerless and disheartened. But I would submit that such quandaries have only as much bearing on your own personal life and the choices you make as you allow them to. Selfishness, greed, bigotry, thievery, oppression, infidelity, gluttony, dishonesty – I think almost anyone can agree that these are unambiguously immoral, not to mention the sort of problem that we more frequently encounter in our day to day lives.

I’m not saying that the life of perfect virtue is attainable. It certainly is usually easier in the short run to commit (and justify) immoralities large and small. The thing is, it has never been easy to strive after a virtuous lifestyle; does that make it not worth doing? The easy path is seldom the most rewarding, at least in my experience. You don’t just nod and shrug and accept that your day-to-day life is riddled with moral compromises.

Sauce, I think we differ over our definitions and ideas of what things like happiness, fulfillment, and inner peace really mean. I also see that you’re still a bit stuck on the idea of punishment, which I do not think has anything to do with Plato’s assertion. For instance, you quoted me on the subject of art – but I wasn’t referring to punishment. Example: Dickens’ much-beloved “A Christmas Carol” is about an amoral man who is miserably unhappy and unfulfilled in spite of his wealth and power. Rather than being punished, he is redeemed. He may have gone unpunished his whole life – and indeed, strictly by the laws of society, he wasn’t doing anything illegal – but he still would have died a miserable, emotionally bankrupt, lonely man had he not turned to a life of virtue.

The serial killer who murders with impunity and is never caught? Well, he may escape punishment, at least on earth and in terms of some authority outside himself meting out justice for his crimes, but if you think such a person is capable of healthy relationships, a fulfilled life, and inner peace, we have wildly different ideas about what such things mean. I’m no expert on sociopathic behavior, but I’ve read enough to know that such people frequently kill precisely because they are incapable of relating to people in healthy ways.

Hitler and his ilk are interesting case studies in a discussion like this because they represent unfettered immorality. Hitler had power, wealth, fame, a certainty in the justice of his cause, etc. – but do you think he was in any way happy or fulfilled? Here was a man who could trust no one, who was constantly in fear of conspirators, who was consumed by hatred, who, as far as history tells, was unable to relate in any meaningful way to anyone (especially women), who was given to fits of depression and rage. Is this happiness? Himmler was convinced of the morality of genocide – but when he witnessed mass executions in Minsk, he nearly fainted. Is this the sign of a man with a clear conscience?

As for theories that have been outlined which suggest that morality is merely an evolved set of behaviors which are the most conducive to a smoothly running society, well, I find them cold and hollow, a diminishment of the great dignity and compassion of which the human spirit is capable to a trivial bit of sociological conditioning. Within such a view, the great humanitarians and heroes of civilization are simply aberrations, people who for unknown reasons (maybe it was something off-kilter in their brain chemistry or their upbringing) exceed the sociological imperative that society run only more or less smoothly. Even the aforementioned Kant, I believe, finds this sort of thinking too cold to motivate him, and must seek beyond the boundaries of human reason for motivation.

Stay awhile and be patient, Sharkey – we haven’t lost touch with Tolkien yet. I think these sort of questions bear directly on Tolkien and his work. Sauron represents the ultimate embodiment of Plato’s assertion. Alone, consumed by lust and hatred, unable to feel compassion, tortured by fear and doubt – he is the answer to the question, “What do we get if we take immorality as a lifestyle to its most extreme logical conclusion?” Gandalf is his opposite, and though he is not perfectly virtuous, we see that he enjoys the fruits of a life spent in the pursuit of virtue – deeply fulfilling, harmonious relationships, a character of unimpeachable integrity, a history of personal accomplishment and spiritual fulfillment, and an inner peace which allows him to sacrifice himself in Khazad-dûm even though, as far as he knows, his sacrifice may mean the failure of all that he has worked for.

I’m curious about the people who admire Tolkien’s work, but view its morality as untenable in the “real world”. Would you still admire Aragorn if he gained his throne through trickery or treachery? Would Gandalf be the same character if he had, say, used some deception to assassinate Saruman on the premise that the ends justify the means? Do you think that the pity of Frodo and Bilbo with regards to Gollum is fine for a novel, but not really applicable to real life? Inquiring minds want to know.

[ October 24, 2003: Message edited by: Mister Underhill ]

[Aiwendil]

Mister Underhill wrote:
Though they come at the question from different angles, these men all seem to fundamentally agree with Plato. My impression of Mill is that he draws a direct correlation between morality and happiness.

Mill does connect morality with happiness, but in a fundamentally different way from Plato. The view of Plato and Aristotle was that virtue is, as a matter of definition, the sort of thing that leads its possessor to happiness. Someone who is not virtuous is not fulfilling his or her highest human function, and as a result becomes unhappy and unfulfilled. In order to support this view, Aristotle had to develop his "metaphysical biology", which has at its heart the claim that humans have a natural characteristic function.

Mill's theory is completely different. In Mill's utilitarianism, the central principle of morality is: the moral thing to do is whatever produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Note first of all that this is a claim about what is moral, not why it is moral. And it certainly makes no claims about whether or not a moral person will end up being happy. One could easily be very moral (that is, go around making lots of people happy) and yet be personally unhappy. Or, one could be immoral (go around making people unhappy) and yet be personally happy.

Hume also seems to draw a correlation between virtue and good feelings, and vice and bad feelings.

You may be right about Hume, now that I think about it. My impression, though, was that Hume, in trying to empirically study what was considered moral and what immoral, concluded that morality is generally constructed to make people feel good. But I don't think he made any foundational claims of the sort Plato did.

Even Kant’s very rational morality seems to argue for a moral life as the means by which higher meaning and purpose in life are realized, or perhaps I should say that we accept moral imperatives on faith that there is a higher meaning and purpose in life.

I don't think Kant wanted us to accept moral imperatives on faith. I got the impression that Kant thought he was deriving a purely logical system of morality - that is, one that could be deduced and proven. He failed, for a number of reasons, but this was his intent. And the categorical imperative, Kant's guiding moral principle, makes no reference at all to whether the person acting feels good or bad (and Kant is explicit about this).

The fearfulness of the Machiavellian prince and his feeling that he is justified in using any means to maintain his position is not compatible with true happiness as I understand it. I would reiterate this argument with regards to other sorts of hypothetical situations put forward. Is the hypothetical sociopath who feels no moral qualms truly happy, fulfilled, and at peace? To what degree a person is able to justify or harden their heart against immoral actions isn’t really the question – the question is, what is the result of this sort of lifestyle? Is it better and more fulfilling than a lifestyle spent in the pursuit of virtue? I think not.

Well (and I suppose it would have been good to have asked this up front), what exactly do you mean by "happy" and "fulfilled"? If what you mean is simply what these words suggest at face value - that is, a simple state of mind - then you are on rather shaky ground in making claims about what other people secretly feel. If you mean something more complicated, something like living a certain type of life, or having certain types of relationships, or something along these lines, then you are constructing a tautology for yourself. For naturally, you can then simply define "happiness" in such a way as to match up exactly with your conception of "virtue".

I suppose I’m sort of shocked to find so many people willing to argue that a life of amorality can be just as fulfilling and happy as a life of virtue; perhaps it’s simply that words like “morality” and “virtue” have acquired certain ominous and hypocritical connotations and associations in our modern world.

I don't think of "morality" and "virtue" as ominous or with hypocritical connotations. I admit, I am highly dubious about the possibility for a rational justification of morality (and this rather depresses me). But supposing that there is such a thing as morality, then it seems to me that it ought not to be so limited as to depend on human emotions, or on human neurology. It seems to me (and it seems natural to me) that the right thing to do is the right thing to do, regardless of how the doer feels about it and regardless of how it will make the doer feel.

The Saucepan Man wrote:
But Aiwendil made an extremely good point when she said that:

That would be "he". But I'm glad you thought it was a good point. And I must say I agree with nearly all of your post.

We are moving into rather different territory with Lord of Angmar's, the phantom's, and Arwen1858's posts. An implicit question here is whether morality actually exists (that is, whether there is really some rational justification for ideas of right and wrong) or whether it is merely a human invention. I hold out some hope for the former, but the more I think about things the more I am inclined toward the latter. And in this case, it makes no sense to talk about something actually being right or wrong; we can only talk about things being called right and wrong by humans.

[Kuruharan]

Just a smattering of ideas here.

Saucepan

I can perceive three general bases for immoral behaviour. First, there are those who (whether through their upbringing or by reason of biological abnormality, or perhaps both) simply do not respect moral boundaries.


If immorality is the result of biological abnormality would that make morality something more than just a societal norm? Saying that it is something to do with biology seems to imply that there is something ingrained in people to perceive moral behavior. Could you clarify?

A drug baron is happy and fulfilled because he has enriched himself beyond measure

Does money really bring that sort of happiness? It seems to me to be an insatiable desire. You constantly have to have more and more of it. To say that this ravenous appetite brings fulfillment is to say that there is fulfillment in being unfulfilled. A similar thing could be said about power. Ultimately, the lust for power is about subjugating everything to yourself. This is very difficult and has not been done in the world (yet). So, here is another example of finding fulfillment in being unfulfilled.

Even if such total domination were to occur I think this problem would almost instantly arise, "Now What?" The next obvious step is to make everything into Yourself. If that is accomplished you are suddenly presented with, "Now What?" and this time you have little else to work with.

That got abstract.

[Arwen1858]

Aiwendil said:
Well (and I suppose it would have been good to have asked this up front), what exactly do you mean by "happy" and "fulfilled"? If what you mean is simply what these words suggest at face value - that is, a simple state of mind - then you are on rather shaky ground in making claims about what other people secretly feel.
The definition given in the dictionary for fulfill that goes along with this discussion it 'to satisfy.' Are those people, who are living the immoral lives, satisfied? Do they have everything they desire? Are they completely happy with everything they have and everything they've done? I doubt that.
Kuruharan said:
Does money really bring that sort of happiness? It seems to me to be an insatiable desire. You constantly have to have more and more of it. To say that this ravenous appetite brings fulfillment is to say that there is fulfillment in being unfulfilled.
I think that can be seen in the lives of some athletes. How many of them have millions, and make millions a year, but complain that they don't get enough, or take a job with another team so they can get more? I mean, how many millions do they really need?? Some of them aren't happy with the millions they already get, and want another million or so. Because they aren't satisfied. Like Kuruharan said: it's insatiable. You constantly need more and more. And by the way, I'm not saying all athletes are like that. Not at all. Just making a point.
Arwen

[Lord of Angmar]

Murder, assault, theft etc. were not conducive to the furtherance of society, and were therefore branded as immoral. (Saucepan Man)

Are we talking about the intellectual, social and spiritual advancement of a society or the physical advancement of a society? If we are talking about the latter, look no further than Rome for an outlier in your theory. The Romans assailed countless smaller nations, stole their land and slaughtered their soldiers and even civilians. They took slaves, showered praise upon "heroes" of war, and enjoyed daily the spectacle of death and carnage as an entertainment form. Yet certainly they were an extremely imposing society whose citizens (if not all of their members) were generally well-educated and enjoyed a high standard of living relative to other places at the time. One could come to the logical conclusion that the Roman Empire was by and large rooted in what we would consider immoral acts, yet as a society they flourished.

Tolkien's belief that morals are rooted in human beings rather than bestowed upon humans by the society in which they live is apparent in the Silmarillion. It is known that the Elves will be wise, beautiful and moral beings even before they appear in Middle Earth. When faced with the trickery and deception of Morgoth during their long wars with him, the Elves and Edain remain (for the most part) moral in their actions, despite the fact that their purposes might be advanced better if they stooped to the level of Morgoth in deceit and treacherous warfare.

I am highly dubious about the possibility for a rational justification of morality (Aiwendil)

I think, happily, that one can rationally justify what we would call a life of morality and virtue. I would say that the phrase "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," would loosely sum up a virtuous way to live life. I agree that not all cultures can be set in the same code of morality, as many cultures are and have been more survivalist and 'uncivilized' (a term I hate to use, but in this sense I mean to use it not so much as 'barbaric' but as 'less organized/structured') than our own. However, in the context of most of our own societies, and in the context of Professor Tolkien's world, the "Do Unto Others" proverb seems to serve as a basic guideline for moral action.

[ October 25, 2003: Message edited by: Lord of Angmar ]

[mark12_30]

Aiwendil wrote: An implicit question here is whether morality actually exists (that is, whether there is really some rational justification for ideas of right and wrong) or whether it is merely a human invention. I hold out some hope for the former, but the more I think about things the more I am inclined toward the latter. And in this case, it makes no sense to talk about something actually being right or wrong; we can only talk about things being called right and wrong by humans.


I think Tolkien would heartily disagree, since his worldview was deeply and staunchly Catholic. This (Catholic) worldview and morality pervades LOTR/SIL and all his other works; and since we are talking about morality and philosophy as pertains to Tolkien, we need to take that into account. Our views may differ, but imposing our views on Middle-Earth without considering Tolkien's views will give us a slanted view of the characters and their motives, and their (just or injust?) rewards.

[Lord of Angmar]

I agree, mark 12_30, that we cannot take our own moral insights into Professor Tolkien's world.

Aiwendil said:

An implicit question here is whether morality actually exists (that is, whether there is really some rational justification for ideas of right and wrong)

Let me expand on the "Do unto others" part of my previous post, as I feel it left me seeming like a somewhat hard-headed Christian to leave you with such a simple Biblical proverb and no explanation. Since I think we can all agree that nobody wants to be killed, and that we can all agree that it inherently makes us feel worse having been stolen from, lied to or cheated out of something, as I think has always been the case for civilized humanity, then we can sum up those things (murder, thievery, etc.) as being immoral. Although certainly not all people in past ages have been able to see the difference between doing something to someone and having something done to you, I think most of us can agree today that what is immoral is any deliberate human action that results in the loss of life, or any human action that the majority of people would not want inflicetd on them (i.e. rape, theft).

[Bêthberry]

Keeping an eye on Sharkû's cynical eye, I would like to put the discussion under a slightly different lens.

Mr. Underhill, you have quite nicely put your finger on an important aspect of reading: do we read for what we cannot find in our banal, daily lives or for something else? Tolkien's discussion of faerie would be particularly relevent here I think.

But, I will inflame matters. I think any problem in a discussion of morality in LOTR must consider how Tolkien depicts moral and immoral behaviour. And I think we have a sticking point.

The novel depicts the successful refusal of the Ring's power by Gandalf and Galadriel, and the struggle and painful consequences of being Ring-bearer for Bilbo and Frodo.

It could, however, be argued that both Gandalf's and Galadriel's refusals of the Ring are, essentially, a form of telling rather than showing (to use the distinction made in discussion of story writing). By this I mean both scenes concern simply the holding of the Ring itself, with the characters' comments on what the attraction is. At least for Bilbo and Frodo the desire to use the Ring is 'shown' in dramatic action, with clear, direct consequences for the outcome of the plot in LOTR. This puts the question of moral choice in a specific context rather than in the kind of generalizations which to which philosophy is prey.

What LOTR never gives us is the dramatization of Saruman's fall. We are told over and over than he is the bad guy. And we see behaviours which are not estimable. But we are never shown how it was that he succumbed to this evil. If we weren't told he was bad from the outset, would we be able to recognize his turpitude?

Likely this is a consequence of Tolkien's decision (I assume) to attempt to dramatize good rather than evil. But it leaves us, I would argue, with a fuzzy view of evil. A view which tends towards the relatively simple habit of naming things evil without really analyzing what is the perilous attraction of evil. And without demanding from readers an active effort to discriminate who is good and who is evil.

Humbly submitted,
Bêthberry

[Kuruharan]

But it leaves us, I would argue, with a fuzzy view of evil.

Or it presents the view that evil is rather fuzzy because it is a distortion of the Good.

[Lyta_Underhill]

What LOTR never gives us is the dramatization of Saruman's fall. We are told over and over than he is the bad guy. And we see behaviours which are not estimable. But we are never shown how it was that he succumbed to this evil. If we weren't told he was bad from the outset, would we be able to recognize his turpitude?

An interesting point to punctuate a very interesting discussion! There are too many points to cover in my limited time, so I'll stick to only a few. In the matter of Saruman's fall, we would have only the observations of those who came into contact with him (i.e., the Istari), who never suspected the depth of his corruption until it was almost too late. Even Gandalf did not realize the mechanism of his fall until Pippin's fortuitous encounter with the palantir shed light on it for him (and for Pippin, I believe!). The Evil can only be sleuthed out and back-analyzed by the forces of Good, for that is the POV insisted upon by Professor Tolkien.

One aspect of this "fall" I would say is the giving in of the individual to desire, the desire for material or non-material gain. Whenever one possesses something, one can lose it. Thus fear enters in, and the possessor can never be 100% satisfied. He or she must act or think in order to keep what is gained. I think this is also illustrated in the initial concept utilized by Sauron in the making of the Rings. If you objectify power, make it into a material thing, you can make people want it and fight for it, thus invoking desire and then following with fear of loss. There is probably nobody alive who does not feel desire in some measure and manner, so the attraction would be pretty much universal. Perhaps this is also one aspect of the enigmatic nature of Tom Bombadil that causes the Ring to be "just a thing" with no attached significance or power over him.

Also, the assertion that the Ring gives power according to the measure of its bearer would seem to bear out the design of its acting upon the desires within the bearer's heart, these desires being commensurate with his inner focus or "measure."

I know all this sidesteps the issue of morality to an extent, but perhaps it poses a new question: can there be happiness if there is desire? Can desire be reconciled with a moral code, or can it be simply resisted and a moral life be adhered to with a secret longing? Is this part of the kernel of Frodo's dissatisfaction once he has been divested of the Ring? All this and more on the next episode of "One Philosophy to Rule Them All!" smilies/wink.gif (Forgive my silliness...just can't help it sometimes!)

Cheers,
Lyta

[ October 25, 2003: Message edited by: Lyta_Underhill ]

[Lord of Angmar]

And without demanding from readers an active effort to discriminate who is good and who is evil. (Bethberry)

I agree that Tolkien is not ambiguous in his characterizations. However, there are some examples that differ. There are varying opinions on the morality of such characters as Feanor and his sons and Turin Turambar. And certainly he leaves us in suspense until the end of the Two Towers about whether Gollum will change or remain the same. However, he does usually provide a clear-cut view of character morality as he defines it.

[Mister Underhill]

Kant disputes the notion of a morality in which happiness is the highest ethical goal, but he also writes: “I class the principle of moral feeling under that of happiness, because every empirical interest promises to contribute to our well-being by the agreeableness that a thing affords, whether it be immediately and without a view to profit, or whether profit be regarded.”

Again, I’m a bit out of my depth here, but I don’t think Plato asserts a system in which personal happiness is the highest goal either. Happiness, fulfillment, inner peace, and so on are rather side effects of virtue, not its goals.

To argue that perfect immorality can equal perfect happiness has a rather Orwellian twang to it. If it is easier, more expedient, and more profitable to be immoral, and yet through an immoral lifestyle you can still be happy and fulfilled and at peace, isn’t it logical to live an immoral lifestyle? And isn’t the morality of LotR then so much deluded hogwash, not even admirable as an unattainable ideal because it espouses the opposite (sacrifice, humility, mercy) of what is ‘rational’?

I suppose I don’t require the absolute rational justification of morality that some of you require, so I am unable to provide it for you on your terms. I’m back to where I was before – better men than me have tried and failed. Do I need to define happiness and fulfillment? I can tell you what happiness isn’t – the (fleeting) rush of feelings of omnipotence and power that some serial killers report feeling when they humiliate and murder their victims. A fulfilling relationship does not include the probability that either party will betray the other at any time if an opportunity for personal gain or pleasure presents itself. Inner peace is not compatible with scheming, manipulation, and duplicity. Listen, I can’t rationally prove that love is worth anything, but I’m not waiting around for proof. Am I merely constructing tautologies for myself, and striving after untenable, unsound, even foolish ideals (and all too often falling short of the mark)? So be it. I’d rather aspire after high ideals than neatly argue myself out of any responsibility to live up to a high moral standard. Better to idolize the likes of Gandalf and Ghandi than Gordon Gecko (“Greed is good. Greed works.”). I would also submit that the most extreme acts of morality do not have their bases in logic and rationality, but in emotion. I can only hope that when I am in need of someone to do the right thing, they won’t stop to consider whether or not there’s a bulletproof rational reason for them to help me.

Bêthberry: I think that people sometimes get overly caught up in the principle of “show not tell”. Exposition has its place. Theorists and critics rant that artists should always show and never tell, while storytellers do what they have to do to get the story out.

Following on Lyta’s excellent post regarding Saruman, I don’t have much to add. Is it really a flaw of LotR that we don’t see each step in Saruman’s fall? I don’t think so. Sometimes, indeed most often, evil presents itself to us without any explanation of how it became that way – as Hitler suddenly appeared on the world stage in the thirties. Is it really important to know how and why he fell? I’m also disappointed to see you fall back on the old critical saw that Tolkien is morally simplistic. There are whole threads devoted to disputing that idea kicking around in the archives of the Downs. Need we pull out Boromir, Denethor, Gollum, yes, even Saruman and his refusal to accept redemption again? Most of Tolkien’s characters struggle with fear, doubt, and temptation to one degree or another. Some are redeemed (Boromir), some are not (Denethor, Gollum).

[ October 26, 2003: Message edited by: Mister Underhill ]

[Lyta_Underhill]

There are varying opinions on the morality of such characters as Feanor and his sons and Turin Turambar.
Good examples, Lord of Angmar! It brings to my mind yet another point in the endless series of debates about the rightness or wrongness of the Oath of Fëanor and the doggedness of his sons in carrying it out. Certainly Fëanor desired his Silmarils; so did just about everyone else! But the uppermost in his mind was the villainy of Morgoth in the slaying of his father Finwë. Which was uppermost? Would his Oath be more justified if it were a simple act of avenging the death of his father? Did the Silmarils muddy the water too much? Did the Sons of Fëanor pursue the Oath out of an actual desire for the Silmarils or out of respect for their father's wishes? The moral battle seems to be fought most closely in the heart of Maedhros and Maglor, who were upstanding citizens of Middle Earth, until it came to those pesky Silmarils, and there we have a clear illustration of the doomed and unrighteous nature judged upon their Oath: neither can bear to handle the treasure they spent their last energies upon. Here there seems to be a moral judgement laid upon them by the very fabric and nature of the world itself, a clear illustration that they had strayed from the good and moral path, for their hands were literally burned! Does the burned hand teach best? Indeed! But this does seem to argue that in Tolkien's world there is an adjudicated morality, at least with respect to the Elves, and the punishment for the Sons of Fëanor is indeed perfectly fitted into this framework.

While I was ponderously writing and thinking, Mister Underhill came out with a long post I had to stop and consider. I am not sure if you are accusing me of considering Tolkien's morality simplistic or to reducing Saruman's fall to a simple one to one incidence with the use of the palantir, but I do not believe such things can be reduced like that, and apologize if I gave that impression. I simply related that this was a clarifying point in the mind of Gandalf and he relates his deductions to Pippin during their flight to Minas Tirith and only then do certain pieces fall into place. Although, I wouldn't say that it is necessarily a bad thing to have a simplistic moral view. Saruman the White was much purer and simpler than Saruman of Many Colors. "I liked white better." I take Gandalf's admonition to Saruman, "He who breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom," to be an apt one and that the more one complicates an issue, the cloudier it can seem, when, in most cases, the path is "plain as a pikestaff," as Sam would put it.

I cannot blame you for seeking your best personal path without falling back on the need to rationalize it, Underhill. That is admirable and is also something I hold to be a failing of certain philosophies that hold too closely to logic (although I am less qualified to enumerate them than just about anyone, as I haven't read philosophical works since the early 1980's and my memory is like a sieve.)

Well, I can't think of anything else right now, but I am thoroughly enjoying this discussion! My thanks to all involved!

Cheers,
Lyta

[ October 25, 2003: Message edited by: Lyta_Underhill ]

[Mister Underhill]

Sorry Lyta -- the lack of clarity is my fault. I found your post on Saruman to be quite excellent. It was that rascal Bêthberry whom I accused of accusing Tolkien of moral simplicity. smilies/wink.gif

[Lyta_Underhill]

Ah, many thanks, Mister Underhill! I must say, however, that Bethberry's post was the one that got me up to posting velocity, so perhaps she gets the laurels for "Mover and Shaker," all simplicity aside! smilies/wink.gif

And in that vein, I must add more! I just can't help it! Quoting Bethberry again:
Likely this is a consequence of Tolkien's decision (I assume) to attempt to dramatize good rather than evil. But it leaves us, I would argue, with a fuzzy view of evil. A view which tends towards the relatively simple habit of naming things evil without really analyzing what is the perilous attraction of evil. And without demanding from readers an active effort to discriminate who is good and who is evil.
Certainly the POV is one-sided, but I'd say this view is probably coincident with the views of many of the foot soldiers who head off to fight the wars of one country against another, or in the name of religion, etc. I think the redeeming aspect in Tolkien's work is the individual internalization of good, rather than the external, idealistic, tacked-on view that seems to be the result of the propaganda inflicted in modern wars and in modern peacetime. The intrinsic good nature of the Hobbits illustrates this for me, but even this must be indoctrinated to an extent, and by experience, the views of each hobbit is tempered. At the beginning of the story, we see Frodo expressing his views that Gollum should have been killed outright and his distaste at Gandalf mentioning that there could have been any relationship between Gollum and the race of Hobbits. His views are provincial, but, as his name subtly implies (Frodo-wise by experience), he learns better. He, more than any, learns the virtue of not merely discerning the good from the evil, but also reacting to it in a way that is inherently good in itself, i.e., with mercy. So, far from simply trotting off to fight Evil with his trusty friends, Frodo becomes a case in point, a testament to the possibilities for good in mortal beings, not because he blindly defends the good without understanding evil, but because he does not stoop to the level of the evil of which he learns more than he ever wished.

Perhaps I hold these views because Frodo is one of the characters I internalize and identify with above most of the others in the book. Maybe I hold these views because, in my later years I have come to focus on questions such as this in daily life, whereas they were not in the forefront 12 years ago when I first read LOTR. Evolution in thought IMO is a good thing, and I am always willing to be convinced of the merit of an idea.

Cheers!
Lyta

[Keeper of Dol Guldur]

This is where college finally pays off. . .

Another interesting parallel is the use of the debate to find the truth-Socrates used his Elenchus to draw somebody into an argument and turn them from sure of themselves and their views to confusion and utmost skepticism. Only once you've opened your mind to the fact that you can be wrong, can you truly understand something. In that regard, the Council of Elrond went over the various arguments, then ultimately decided what must be done once the other arguments were proven to be invalid. Of course, this human factors of Boromir, and other influences which would be a bit sketchy later couldn't have been taken into account as far as the debate went.

[Diamond18]

Before I add my two cents I should say that most often philosophical discussions travel quite a few feet over my head, but I’ve made it through all these posts in one piece so I will try to state what I’m thinking as clearly as possible (and, just for Sharkû, I will see if I can pull everything back to Tolkien smilies/tongue.gif). Apologies if I’m impossible to understand or say something really stupid. Onward:

I think that, by and large, the idea that morality is worthwhile because it makes us feel better misses the point of morality to begin with. As evidenced by this discussion, it is impossible to define what happiness means to other people, or rate what is fulfilling, if we are trying to determine it on a strictly personal level. I do not believe that “right” and “wrong” is something developed by human society. Even though in the movie Gandalf tells Frodo to listen to what his heart tells him (FotR EE just before they come to the gates of Moria), I do not believe Tolkien would ever have adhered to such a statement. The heart lies, people lie, society lies. The characters in Tolkien who do right do not do it because their heart tells them to.

Aiwendill writes:

It seems to me (and it seems natural to me) that the right thing to do is the right thing to do, regardless of how the doer feels about it and regardless of how it will make the doer feel.

…

An implicit question here is whether morality actually exists (that is, whether there is really some rational justification for ideas of right and wrong) or whether it is merely a human invention. I hold out some hope for the former, but the more I think about things the more I am inclined toward the latter. And in this case, it makes no sense to talk about something actually being right or wrong; we can only talk about things being called right and wrong by humans.

This conclusion, I think, indicates why it is important to first understand the basis for morality. If it is, indeed, merely a result of people learning how to co-exist, there is, in fact, no such thing as right and wrong. Because of all the arguments that can be made about ends justifying means, and all the arguments that can be made for relativism and subjectivism, anything which begins with people determining what is best can never reach an answer about the nature or existence of morality itself. This is why, if we are to make an argument for morality, we have to lay aside all the logic and reasoning stemming from its effect on humans, and look at morality as something that was, is, and always will be regardless of the humans who follow it (or not). In order for it to be worth following, it has to be bigger than us.

Since Tolkien was Catholic, a Christian denomination, I think there is reason here to bring up the Christian philosophy (which is most certainly not the same as Plato). The reason for the morality in Tolkien’s works all ultimately goes back to Eru—Morgoth and Sauron are evil because they defy/try to supplant Eru. That is the root of their evil, the reason they are the head bad guys. All the evil works they commit are undeniably evil because they go against Eru. And Eru has the right to be The One because he existed before anything else, and nothing else could even exist without him. Therefore, anyone besides Eru cannot create truth, because Eru is Truth. So the concept of personal truth (i.e. this is what’s right ‘for me’) is bunk. Rightness, morality, and truth come from Eru/God and no other source. Evil and immorality come from opposing The One, therefore evil and immorality are not even things in and of themselves, they are merely “the opposite” of good. Eru cannot be evil, because evil cannot create, only twist. (I read an excellent explanation of this in a book about Tolkien, I believe by Kocher. It purported that all the evil in Tolkien’s work begins with or leads to nothingness.)

I don’t believe that you can justify morality without acknowledging that it all stems from one thing, one being, one ultimate truth. Is this simplistic? Yes. If you take away “The One” (Eru in Tolkien’s works, and Jesus in Christianity) you are left with humans as the ultimate beings. So therefore, yes, morality would have to come from humanity if it exists at all. This would make human selfishness not only justifiable, but an actual virtue. Plato’s philosophy (and any other that discounts God as the ultimate reason) seems to be rooted in selfishness, the belief that right and wrong can be defined by how it comes back around to the doer.

Plato’s statement that people are moral because it makes us feel good, falls short simply because people are not moral. Morality does not come from human thought or human emotions or human rationale. I believe that yes, evil can and does make individual people feel “good”, and evil can be justified on the level of human thought, because of our finite and selfish nature. But this should mean nothing, because if what you consider right and wrong is determined by what makes you feel good or bad, you believe that you are the most important being in the universe. You might not think this in those words, but isn’t that what it boils down to? If what makes you feel good is the answer, even if doing good for others makes you feel good, you’re still viewing your own self as the end to the question. The One. Morgoth wanted to be the most important being in the universe. That’s what made him the bad guy. And in different ways, whenever a character in Tolkien’s work acted in a way that seemed to be the best for his/herself personally at that moment, bad things happened. This follows the Christian philosophy that the self should not and is not the reason behind morality.

Also, simply saying that even if evildoers don’t seem to suffer in this life, they’ll be punished in afterlife, fails to touch on why they’ll be punished and why it is right for them to be punished. Being good just to avoid punishment doesn’t amount to much if you don’t acknowledge why good is good.

Even though this is really long, note that I’m only trying to touch on the origin of morality. Actions and thoughts that are considered moral can only be so, if morality can first be defined separate from those things. Actions and thoughts are only the results. The way I see the root (and I know the non-Christians and the moderators here are going to hate this, but remember, Christianity was Tolkien’s philosophy!) is that morality starts with acknowledging that God is the only One who has any right to define morality because He is true Morality, the First and Last reason for being, for doing, for thinking and feeling. Even though Tolkien did not make LotR blatantly Christian, all the “morality” and “immorality” upheld in his works can be traced back to the issue of Eru’s sanctity.

[Sharkû]

Diamond, your post coincides beautifully with what I have been preparing, therefore I have little to add.
Most of what you said can be supported by Tolkien's views from Myths Transformed, HoME X, 5, from which all following quotes are, many from the Melkor-Morgoth-essay:

"Every finite creature must have some weakness: that is some inadequacy to deal with some situations. It is not sinful when not willed, and when the creature does his best (even if it is not what should be done) as he sees it - with the conscious intent of serving Eru."
For 'sinful' one could read 'immoral' here. Note that flawed actions are, however, sinful when the person does not have the conscious purpose of serving Eru.

"[T]he mere contemplating of the possibility of genuine repentance, if that did not come specially then as a direct grace from Eru, was at least one last flicker of his [Morgoth's] true primeval nature."
Repentance is 'divine'.

"[E]vil things appeared in Arda, which did not descend from any direct plan or vision of Melkor: they were not 'his children'; and therefore, since all evil hates, hated him [Morgoth] too."
All evil creatures and persons hate. Hate rules out happiness. Constantly immoral beings cannot be happy in Eä.

"Melkor had abandoned for ever all 'spiritual' ambitions, and existed almost solely as a desire to possess and dominate matter, and Arda in particular."
Ultimate evil coincides with ultimate un-happiness: a desire that can never be fulfilled.

Conscious rejection of Eru and his creation, to the extent of Melkor, but also on a smaller scale, would be a hatred that could never be satisified. In the end, everything is within Eru's design, after all.

Note, however, that not all immoral actions include rejection of Eru's will, certainly not consciously so. Nevertheless it is correct that they stem from that.

n.b. I actually don't think it is very necessary to apply Christian philosophy to Eä, simply because Tolkien never described a Christian Eä, but a monotheistic one, long before the (apparently eventual) coming of Christ to Middle-earth. Of course, that might just be paying too much attention to terminology.

[ October 26, 2003: Message edited by: Sharkû ]

[Mister Underhill]

Very interesting and articulate comments, Diamond. I have a few observations:

First, and with all the usual disclaimers that my Plato is rusty, I think you have misapprehended Plato’s – and possibly my – position. Plato indeed held that morality proceeded from “the gods”, which is the same as “from God” for our purposes here – that is, in Plato’s view, morality is not a human invention, nor is its ultimate aim individual happiness or the mere orderly conduct of society. If you believe that morality proceeds from ultimate truth, and that subversion of or opposition to that truth (immorality) leads to nothingness and evil, it follows that the more you are in accord with truth/God/the gods, the more contented, fulfilled, and at peace you will be, whereas the more you are in discord with that truth, the more you will be spiritually miserable. This, I think, is the thrust of Plato’s statement quoted from Esty’s book far above.

Second, if you believe in a benevolent God who created humans and who desires them to be in accord with His truth, then I think you must also admit that humans must come equipped with some means of discerning truth from falsehood, right from wrong. This must be even more true in Middle-earth, where there is no received law from Eru to guide human behavior. We call this conscience, of course, and in this sense, I think Tolkien would not have looked too sharply on the “listen to your heart” line (cf. Romans 2:14-15).

Sharkey, an outstanding text-based contribution, as always. I am all for exploring Tolkien’s Catholicism when it’s appropriate to do so, but I agree that there is little need to relate it directly here. In fact, I might add that since there are only the most obtuse references to Eru and no organized religion in sight in LotR, “conscious intent of serving Eru” might almost be read as “doing what one knows to be right”. Certainly we never see Frodo or Sam consciously puzzling over what Eru would have them do. They use their conscience as their guide. On the other hand, naturally, are characters such as Gandalf and Sauron, who have more insight into the concept of divine will and whether or not they are acting in accord with it.

[mark12_30]

Frodo and Sam do take Gandalf's opinion very, very seriously. If they know it or can guess it, they do their best to perform it. It's as if they understand that he Knows What Should Be, most of the time. They trust him a great deal.

If one considers Gandalf as either a prophet or an angelic power (Maia/Vala...) then perhaps the concept to obedience to the divine will is not so far removed as one might think. The common view of angels is, messengers from the Lord, whose job it is to communicate the commands of the Lord.

[Mister Underhill]

Good point, Helen, though I hasten to add that Gandalf is not a prophet in the true sense of that word, nor is he an angelic power in the sense that he serves as a herald for Eru, transmitting a direct message from him. He may be considered an angelic power in a way, of course, but a flawed and fallible one.

I'd also add that the average Middle-earther who did not have access to the tutelage of the very wise was left with little but his or her conscience to go on.

[ October 26, 2003: Message edited by: Mister Underhill ]

[Amarthol]

wow...comparing Plato to Tolkien may work... but according to himself Tolkien only meant for LOTR to be kind of the mythology of England, not philosophy... I think... smilies/frown.gif

[Diamond18]

if you believe in a benevolent God who created humans and who desires them to be in accord with His truth, then I think you must also admit that humans must come equipped with some means of discerning truth from falsehood, right from wrong. This must be even more true in Middle-earth, where there is no received law from Eru to guide human behavior. We call this conscience, of course, and in this sense, I think Tolkien would not have looked too sharply on the “listen to your heart” line (cf. Romans 2:14-15).

To clarify: I wasn't discounting a God-given conscience as giving people an innate sense of good and evil, but the "listen to your heart" line is one I've heard thrown out in so many movies as the answer to any dilemma, as if right and wrong originate in the heart (rather than being "written on it"). In most contexts I don't think that "heart" and "conscience" are the same thing, as people often feel impulses to do wrong, based on the desires of a corrupted heart. So, in other words, our conscience ofttimes tells us not to do what our heart desires.

On Plato's philosophy: I admit that my knowledge of Plato's writings is quite slim, so I was mainly basing my comments pertaining to him off of the quote from Esty's post, which didn't include Plato's reasoning why immorality leads to ultimate misery. So I'm not surprised I misunderstood quite what he meant. Ah... well.... smilies/smile.gif

[Aiwendil]

I've been away for a bit and I see that the discussion has moved on considerably from where I left off. Nonetheless, a few scattered remarks:

Arwen1858 wrote:
The definition given in the dictionary for fulfill that goes along with this discussion it 'to satisfy.' Are those people, who are living the immoral lives, satisfied? Do they have everything they desire? Are they completely happy with everything they have and everything they've done? I doubt that.

Substituting "satisfied" for "fulfilled" doesn't help. I can still ask precisely what you mean by it - and I think it will still come down either to being a simple state of mind or a tautology.

Lord of Angmar wrote:
I think, happily, that one can rationally justify what we would call a life of morality and virtue.

How? I ask in all seriousness. Kant tried to do this and failed, and I know of no one else who has done better. Note that what I mean by "rationally justify" is to provide a purely rational argument that people should behave morally.

Since I think we can all agree that nobody wants to be killed, and that we can all agree that it inherently makes us feel worse having been stolen from, lied to or cheated out of something, as I think has always been the case for civilized humanity, then we can sum up those things (murder, thievery, etc.) as being immoral.

But this does not provide any rational argument for why I - or anyone - should be moral. All it does is categorize actions as moral or immoral.

mark12_30 wrote:
I think Tolkien would heartily disagree, since his worldview was deeply and staunchly Catholic.

Undoubtedly. I was discussing the real world. But you are certainly right that, insofar as we analyze the morality of things in Middle-earth, we must accept Tolkien's views.

Mister Underhill wrote:
Kant disputes the notion of a morality in which happiness is the highest ethical goal, but he also writes: “I class the principle of moral feeling under that of happiness, because every empirical interest promises to contribute to our well-being by the agreeableness that a thing affords, whether it be immediately and without a view to profit, or whether profit be regarded.”

I'm at school so, alas (and ironically), I don't have any Kant with me. But I quite distinctly remember a passage in "Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals" where he says that one's inclination is irrelevant; one must perform moral actions out of duty rather than out of desire.

Again, I’m a bit out of my depth here, but I don’t think Plato asserts a system in which personal happiness is the highest goal either. Happiness, fulfillment, inner peace, and so on are rather side effects of virtue, not its goals.

Fair enough. I may have mischaracterized Plato's views. Nonetheless, Plato's theory does require that unhappiness inevitably accompanies immorality, so he still does draw a fundamental connection between the two concepts, of a kind completely different from any made by the Enlightenment thinkers.

To argue that perfect immorality can equal perfect happiness has a rather Orwellian twang to it. If it is easier, more expedient, and more profitable to be immoral, and yet through an immoral lifestyle you can still be happy and fulfilled and at peace, isn’t it logical to live an immoral lifestyle?

Alas, it seems so. Unless a purely rational justification for morality can be derived. But I will never choose to believe something simply because I prefer it or because I do not wish to face the consequences of some other view.

But note that, even in the case where morality is a fiction, a course of action can be rationally justified only with respect to certain ends. It might then be rational to be "immoral", with respect to the end of personal pleasure. But there could be nothing like moral force to such a rational argument. Someone who criticized LotR on these grounds could not say that the book was morally wrong, because in this world there is no such thing as moral wrong.

I suppose I don’t require the absolute rational justification of morality that some of you require, so I am unable to provide it for you on your terms.

The problem that I see with this is that without a rational justification, morality has no force. If I want to be immoral, you would not be able to give me a good reason not to be. And one's condemnation of an immoral person would be limited to a kind of "Tsk, tsk, that person will never be fulfilled."

There have been several other great posts here, but I don't have time to give them all the well-considered responses they deserve, so I'll stop at this.

[Arwen1858]

Mister Underhill wrote:
Second, if you believe in a benevolent God who created humans and who desires them to be in accord with His truth, then I think you must also admit that humans must come equipped with some means of discerning truth from falsehood, right from wrong. This must be even more true in Middle-earth, where there is no received law from Eru to guide human behavior. We call this conscience, of course, and in this sense, I think Tolkien would not have looked too sharply on the “listen to your heart” line (cf. Romans 2:14-15).
I'm glad you put a reference to that verse. I was wanting to quote it in my earlier post about the conscience, but I just couldn't remember where in the Bible it was at!

Diamond18 said:
To clarify: I wasn't discounting a God-given conscience as giving people an innate sense of good and evil, but the "listen to your heart" line is one I've heard thrown out in so many movies as the answer to any dilemma, as if right and wrong originate in the heart (rather than being "written on it"). In most contexts I don't think that "heart" and "conscience" are the same thing, as people often feel impulses to do wrong, based on the desires of a corrupted heart. So, in other words, our conscience ofttimes tells us not to do what our heart desires.

I think that a lot of times when someone says to follow your heart, they don't mean to follow your conscience. It seems to be tied more into emotion and what you want, rather than what is actually right. I guess it would depend on what context you mean it in.

Mister Underhill wrote:
Good point, Helen, though I hasten to add that Gandalf is not a prophet in the true sense of that word, nor is he an angelic power in the sense that he serves as a herald for Eru, transmitting a direct message from him. He may be considered an angelic power in a way, of course, but a flawed and fallible one.
I do see him as being like an angel in some ways. And in Christianity, some angels were flawed and fallible, as well. Satan himself was once an angel. But like Melkor or Sauron, his lust for power turned him bad.

Diamond18 said:
Before I add my two cents I should say that most often philosophical discussions travel quite a few feet over my head, but I’ve made it through all these posts in one piece so I will try to state what I’m thinking as clearly as possible
I've enjoyed your posts! It doesn't sound like you're in over your head. smilies/smile.gif

I am a Christian, and do believe that God gave us a conscience, so we will know right from wrong. But by nature, often times we want to do something we know isn't right. That's what the conscience is for. To tell us what we're doing is wrong. And try to imagine a world without any morality at all. People would care mainly for themselves, would do what they wanted to do, regardless of how it might affect others. They would lie, steal, cheat, and kill if it would help them out. I don't think that morality is something that we humans have set up. I think it is ingrained in us. To bring this back around to Tolkien, here's an example. Why was Saruman bad? Sure, he had people killed, and yeah, he did follow Sauron, but was he really all that bad? I mean, he was just doing what he had to to achieve his goals and gain what he wanted. We consider him to be bad because we know the things he did to be wrong. Our sense of morality and our consciences tell us that it is wrong.
Well, I think I've gone on long enough!!
Arwen

[Mister Underhill]

Aiwendil, I think you’ve run up against the same barrier that Kant hit. If morality exists outside of human invention, then its source is unknowable, and therefore unprovable. Logic and science have no answers to the question, “Why?”

You’re coming from a viewpoint that will only accept purely rational justifications for morality and motives. I’m coming from the viewpoint that logic and science are useful tools and good as far as they go, but they are only tools that describe a fraction of reality, not reality itself, and are not the only routes to useful truth.

You may deride or dismiss motives or truths which do not proceed from anything other than pure logic, but I suggest to you that logic alone is not enough. Einstein once said, “Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and Jesus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the enquiring and constructive mind.”

Have you ever read Michael Crichton’s non-fiction book, “Travels”? I recommend that you check out the book’s very last section, titled “Postscript: Skeptics at Cal Tech”, which contains a speech that Crichton delivered to a group of scientists. In it, Crichton does a good job (I think) of suggesting that science and rationality, while valuable, are not the be all and end all of human inquiry. It’s somewhat off-point of our discussion here, but is interesting reading nonetheless.

The reason I question you on the rationality of an immoral vs. a moral lifestyle is to see where you’re at, exactly, to find out whether you believe in the rationality of a generally immoral lifestyle and, if so, if you’re living according to that logic. Obviously, this is a somewhat rhetorical line of questioning, as you seem to feel at least some measure of distress or disappointment over where your conclusions are leading you. Would you say that you try to live a more or less moral lifestyle? Why or why not?

With regards to Kant, there is a distinction which appears to be missing here somewhere and which keeps leading to miscommunication, a fault which no doubt lies with yours truly. I am not arguing that moral actions are measured by the feelings of pleasure or pain that performing them evokes in the moment, nor am I arguing that Kant (or Plato) suggests anything of the kind. Moral actions frequently are difficult, even painful to perform because they involve some personal sacrifice. I’m speaking more of a deep inner happiness, an abiding fulfillment and deep contentment. Here I suppose we may approach some definition of happiness as being in accord with universal truth. Kant speaks of pure moral actions as ones that “elevate the soul”.

The point of all this Kant business is that I think Kant argues for moral imperatives as natural laws, performed not for the sake of some nebulous idea of what might produce personal happiness, but out of duty – “...principles dictated by reason, which must have their source wholly a priori and thence their commanding authority, expecting everything from the supremacy of the law and the due respect for it, nothing from inclination, or else condemning the man to self-contempt and inward abhorrence.” My understanding of that is that refutation of those natural moral laws – or even observance of them for the wrong reasons – results in “self-contempt and inward abhorrence” – unhappiness. In this sense, I think Kant agrees with Plato insofar as he postulates that a moral life is superior to an immoral one for the very reason that immorality results ultimately in “a fundamental unhappiness”. While I may have specific interpretations of Kant wrong, I don’t think I’m far off in that regard. BTW, “Groundwork...” is available online (and is the source of the above quotations) at Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (http://www.swan.ac.uk/poli/texts/kant/kantcon.htm).

Diamond, thanks for the clarification. I’m curious, though – I decided to check the line in the movie, but couldn’t find the one you mention. Gandalf tells Frodo, “You must trust yourself. Trust your own strengths.” – a line which Tolkien may indeed have objected to.

[ October 27, 2003: Message edited by: Mister Underhill ]

[the phantom]

If morality exists outside of human invention, then its source is unknowable, and therefore unprovable. Logic and science have no answers to the question, “Why?”
I’m coming from the viewpoint that logic and science are useful tools and good as far as they go, but they are only tools that describe a fraction of reality, not reality itself, and are not the only routes to useful truth.
I think you have shown the importance (and perhaps necessity) of religious beliefs in forming a moral society.

Human reasoning alone does not appear to grasp the logic behind individual morality. It seems that a certain amount of faith is needed to justify a moral lifestyle, for behaving in such a way without clearly seeing an earthly incentive for the behavior does not seem logical unless one believes in a dimension of life that is not "earthly", but rather eternal or supernatural.

[Aiwendil]

If morality exists outside of human invention, then its source is unknowable, and therefore unprovable.

I don't think this is quite right. The implication is that if something exists outside of human invention then it is not epistemically accessible. But the laws of physics are surely knowable, even confirmable, and they exist outside of human invention (or are you a constructivist?).

Logic and science have no answers to the question, “Why?”

Only because the question "Why?" is so often imprecise. Logic and science have a great many answers to specific questions of the form "Why x, given y?" True, they don't answer meaningless questions or ill-formulated questions, but I can certainly live with that.

You may deride or dismiss motives or truths which do not proceed from anything other than pure logic, but I suggest to you that logic alone is not enough.

I will grant that logic alone is not enough. There are several troublesome problems in the foundations of rationality with the result (among others) that logic alone cannot tell us anything about the world. But we can be as strictly rational as possible in admitting further evidence. In other words, one cannot support an assumption simply by pointing out that logic is not sufficient to tell us about the world.

Would you say that you try to live a more or less moral lifestyle?

Yes.

Why or why not?

For two reasons. First, because I still suspect that there may be some purely rational derivation for morality. If there is, then it's good that I am being moral. If there isn't, it doesn't matter anyway.

Second, because it pleases me to be moral. But I do not claim this as a general truth for all people.

I am not arguing that moral actions are measured by the feelings of pleasure or pain that performing them evokes in the moment, nor am I arguing that Kant (or Plato) suggests anything of the kind. Moral actions frequently are difficult, even painful to perform because they involve some personal sacrifice. I’m speaking more of a deep inner happiness, an abiding fulfillment and deep contentment.

This is as I understood you. And again, I think that this fulfillment either reduces to a state of mind or to a set of requirements so strict that the equivelance of happiness and morality becomes tautological.

But perhaps a further clarification ought to be made. Do you claim that the morality or immorality of an action (or intention) arises in direct relation to this fulfillment? Or do you claim that morality simply is what it is, and that it just so happens that happiness is correlated with morality?

As I understand it, Plato and Aristotle claim the former. That is, they think that happiness and morality are, on the most basic level, tied to one another. In their view, it doesn't make sense to talk about morality without also talking about happiness.

In the latter view (which is how I think you are reading Kant), morality can be defined without reference to the happiness or fulfillment of the moral agent. But once it is so defined, a correlation can be drawn between happiness and morality. I'm not sure whether this is Kant's view or not - I had assumed it was not, but your reading is interesting.

I think that the latter view is probably approximately true. That is, I think there may be exceptions. The trouble with the former view is that it does not allow exceptions, for in that view it is meaningless to speak of a "happy immoral person".

Suppose there were a person who, through some neurological abnormality, found it really deeply satisfying to murder innocent people and was deeply troubled by the thought of committing an act of kindness.

Would you say that this person is moral? This is what I think the Platonic/Aristotelian view forces one to say. Would you say that the person is immoral and an exception to the general rule about morality corresponding to happiness? This is what I would say. Or would you say that you don't need to answer because this scenario is impossible? But why should it be impossible? Surely given sufficiently advanced neuroscience such a being could be constructed.

[Legolas]

What LOTR never gives us is the dramatization of Saruman's fall. We are told over and over than he is the bad guy. And we see behaviours which are not estimable. But we are never shown how it was that he succumbed to this evil. If we weren't told he was bad from the outset, would we be able to recognize his turpitude?

Likely this is a consequence of Tolkien's decision (I assume) to attempt to dramatize good rather than evil. But it leaves us, I would argue, with a fuzzy view of evil. A view which tends towards the relatively simple habit of naming things evil without really analyzing what is the perilous attraction of evil. And without demanding from readers an active effort to discriminate who is good and who is evil.

Evil is not so clearly or intentionally evil in its beginnings (often). It starts with mere disagreement with how things are being done; the "evil" guy thinks he would handle the situation better. It comes from good intentions. We do see where the problem with Saruman starts - with Curumo and Olorin being sent to Middle-earth. Who or what is evil is "fuzzy" because evil is a fuzzy concept. Saruman's problems begin (so far that we are aware) with Vara's noting that Gandalf is arriving last, but doesn't rank as such. The problem continues with Cirdan's giving Gandalf Narya, Galadriel and Elrond wanting Gandalf to head up the White Council, and so on. Further, Saruman was a Maia of Aule - Aule himself had trouble letting Eru be the Creator. It's not a coincidence that Sauron too was a Maia of Aule. This isn't given in The Lord of the Rings, but that's part of the limitations of the work's context. It's a journal written by a hobbit (or four) about the events in a very small slot of a world's history. It's a very limited point of view and time period when we're observing the 'angelic' immortal characters involved in a grander scale. Still, the jealousy/clashing of Saruman with Gandalf is presented with enough background information in the appendices, and we see what drove this further - the palantir, found with his occupancy of Orthanc nearly 100 years prior to his disagreement with Gandalf and the invasion of Dol Guldur.

[ October 27, 2003: Message edited by: Legolas ]

[The Saucepan Man]

Good golly! This subject has certainly generated an astounding number of thoughtful and well-argued posts. I cannot begin to do them all justice, largely because my knowledge of philosophy (which was never great in the first place) is now all but a distant memory. smilies/rolleyes.gif

But I do feel it necessary to comment on some of the responses to my previous post (now buried somewhere on the first page). I should, however, preface my comments by making the point that what follows is my own personal view. I am not saying that I am right and everyone else is wrong. Nor am I seeking to deny the views (and faiths) of others. I am just seeking to explain my own thoughts on morality and, in so doing, explain (I hope) why I am able to derive personal enjoyment from Tolkien’s works and also inspiration from his depiction of morality.

First, I argued that Plato’s analysis could not, in my view, form the basis for a sound philosophy because I believe that those who act immorally can (unfortunately) sometimes achieve happiness and fulfilment. Mister Underhill challenged the examples that I gave on the basis that their circumstances would inevitably cause them unhappiness:

The fearfulness of the Machiavellian prince and his feeling that he is justified in using any means to maintain his position is not compatible with true happiness as I understand it. I would reiterate this argument with regards to other sorts of hypothetical situations put forward. Is the hypothetical sociopath who feels no moral qualms truly happy, fulfilled, and at peace? To what degree a person is able to justify or harden their heart against immoral actions isn’t really the question – the question is, what is the result of this sort of lifestyle? Is it better and more fulfilling than a lifestyle spent in the pursuit of virtue? I think not.

But Aiwendil made a good point when he said:

Well (and I suppose it would have been good to have asked this up front), what exactly do you mean by "happy" and "fulfilled"? If what you mean is simply what these words suggest at face value - that is, a simple state of mind - then you are on rather shaky ground in making claims about what other people secretly feel. If you mean something more complicated, something like living a certain type of life, or having certain types of relationships, or something along these lines, then you are constructing a tautology for yourself.

I do not think that, in seeking to assess whether a person is happy and fulfilled, we can necessarily impose on them our own views of what happiness and fulfilment are. Quite possibly, the serial killer’s fulfilment in killing outweighs for him the lack of ability to form personal relationships. Similarly, the wealth and power enjoyed by the mafia boss might well outweigh the lack of security inherent in his lifestyle. Of course, the majority would not find contentment in these ways because, in consequence of the moral norms that govern us, the guilt and remorse provoked by such actions would outweigh the benefits that they bring.

Kuruharan queried whether money or power can really bring contentment, given that there will always be an insatiable desire for more. I don’t disagree that these things can never bring complete fulfilment. But, then again, can a person whose goal is virtue ever achieve such a thing? To achieve a life of complete virtue is incredibly difficult, indeed impossible for most of not all.

Mister Underhill asked:

If it is easier, more expedient, and more profitable to be immoral, and yet through an immoral lifestyle you can still be happy and fulfilled and at peace, isn’t it logical to live an immoral lifestyle?

But that misunderstands my point. I am not saying that it is necessarily easier, more expedient or more profitable to act in an immoral manner. Because of those moral norms that I keep mentioning, the person that leads an immoral life is more likely to get caught and punished, less likely to be able to form normal relationships, and so more likely to find unhappiness and discontent as a result. Those that act immorally do so because a combination of circumstances (upbringing, economic situation, laxity of laws and/or their enforcement, psychological make-up etc) lead them to believe that society’s moral norms do not apply to them and/or that it is in their better interests to act immorally. I would like to think that, frequently, they are wrong on this. But I would maintain that there are those who are probably correct in their assessment and do, in fact, find happiness and contentment (on their terms) in their immoral behaviour. And, going back to my original point, this is why I do not accept Plato’s analysis as a sound foundation for a philosophy.

Of course you may say that the converse of this is pretty depressing, namely that the majority of us act (broadly) morally because we are afraid of the consequences if we do not. Well, I think that this is part of it. But, I also believe that the majority of us do find greater satisfaction in acting on a moral basis and that the contentment that this brings does outweigh the benefits that immoral actions might otherwise bring us. Which leads me nicely to my theory on the “evolution” of morality.

Diamond said:

… morality starts with acknowledging that God is the only One who has any right to define morality because He is true Morality, the First and Last reason for being, for doing, for thinking and feeling.

Similarly, the phantom said:

I think you have shown the importance (and perhaps necessity) of religious beliefs in forming a moral society … It seems that a certain amount of faith is needed to justify a moral lifestyle, for behaving in such a way without clearly seeing an earthly incentive for the behavior does not seem logical unless one believes in a dimension of life that is not "earthly", but rather eternal or supernatural.

From a purely personal point of view, I cannot agree with either of these statements. I do not believe that a person needs to have faith, in the sense of acknowledging the existence of God (or indeed any god) in order to live a moral life. Atheists are just as capable of behaving morally as believers (of any denomination). I cannot believe that morality comprises an external set of rules imposed upon us by a divine being, since I do not have a strong faith and cannot therefore accept that the way in which I live my life is governed by a God whose existence I cannot be sure of.

On the other hand, I do not believe that morality is a human construct, in the sense that people got together and decided how they should and should not behave. In this sense, I agree with Diamond that:

If it is, indeed, merely a result of people learning how to co-exist, there is, in fact, no such thing as right and wrong.

I believe that morality is a pattern of behaviour, a set of natural laws if you like, adherence to which brings benefit to the individual and to society as a whole. Mankind did not develop these laws as civilisation developed. Rather, civilisation developed on the basis of these laws because it was generally in its interests to do so. I believe in evolution, which involves creatures developing in a way that best suits the environment in which they find themselves. They do not choose to evolve in a certain way, they just do because it is in their best interests to do so. Of course, as Lord of Angmar pointed out, we would find many of the practices of past societies (and those of some societies today, possibly even are own) to be fairly barbaric. That is because society is continually developing, and as it develops, it strives to find greater compatibility with this moral code. And there are, and possibly always will be, “grey areas”. To what extent, for example, is it justified to kill in the common good (capital punishment, war etc)? Those who would regard themselves as moral persons will have differing views on such issues. Perhaps this moral code that we are striving for will one day give us the answer. I don’t know because we haven’t got there yet.

Mister Underhill said:

As for theories that have been outlined which suggest that morality is merely an evolved set of behaviors which are the most conducive to a smoothly running society, well, I find them cold and hollow, a diminishment of the great dignity and compassion of which the human spirit is capable to a trivial bit of sociological conditioning.

I disagree. Just because society has evolved on the basis of a code which it is in society’s interests to follow does not mean that the code is “cold and hollow”. It is precisely because these moral norms are such a good thing to strive for that we (or the majority of us, at least) adhere to them. And because we acknowledge the correctness of behaving in such a matter, we can admire the dignity and compassion shown by those who do so in such a comprehensive manner.

Within such a view, the great humanitarians and heroes of civilization are simply aberrations, people who for unknown reasons (maybe it was something off-kilter in their brain chemistry or their upbringing) exceed the sociological imperative that society run only more or less smoothly.

I see what you’re getting at. Why would someone lay down their life for another or follow a humanitarian cause for no personal (material) gain, when this might not be for the greater benefit of society as a whole? Indeed, why do some people care so for the rights of animals when this doesn’t even offer any benefit to our species? Well some such actions can be justified on the basis of my theory alone. I believe that an adult who gives their life in order to save a child is acting in the best interests of society, as is someone who alleviates the suffering of millions at great personal sacrifice. But there is something more. Because moral action benefits society, I believe that we have developed to feel happiness and contentment in consequence of behaving in such a manner (in the same way that we take pleasure in other acts which benefit our society). And so (some) people do act in such a manner even when there is not necessarily any personal or societal interest in them doing so, save for the contentment that they (and perhaps others) feel in consequence of their actions. I would not necessarily regard them as “aberrations”. They have simply taken adherence to the moral code to a different level.

Moral actions frequently are difficult, even painful to perform because they involve some personal sacrifice. I’m speaking more of a deep inner happiness, an abiding fulfillment and deep contentment.

Yes, I agree. It is fairly easy to live a broadly moral life. And this brings its own rewards to those that feel contentment in acting in such a manner. But to live a life of great virtue at great personal sacrifice is difficult and something that a great many are not able to achieve. Rather, their happiness comes from acting in a broadly moral manner, while maintaining the material benefits that they would otherwise have to sacrifice. It is, I suppose, a sliding scale. And further “down” the scale are those who are able to derive happiness from immoral action. Personally, I set great store by moral action and I do live my life in what I would consider to be a moral manner. But, at the same time, I acknowledge that I am no saint since I am not able (or perhaps I should say I do not feel the need) to make the personal sacrifices that that would entail. I am nowhere near the bottom of my sliding scale but by no means at the top of it.

And so, after wittering on at such length, it is time to apply my views to Tolkien’s works. And, of course, I agree with those who have made the point that moral action in Tolkien’s world derives from service to Iluvatar. The way I see it, that is because, being the “creator” of the world, he was able to impose upon it his own moral values. And being a religious man, he saw moral action as deriving from service to God. Because he viewed morality in terms of acting (or striving to act) in a way that best serves God’s purpose, morality in Middle-earth is necessarily portrayed in terms of acting (or striving to act) in a way that best serves the purposes of Eru.

Mister Underhill said:

I’m curious about the people who admire Tolkien’s work, but view its morality as untenable in the “real world”. Would you still admire Aragorn if he gained his throne through trickery or treachery? Would Gandalf be the same character if he had, say, used some deception to assassinate Saruman on the premise that the ends justify the means? Do you think that the pity of Frodo and Bilbo with regards to Gollum is fine for a novel, but not really applicable to real life?

Well, for a start, I do not regard the morality of Tolkien’s works as untenable in the real world (save to the extent that he portrays immoral behaviour as necessarily leading to unhappiness). While I do not hold the beliefs that Tolkien held, I do still share his moral outlook. As I hope I have explained above, I come at it from a different angle. I perceive the morality in the deeds of those such as Aragorn and Frodo in the fact that their actions are directed towards to the greater benefit of their society. Indeed you can’t really do any more to benefit society than to save it from dominion by one such as Sauron and the suffering that such dominion would bring. Even though my views on the source of morality differ from those of Tolkien, I can nevertheless appreciate the value in the actions of these characters and therefore admire, and derive inspiration, from the personal sacrifices that they made in doing so.

The point that you make about whether the ends might justify the means is an interesting one, Mister Underhill. This was touched on in Telchar’s thread about “Wyatt Earp”, where their was almost universal agreement that Gandalf’s “deception” of Sauron, by drawing his attention to the Black Gate, in order to afford Frodo and Sam a greater chance of reaching Mount Doom, was justified. The strategy was not immoral because it harmed only Sauron, the paradigm of immorality. Rather it was moral because it achieved immeasurable benefit for Middle-earth in the destruction of Sauron. On that thread, I posited in contrast a situation where Gandalf sacrificed Merry and Pippin in order to achieve Sauron’s defeat. That would be a situation where the means would certainly not justify the end. By perpetrating one terrible immoral act to defeat the immorality of Sauron, Gandalf would have been simply replacing one evil with another. A society where sacrifice of the good and the innocent was acceptable would be no better than a society ruled by Sauron, and so no benefit would have been achieved.

Tolkien’s treatment of the characters who fall in the grey areas is particularly interesting. There are many to choose from, but I have probably way overstayed my welcome on this post, so I will consider only Boromir. Here is a character who is basically moral. But he perceives that his own interests and those of his society (Gondor) are best served by using the Ring against Sauron. And so he perpetrates one immoral act (an assault upon Frodo, possibly with intent to murder) in order to achieve that. But he has failed to see what the wise have seen, namely that using the Ring against Sauron would be in the best interests of neither Gondor nor the wider society (Middle-earth), since it would only help to bring about Sauron’s victory. And so, although he is ultimately redeemed, he nevertheless has to answer for his actions.

And this brings me full circle to my original point, which is that no character in Tolkien’s works who behaves immorally in some way escapes the consequences of doing so. Even Pippin’s “theft” of the Palantir results in him undergoing a severe trauma when he looks in it and is confronted by Sauron. And Frodo has to answer for the consequences of ultimately succumbing to the Ring. And that, I believe, is where Tolkien’s works do depart from real life since, in my view, people are in real life sometimes able to escape the consequences of their immoral behaviour.

Whoops! Sorry about the inordinate length of this post. I’ll shut up now. smilies/rolleyes.gif smilies/wink.gif

[Lush]

This thread has rocked my world.

Lyta, a number of posts again, you asked: "Can there be happiness if there is desire? Can desire be reconciled with a moral code, or can it be simply resisted and a moral life be adhered to with a secret longing?"

I'd say a big "HELL NO" to both of those inquiries.

The nature of desire is destructive, as we've said before.

Happily (at least for me), it can be argued a person does not need desire in order to achieve anything.

With that notion in mind, I would like to put forth the idea that Bombadil is one of those creatures that can achieve anything without actually desiring the said achievement. This is a concept tied in closely to Eastern philosophy; something Tolkien didn't subscribe to, as far as we can tell, but I nevertheless find it curiously applicable here.

This philosophy holds not only that "no desire equals no suffering" but also the notion that "anything can be achieved without desire." As in: [good?] deeds are to be done for the sake of doing them.

Furthermore, the secret longing that you speak of, I believe, is the most destructive force within the individual and within society; because it manifests itself in a person's deeds, sometimes without a person even knowing it.

The power of longing lies not in its subject and the means of getting to or not getting to said subject, but in its mere existence.

This is why I find people that suppress their [immoral?] urges to be hilarious: because in my view they're not any better off as that cokehead that cannot resist doing another line or whatever one's poison of choice ultimately is.

At the end of the day, I find that in terms of morality or immorality, we are all equal before God. There can be none of that, "Well I'm not Hitler or Sauron or anything, so I must have a better shot at redemption" in my eyes.

Furthermore, I maintain that any theory that tries to encompass the notions of morality will be incomplete, whether it be Kant's or Aiwendil's (btw, my friend, the laws of physics are not as cut and dry as you make them out to be, there is lots of stuff going on in that realm that we may never understand) or Tolkien's, or whatever.

I like to take this whole morality business one day and one deed at a time; like Tolkien's Sam, I believe. I
Which is why I am ultimately satisfied with the "fuzzy" (but are they warm too? smilies/wink.gif ) notions of immorality that Tolkien puts forth in LotR.

Whether consiously or not, Tolkien makes it pretty clear that he does not have all the answers.

Something about that makes the LotR ring truer for me than Plato's ponderings.

Oh, and Diamond: Don't give up on the notion of a human "heart," because of some cheesy lines in some cheesy movies.

The truth is, each human heart is corrupted somehow. That doesn't mean that the heart's leanings won't surprise you every once in a while.

And furthermore, my priest tells me that the divine cannot be reached through the pure workings of our conscience. It's gotta be a combined effort (remember Frodo at Weathertop? How he knew and did not know what he was doing or what force was speaking through him? Eh? Eh?).

[the phantom]

Saucepan Man wrote:
Atheists are just as capable of behaving morally as believers
They can behave morally, but my question is why? Why would an atheist behave morally?

I've seen arguments that say it's in the best interest of society for everyone to behave morally, but I'm not talking about society as a whole, I'm talking about the individual. It's often in the individual's best interest to behave immorally, so why doesn't he?

Is it fear of punishment? If so, then he's not really moral at heart.

Or do you think they act moral for the feeling of contentment you spoke of? But that doesn't make sense either since you said yourself that immoral people can "achieve happiness and fulfillment".

If both moral and immoral people can be happy in their own way, why choose one over the other? Especially, why choose the option that doesn't put your own wants and needs first?

In Tolkien's books there were moral characters that had their share of suffering (Beren, Finrod, Beleg) and there were immoral characters that had fame, power, wealth, and found enjoyment in their evil ways up until their death (Glaurung, Gothmog, Smaug, Witch King). If there was no eternal/supernatural dimension to Middle-Earth, I'd say that the bad guys were smarter.

Again, why pick a moral lifestyle over an immoral one?

What is the rational?

There doesn't appear to be any good reason, not one that I've seen yet, anyway. I personally believe that morality is beyond the simple wisdom and cold rational of man (and was not invented by man either). There has to be a reason for morality beyond this earth. If not, and this flesh and earth is all that there is to life, why not just grab everything you can for yourself and live a happy, immoral life? That would make the most sense.

[Aiwendil]

Lush wrote:
This is why I find people that suppress their [immoral?] urges to be hilarious: because in my view they're not any better off as that cokehead that cannot resist doing another line or whatever one's poison of choice ultimately is.

I don't understand. What would you have them do, give in to their immoral urges?

btw, my friend, the laws of physics are not as cut and dry as you make them out to be, there is lots of stuff going on in that realm that we may never understand

Did I say that they were cut and dry? I said that they are knowable and possibly confirmable. I suppose I ought to have prefaced "knowable" with "possibly" as well. There's still a host of problems that get in the way (the justification of logic, the acceptance of sense-data, the problem of confirmation, etc.). But at the very least, putting aside somewhat radical skeptical claims, we do at least know a great many things about the laws of physics.

Or were you referring to foundational problems in quantum mechanics? These are problems of a very different sort; they are primarily scientific rather than philosophical.

There's a whole very interesting and very lengthy discussion we could get into on either of these topics, but then I guess that's not exactly the purpose of this thread.

[Lyta_Underhill]

But the laws of physics are surely knowable, even confirmable, and they exist outside of human invention (or are you a constructivist?).
I'm not sure what a constructivist is, but certainly laws of physics are knowable, I would say. But I would also say that these same laws are human constructs derived to explain a universe that always manages to stay several steps ahead of the theorists, just as the tiny bugs of the universe seem to stay several steps ahead of the latest antimicrobial drugs. Somehow, it seems, the more we push, the further the answers slip beyond our searching minds, but it does keep us reaching, doesn't it? This is neither here nor there, I suppose. Lush, I don't know if you read the same pop physics books I do, but I know what you mean; the explanation of newer physics concepts to the layman is beginning to sound more and more like a spiritual exercise than a mathematical one.

There are several troublesome problems in the foundations of rationality with the result (among others) that logic alone cannot tell us anything about the world. But we can be as strictly rational as possible in admitting further evidence. In other words, one cannot support an assumption simply by pointing out that logic is not sufficient to tell us about the world.
Perhaps, Aiwendil, you have hit on one of the inevitable problems with defining what is, in effect a different question with different answers for those who consider it. It is impossible to reduce a concept to its basic motivations when the concept is not sufficiently defined in the first place.

When one equates happiness and adherence to a moral code, it is often in the context of what satisfies that person, and this is then equated to happiness. The moral life gives that person satisfaction. Most people believe they will be satisfied when a certain desire is met, which is a dangerous thing to assume, since desire appears addictive and ultimately never satisfiable. What most people do is adhere to a moral code, while maintaining what I referred to earlier as the "secret longing." I agree with Lush that it is amusing to watch someone who is obviously desirous of something but who denies desiring it. Certainly one cannot live a moral life if one begins by lying to oneself, even before lying to the wife and kids. smilies/wink.gif

OK, where am I going with this? Well, I intend to take it back to Tolkien, specifically Frodo. I remember his vision on Amon Hen, when he wears the Ring, is where Frodo, I believe shows the fruit of his "moral lessons" from Gandalf. He is not simply taking Gandalf's exhortation to take off the Ring as a command, but he is seeing the entire situation across Middle Earth, all the armies laid out before him. He is balanced between Gandalf and the Eye, and for an instant, he makes his own choice, completely independent of both influences. He has become a node in himself, capable of his own considered actions in a very weighty matter indeed.

When he finally takes off the Ring, he does so of his own free will, and his path is absolutely clear to him, and he makes the proper choice in the proper way. Perhaps this is the "moral" choice, perhaps it is the most rational. Whatever its character, it is clear that Frodo has put aside fear and self-consideration for the larger cause. One could say he acted rationally, or one could say he acted morally, intending to save the rest of the Fellowship from a harsh fate by isolating himself with the Ring and taking the choice away from his companions. He certainly does Aragorn a service here.

Another aspect of this "morality" question as applied to Frodo would be his final outcome. Tolkien has as much as said that, with the Ring destroyed, Frodo is left with an emptiness, an eternal longing, for the lost Ring. Thus, although his selfless actions in getting the Ring to Mt. Doom are "moral," i.e., without desire, his consideration of Smeagol being driven by pity, his existence ruled by the small decisions he makes to get one step closer to his goal without sacrificing his "moral" code. In the end, he is broken down completely, reduced to the sum of his deeds, the moral and good deeds on one side, and his insatiable desire for the Ring, now unrecoverable, on the other. In the end, that desire and also the knowledge that he failed at the ultimate test eat away at him and somehow it seems he cannot live with the fact that he failed the unpassable test.

Perhaps this very outcome illustrates the ultimate limits of "morality," and shows that no one is perfectly moral, because everyone is flawed. In a way, it seems to point to the perfectly moral life as a goal that may never be reached, thus it is a path, a way of life, an act of Zen, etc., and thus it cannot be satisfactorily pinned down by rational or any other means.

Boy, I hope all that made sense, because it took forever to write, and its way too late to proofread...forgive me if there are muddy passages!

Cheers,
Lyta smilies/smile.gif

[The Saucepan Man]

I don't know how I have the nerve to appear again so soon on thias thread after boring everyone silly with my earlier ramblings. But, just to answer the phantom's question, as briefly as I can:

... why pick a moral lifestyle over an immoral one?


Because: the majority of people (albeit to varying degrees) derive contentment from adhering to those moral norms and guilt and remorse from immoral action; only a minority (those towards the bottom of my sliding scale) are able to derive contentment from immoral action; and it is in any event inherently less likely that an individual will be able to derive happiness from immoral action (the risk of being caught, inability to form relationships, limitation of personal freedom etc).

Why do the majority of us derive contentment from moral action? Because that is how we have developed. I see it as a combination of nature and nurture. It is instinctive, but at the same time it is reinforced by our parents, our teachers, our church etc. Personally, I attribute my own moral viewpoint to the strong moral values that my parents instilled in me as I was growing up. I would, however, strongly disagree with them on some moral issues because I have since been exposed to wider influences and formed my own, sometimes different, views.

Lyta, I like your characterisation of Frodo's failure at Sammath Naur. It was, I suppose, a failing to succumb to temptation in the way that he did. Since the Ring was evil, it was an immoral act for him to try to claim it as his own. As you say, however, it was an unpassable test. Bombadil apart, no one could have resisted the lure of the Ring in that final moment. Perhaps this does represent a moral failing inherent in all peoples of Middle-earth (with the exception of Tom?. It seems to me harsh that a character who has displayed such moral fortitude in getting to that point should have to suffer the consequences of this one inevitable moment of immorality ever after. But, as I said, no one seems to escape the consequences of immoral action in Tolkien's world.

[Eurytus]

Lyta, I like your characterisation of Frodo's failure at Sammath Naur. It was, I suppose, a failing to succumb to temptation in the way that he did. Since the Ring was evil, it was an immoral act for him to try to claim it as his own. As you say, however, it was an unpassable test. Bombadil apart, no one could have resisted the lure of the Ring in that final moment. Perhaps this does represent a moral failing inherent in all peoples of Middle-earth (with the exception of Tom?. It seems to me harsh that a character who has displayed such moral fortitude in getting to that point should have to suffer the consequences of this one inevitable moment of immorality ever after. But, as I said, no one seems to escape the consequences of immoral action in Tolkien's world.


When I first read the LOTR I thought that Frodo had, in the end, failed in his quest. It was only later that I realised that in reality he had not really failed in his quest at all. The burden laid on him was to take the ring to Mount Doom, and to go as far along this road as he was able. This he did.

I later read a letter of Tolkien’s that expanded on this. Tolkien states that Frodo’s only duty was to take the ring as far as he was able and that, on Mount Doom where the Ring’s power was strongest, it would have been beyond anyone’s ability to destroy it. In short, the Wise had never expected Frodo to be able to destroy the ring. Tolkien speculates that Frodo’s triumph was both in getting to Mount Doom and in his application of pity towards Gollum that resulted in the events that followed. So in truth Frodo did in fact triumph. Though he may not have been able to see that fact.

Incidentally, in the same letter Tolkien makes some very interesting points about what would have happened had Gollum not fallen into the crack of doom, and what would have happened had Frodo not been attacked by Gollum.

I can recommend the Letters of JRR Tolkien to anyone. There is some great stuff in there.

[mark12_30]

Lyta wrote:

...he cannot live with the fact that he failed the unpassable test.

Can I quote you?

[ October 28, 2003: Message edited by: mark12_30 ]

[Eurytus]

If that quotation is in reference to my post then I can assure you that it in no way contradicts anything I have stated in my previous post.

The fact that Frodo feels he failed does not change the actual true nature of his success or indeed Tolkien's own view of it.

[mark12_30]

Eurytus, not at all. I do not disagree with your post (that letter is one of my favorites and runs the risk of getting dog-eared.) Lyta's statement is simply a brilliantly succinct expression of Frodo's inner turmoil, clarifying why he chose to sail west.

Lyta's statement would make a great sig. (dibs!) Lyta...? I promise to reference you.
smilies/tongue.gif

[Eurytus]

Cool, no problem.

Just checking.... smilies/wink.gif

[Lyta_Underhill]

Lyta's statement would make a great sig. (dibs!) Lyta...? I promise to reference you.
Feel free, mark12_30! I was so busy working this one out last night (late!) that I hadn't realized I put quotable material in there! Even if you didn't ask, I would probably just make little jabs in fun to the fact that it was my phrase. I never begrudge it though! Otherwise I would have jumped all over Miss Finwe for using my "Exploding Elf" description of Fëanor! (*jab* *jab*!) smilies/wink.gif

I can, however, only claim a pale reflection in my post of the immortal "Frodo's Sacrifice" thread to which I never managed to contribute and which has the distinction of being the one thread which moved me to real tears! And yes, I know what you mean about that particular Letter of Tolkien's getting dog-eared!

Cheers,
Lyta

[Kuruharan]

Saucepan

But, then again, can a person whose goal is virtue ever achieve such a thing? To achieve a life of complete virtue is incredibly difficult, indeed impossible for most of not all.

No. Complete virtue is not possible. However, virtue is more worth striving for because it is beneficial to more than just your own selfish self. This is a point that Plato makes a few times. I think that in this thread this idea has not been given sufficient attention. Plato was not primarily concerned with individual happiness. In The Republic he tries to construct a just (moral) society. Individual satisfaction would derive from society as a whole.

For the moment, we are constructing, as we believe, the state which will be happy as a whole, not trying to secure the well-being of a select few...

[We were] molding our commonwealth with a view to the greatest happiness, not of one section of it, but of the whole.

Part of morality is to raise one from the muck of total self-absorption. This is part of the failure of an immoral lifestyle (and I would personally say it is not the most important part, but I’m not going to get into that right now.)

The problem is that if morality is looked at from a purely humanistic perspective there is no reason to place any particular value on other human beings. (Rather ironic, that.)

To cite an extreme example: A person is hanging over the edge of a cliff. Another person happens to be going by and sees the other unfortunate. Assuming that there is no possibility of assistance arriving in time (the victim’s arms being on the point of giving out) why should the one person risk their life to save the other? If one tries to help they may save the other but die themselves. They might also both fall to their deaths (probably the most likely outcome). And, lastly, you might save them. However, there is no reason to assume that the other individual is more beneficial to society than yourself. Assuming that this person falls and dies (human reproduction being what it is) another person of approximately equivalent moral value will be born in the next few seconds after this death, so there is really no reason for you to exert yourself (your own possible death is probably not going to be beneficial to you). Nobody will know that you refused to help, you can easily claim that you reached him too late (or disavow knowledge of this entirely). Why should you help? (Also assuming that this is somebody who is unknown to you, although if it were somebody you knew then you would be helping them because of emotional attachment and that is not rational either.)

I will let you answer before I attempt to give any of my own interpretation.

I guess that I am also trying to say that I feel that you did not really address the question that the phantom asked above. You seemed, at least to me (and I may have misunderstood you), to dodge the issue. Although you also had the stated intention of being brief and might not have had time to express yourself as fully as you wished.

[mark12_30]

Thanks, Lyta! Yes, "Frodo's Sacrifice" was one of the all-time great threads. (C7A rules!) It was that thread that *finally * reconciled me with his decision to sail west... which grieved me ever since my first reading at age 12, thirty years ago.

I hope he was happy and healed there. I can't imagine that he wasn't. "A purgatory and a reward", Tolkien called it; very Catholic. Although, considering his "Leaf By Niggle", Tolkien's view of purgatory was not the norm. I have to believe he meant Purgatory" in the sense of purification, and not of suffering-- Frodo had suffered enough!!! (I'm tempted to follow that with an entire paragraph of exclaimation points...)

His generosity and self-sacrifice for the good of the Shire and Middle Earth answers many questions about "morality". I heartily agree that the definition of morality must extend beyond the individual good, beyond the humanistic view.

[Lush]

This is why I find people that suppress their [immoral?] urges to be hilarious: because in my view they're not any better off as that cokehead that cannot resist doing another line or whatever one's poison of choice ultimately is.

I don't understand. What would you have them do, give in to their immoral urges?

Uh, No.

Perhaps I could have done a better job of phrasing my statement.

What I meant is that I find it hilarious when people look down upon others for doing stuff one might consider immoral (coke, cute little freshmen, whatever floats your boat) when they often experience the very same urges.

It's like we sit around today and judge Nazi Germany, without stopping to wonder how we have behaved had we lived back in that day and in that state.

It's like saying that Sam is better than Frodo, for doing, or not doing, what he did.

There are too many variables floating around to ever be fully sure of how you or someone else would have behaved given the same set of circumstances to deal with.

Ultimately, I am very thankful that we are able to make a few of the right choices every once in a while, as in: don't do that line, or don't grab at that Ring, but I don't think it's up to humans to define morality as a complete concept.

I'm saying that nobody is really moral and nobody really knows what morality is, we can only gather hints of the true nature of it all, for the rest of our lives.

Of course, that don't bother me none, because of my religious beliefs. I don't pretend that it's easy for other people to accept such a notion.

And as for physics: I've got a few friends over at the Duke Physics Dept., and we'll get together some nights and talk, and they will say to me that there are moments when they have no idea what on earth it is that they are studying and ultimately it does seem as if physics and its purpose will never be fully explained either.

Something about that makes me think that spirituality and science should go hand in hand, but the relationships are too high falutin' for me to even begin to define.

[Eurytus]

It's like we sit around today and judge Nazi Germany, without stopping to wonder how we have behaved had we lived back in that day and in that state.

I think that gassing people to death and burying them in mass graves or burning their remains is something that is not too hard to judge to be honest.
Whether we as individuals might have felt coerced to participate in such acts had we lived in that time, or whether we might have been caught up in the fervour that surrounded the propoganda that supported such a regime is somewhat irrelevant.

Can we make a judgement call from our current, detached postion as to whether such behaviour is right or wrong. I think we clearly can.

[mark12_30]

I think we need to re-examine Lush's statement. To me, her key phrases are "look down on" and "better than". These phrases are used when comparing people-- NOT actions. Reading her statement, she is not deniying the existance of right and wrong; she is saying that we all struggle with it, and when someone fails in their struggle, we have no right to say that we would have done better in their situation, or that we are better than they are. (This is one of the foundations for true humility, by the way.)

There is a vast difference between judging an action vice judging a person. Any person with a reasonable sense of morality (okay, I am going in circles here, but bear with me) can judge an action. But only an omniscient and perfectly just creature (i.e. God) can truly and justly judge a person, including that person's motives and choices.

Men judge actions and by them infer motives and attitudes. God (especially Tolkien's Catholic view of God) judges attitudes and motives, and THEN judges actions.

Taking this view to Middle Earth:

It was wrong of Frodo to claim the Ring (Yes, we all know that and we all wish that somehow he had been able to resist.) But is Frodo therefore a useless damnable traitor because he claimed the Ring? We may not judge that since we can't read his mind. We can only judge his actions and ***what we know*** of his intentions and desires, and if we do that we should come out in his favor.

Re the Nazi Germany example:

It was wrong to commit genocide (yes, we all know that and yes we all wish that more Germans had resisted the process.) But the average German citizen was not performing executions; he was trying to raise his kids, earn a living, etc, and the fact that people were disappearing at midnight may or may not have been under his control, although it probably did not escape his notice. Should he have done something? Did he know enough and was he able and brave enough to do anything? We all agree that it would have been much better if he had done something to prevent the genocide. But can we judge the fact that he didn't and call him a damnable traitor and a worthless, useless human being?

Maybe, but I think not. How omniscient are you, and how much do you know about his motives, his understanding of the situation, and his involvement in it?

I think this is Lush's point. The Lush I know is most certainly not in favor of genocide, nor implying that the act of genocide is un-judgeable. But I think she does mean, "Judge not that ye be not judged" and "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." If we had been the average German on the street, would we have behaved differently? We may hope so, but without being there and going through it how can we make that claim?

So-- if you were Frodo, standing on Mount Doom, after having owned the Ring for seventeen years and carried it for thousands of miles, would you have claimed it? Or not? How do you know? And do you dare say you're better than he is because of your claims?

Lush, if I diverged from your intent there, please clarify (I'm not omnicient, after all...) smilies/wink.gif

[ October 28, 2003: Message edited by: mark12_30 ]

[The Saucepan Man]

Kuruharan

However, virtue is more worth striving for because it is beneficial to more than just your own selfish self.

Well, a capitalist would say that the aggregation of wealth is to the benefit of society, since the wealth trickles down to the benefit of all. smilies/wink.gif

But, to be serious, I don't disagree with you. I agree that it is a worthy aim to strive for virtue (virtuosity?), and that is why I can find inspiration in works such as LotR.

And this accords with my theory since, as is implicit in your statement, virtuous behaviour is generally beneficial to society as a whole, rather than just the individual, and therefore worthy of our aspirations.

Of course, when I say "my theory", I am really just making it up as I go along. As I said earlier, I find it difficult to accept that morality is imposed upon me by a being whose existence I doubt. But at the same time, I firmly believe that morality is not a human construct. Which leaves me with little choice but to believe that it is a pattern of behaviour which forms the basis for the development of human society because it is generally in society's interests (and the interests of the individuals within it) to follow this pattern. The rest of it just follows from there, apart from some vague recollection that I have of "natural law" from my studies of philosophy of law at university, a concept which I seem to remember appealed to me at the time.

But where I struggle is in the kind of situations that are characterised by the example that you have given, where a seemingly moral act (rescuing the man hanging from the cliff) would not necessarily benefit society and might be to the detriment of the individual. My theory, in its basic form, would demand that the bystander weigh up all kinds of variables, many of which will not be readily apparent. Is the person in danger beyond the age of procreation and therefore possibly of little further benefit to society? Is he perhaps a thief and a murderer? Or is he someone whose prolonged existence is likely to benefit society? What are the risks involved in saving him? Is it more likely than not that the prospective rescuer would succeed in accomplishing the rescue without loss of his own life, or is there an appreciable risk that both will die in the effort?

But the reality is that the bystander will not spend much time weighing up such considerations. More often than not, he will simply act on an instinctive basis. And, while it is by no means a given that the bystander will attempt the rescue (this depends perhaps where he falls on my sliding scale), I think (or like to think) that, more often than not, he will, regardless of the considerations outlined above.

So, why would he do so when his actions might not benefit, and might in fact be to the detriment, of society and himself? Well, I tried to explain this in terms of moral actions (because they benefit society) eliciting positive feelings within the individual (in the way that a contribution to charity might elicit a warm feeling). My hunch is that this positive internal reaction to moral behaviour has become so developed in us (or perhaps I should say some of us) that it is triggered even by actions that go beyond the original basis for moral behaviour (the benefit to society). Does this mean that highly altrusitic behaviour is selfish? Well, if you don't believe in a higher authority, then I think that it does, yes. But is that necessarily a bad thing when it results in behaviour that most of us would view as "the right way to act". And I should reiterate that I believe that most virtuous behaviour is actually to the benefit of society.

I guess that I am also trying to say that I feel that you did not really address the question that the phantom asked above.

Well, I'm sorry if that is the case. To sum it up in a nutshell (something that I'm evidently not very good at doing smilies/rolleyes.gif ), moral behaviour is preferable to immoral behaviour because: it benefits society (and as society benefits, so do the majority of people who live within it - that's why we live in societies; and because it stands a better chance of bringing greater reward (materially, physically and spiritually) to the individual.

[Aiwendil]

Lyta Underhill wrote:
But I would also say that these same laws are human constructs derived to explain a universe that always manages to stay several steps ahead of the theorists, just as the tiny bugs of the universe seem to stay several steps ahead of the latest antimicrobial drugs.

This sounds a bit like constructivism (the view that science is just a societal/cultural phenomenon like any other, and that scientific theories are just human inventions). But I'm not sure whether you're really advocating a constructivist position or not. Certainly it may seem like the universe is always staying a step ahead of science, but surely it's not literally true that the universe is actually changing its fundamental laws as we discover them. There's a huge difference between saying that the fundamental laws of physics are complicated and saying that there are no fundamental laws of physics.

the explanation of newer physics concepts to the layman is beginning to sound more and more like a spiritual exercise than a mathematical one.

I know what you mean; but it's important to remember that this is only an appearance. The actual scientific theories in question are still purely mathematical. It's just that they are so complex and convoluted that in popular books, their results must be reduced to bald statements that are bound to sound mystical.

Most people believe they will be satisfied when a certain desire is met, which is a dangerous thing to assume, since desire appears addictive and ultimately never satisfiable.

All desires? What about the desire to be moral? Surely that's satisfiable. What about the desire to write a symphony? Surely that's satisfiable. What about the desire to quench one's thirst?

Your meaning, presumably, was that immoral desires are never satisifed. But I don't see any reason to think this is always true.

Lush wrote:
What I meant is that I find it hilarious when people look down upon others for doing stuff one might consider immoral (coke, cute little freshmen, whatever floats your boat) when they often experience the very same urges.

Ah. I misunderstood you.

And as for physics: I've got a few friends over at the Duke Physics Dept., and we'll get together some nights and talk, and they will say to me that there are moments when they have no idea what on earth it is that they are studying and ultimately it does seem as if physics and its purpose will never be fully explained either.

But the great complexity of physics should not be mistaken for some kind of foundational philosophical problem. I know I sometimes feel overwhelmed and bewildered by such things as quantum physics (or even by classical electromagnetism). And it is certainly true that quantum mechanics (and to a lesser degree, relativity) is radically counter-intuitive. But none of this undermines the mathematical foundations of physics.

As for not knowing the purpose of physics: this is surely a case of making a question more complicated than it really is. The purpose of physics is to predict the positions of particles at arbitrary times. And that purpose has not changed since the invention of mathematical physics.

Sorry for going on about this rahter tangential topic.

[ October 28, 2003: Message edited by: Aiwendil ]

[Lyta_Underhill]

Certainly it may seem like the universe is always staying a step ahead of science, but surely it's not literally true that the universe is actually changing its fundamental laws as we discover them.
I may have been muddy here: I did not mean to say the fundamental nature of the universe changes with our discoveries, but rather that each new discovery opens up a new box of complexities that seem to lead in many directions. Also, on that same string, so to speak, there is also the question of the observer affecting the equation.

As for not knowing the purpose of physics: this is surely a case of making a question more complicated than it really is. The purpose of physics is to predict the positions of particles at arbitrary times. And that purpose has not changed since the invention of mathematical physics.

Certainly this is the nuts and bolts of physics, and there is great complexity therein. But, the human mind will always draw parallels by its nature, even if there are no logical connections to be made. It is irresistible. The fact that the Schrodinger equation could accurately predict the energy levels and positions of a single hydrogen atom (well, back when I studied it anyway) but fell down and broke into complex assumptive fragments when more was attempted may merely speak to the imperfection of the mathematical models, or it may speak tangentially of another, more insidious effect--the observer's or experimenter's affect on the thing observed. Can a scientist truly stand outside what he is observing?

And to bump back up on the road, can a philosopher truly define a nebulous concept such as "morality" in any exactitude? One could draw the easy parallel that morality and science are both "constructs," but that sidesteps the motivations for their construction. There must always, IMO, be room for intuition and spiritual application, or morality and science both fall flat, for me at least.

Well, that's all I can dredge out of my mind for now! Thanks for a lively discussion!

Cheers,
Lyta

[Kuruharan]

Saucepan

But at the same time, I firmly believe that morality is not a human construct. Which leaves me with little choice but to believe that it is a pattern of behaviour which forms the basis for the development of human society because it is generally in society's interests (and the interests of the individuals within it) to follow this pattern.

Well, then the next obvious questions to ask are "Why?" and "Where does it come from?"

[The Saucepan Man]

Well, then the next obvious questions to ask are "Why?" and "Where does it come from?"

Indeed. smilies/wink.gif

(I'm done with long, turgid posts for now smilies/biggrin.gif )

[mark12_30]

Above, October 23, 2003 03:44 PM. smilies/tongue.gif

[the phantom]

the majority of people (albeit to varying degrees) derive contentment from adhering to those moral norms and guilt and remorse from immoral action... only a minority (those towards the bottom of my sliding scale) are able to derive contentment from immoral action
Even if this is completely true, what about that "minority" that does derive contentment from immorality? What reason do they have to act morally?

Also, if someone is acting morally just for the contentment it brings to them, does it make them moral or self-centered? If contentment is their goal, wouldn't they act immorally in some situations if they could see that it would yield more contentment than the moral path? (sort of an ends justify the means situation)
virtuous behaviour is generally beneficial to society as a whole, rather than just the individual
And why should society matter to someone? Why should they try to help others at their expense? If someone at the bottom of the "sliding scale" is not naturally very concerned with others, why should he not act selfishly?

If his existence is over when he dies then the universe is basically over at his death (from his point of view), so why should he care what effect he has?

What I'm getting at is there doesn't appear to be an all encompassing logical or explainable reason for everyone to behave morally.

And Kuruharan, I love your scenario of a person hanging over a cliff. It really inspires thought.

What would I do? Well, I suppose it would mostly depend on who was hanging over the cliff. I would make some attempt at saving almost anyone, but I wouldn't put myself at the same risk for everyone. If it were my little cousin Daniel I would swing over the edge of the cliff myself to help him. On the other hand if it was some serial killer guy who had just killed my baby cousin and fell over the cliff while attempting to kill me- well, I might just step on his fingers.

And since the slaying of a serial killer would likely benefit society does this make my emotional reaction moral?

(and this is not directed just at SPMan, I'm curious what the rest of you guys think too)

[Arwen1858]

And since the slaying of a serial killer would likely benefit society does this make my emotional reaction moral?
That's an interesting question, phantom. Would it really be any different than having said killer executed? Either way, he'd be paying for his crime through death. He wouldn't be able to kill anyone else. And what exactly makes something moral? Something that benefits all of society, as oppossed to an individual person? Would it be more moral to later have the serial killer executed for his crimes, after he's had a trial and been found guilty, or to kill him there on the spot, in the heat of the moment from an emotional response? Is there a difference? If so, why?

Also, if someone is acting morally just for the contentment it brings to them, does it make them moral or self-centered? If contentment is their goal, wouldn't they act immorally in some situations if they could see that it would yield more contentment than the moral path? (sort of an ends justify the means situation)
That makes sense. They would just do whichever would make them feel better at the time. So why do some people act morally, if they think they would be happier doing something immoral? Would they act morally simply because they know in their heart its the right thing to do? Why should someone do anything to help other people, if they have to go out of their way to do it? Because they know it's the right thing to do?
These are some questions that came tomind while reading the phantoms post, and just wondered what everyone else thought!
Arwen

[mark12_30]

Would it really be any different than having said killer executed?

Yes.

Murder is very, very different than executing a person convicted via due process.

Many would say that Frodo would have been justified in killing Gollum. But he chose to show mercy, and Tolkien's oint is that the mercy of Frodo towards Gollum actually saved the world on Mount Doom.

Likewise in the book, Frodo shows mercy towards Saruman, and Tolkien uses the moment thus: "You have grown, halfling. Yes, you have grown very much."

A society has the burden of creating a safe haven for its inhabitants, and must make choices regarding such things as war and serial killers. Some place this burden on a king, others place it on a judge and jury, but the decisions should be made by law, not because of an individual's preference.

Tolkien valued mercy very very highly-- more highly, perhaps, than many of us do. Frodo, Gandalf, and Aragorn, and even in the end Sam, display this tendency towards mercy.


And since the slaying of a serial killer would likely benefit society does this make my emotional reaction moral?

Some might way yes. Tolkien, however, repeatedly wrote in favor of mercy-- even in such murderous cases as Gollum and Saruman and Wormtongue; Aragorn showed mercy to the men who had served under Sauron if they surrendered to him.

(Orcs don't get much mercy, nor does Sauron himself; yet I would class the orcs with demons, not neccessarily with people... likewise Trolls, etc... Tolkien seemed to draw a major distinction between the races that Morgoth twisted and those he simply enslaved. As I recall, in his letters he states that Trolls were incapable of mercy and orcs were too.)

[ October 29, 2003: Message edited by: mark12_30 ]

[Eurytus]

Likewise in the book, Frodo shows mercy towards Saruman, and Tolkien uses the moment thus: "You have grown, halfling. Yes, you have grown very much."

I actually read this a little differently than you. Frodo is showing mercy, yes, but Saruman’s reply is not that Frodo has grown because he has shown mercy.

I interpreted Saruman to be saying here that Frodo was punishing him far more effectively by letting him live (perhaps eternally given Saruman’s origin) without power. Also Saruman implied that those that struck him down would be cursed and that Frodo preventing that would rob him of his vengeance.
I read it as Saruman saying that Frodo’s perception of those facts were the indication that he has grown. I do not think that Saruman would see mercy as evidence of growth, after all he did not see it as Frodo showing mercy.

[Kuruharan]

the phantom

What would I do? Well, I suppose it would mostly depend on who was hanging over the cliff.

That is part of the problem though. The question assumes that you do not know this person and don't know anything about them. There is also no time to launch a full scale inquiry into the matter because the victim's arms are getting mighty weak. And even if you did, you have no way of checking what the victim tells you before they fall. If they are a bad sort they are probably not going to tell you that.

It is essentially a question of whether you consider another life to be at least as valuable as your own (however much value you place on your own life).

[The Saucepan Man]

phantom

... what about that "minority" that does derive contentment from immorality? What reason do they have to act morally?

They don't. That's why they act immorally.

Also, if someone is acting morally just for the contentment it brings to them, does it make them moral or self-centered?

Both. I accept that moral action may be based on seflish motives. But associating individual pleasure with behaviour that furthers the species is a basic principle in ensuring the continued survival of that species.

If contentment is their goal, wouldn't they act immorally in some situations if they could see that it would yield more contentment than the moral path?

Not where moral behaviour is itself the source for their contentment.

And why should society matter to someone? Why should they try to help others at their expense?

The individual benefits from living within a scoiety. Therefore it is generally in the interests of the individual to act in the interests of society.

If his existence is over when he dies then the universe is basically over at his death (from his point of view), so why should he care what effect he has?

Precisely. That's why, to my mind, there has to be more to it than belief in a higher authority. Otherwise, why would those who do not believe in such an authority act, as the majority do, in a moral manner?

What I'm getting at is there doesn't appear to be an all encompassing logical or explainable reason for everyone to behave morally.

There isn't. Not everyone does behave morally.

And since the slaying of a serial killer would likely benefit society does this make my emotional reaction moral?

No, not if you were to act on it. Society does not benefit from "mob rule" or from people taking the law into their own hands. In this case, the benefit to society would lie in the serial killer being apprehended and convicted through due process.

[mark12_30]

"...Now I must go hence in debt to your mercy. I hate it and you!"

Yes, Saruman perceived Frodo's mercy. Frodo discussed it openly with the nearby hobbits and Saruman heard him.

[the phantom]

The question assumes that you do not know this person and don't know anything about them.
Well, in that case I suppose I'd put myself at approximately the same degree of risk for everyone.
... what about that "minority" that does derive contentment from immorality? What reason do they have to act morally?
They don't. That's why they act immorally.
That's what I was hoping to hear. I'm looking for a reason for everyone to behave morally. If a reason only causes most people to act morally and isn't good enough for some people then it doesn't totally answer the question 'Why be moral?'.
I accept that moral action may be based on seflish motives.
I find this interesting. It says that the motivation of the person is meaningless and that only the action matters.

Isn't selfishness immoral? But apparently not if the selfishness results in an act that benefits society. But what happens when that same individual, who has set a precedent for selfish actions, does yet another selfish action that instead harms society? His motivation, attitude, and character haven't changed, yet suddenly he's immoral where as he was moral before? I don't get it.
But associating individual pleasure with behaviour that furthers the species is a basic principle in ensuring the continued survival of that species.
This seems to indicate that moral behavior is merely evolved instinct. If it's just instinctual behavior, then how can we call it moral or immoral? If we're merely acting on ingrained biological tendencies, then we're basically just animals, and morality, free will, and choice have been negated.
And why should society matter to someone? Why should they try to help others at their expense?
The individual benefits from living within a scoiety. Therefore it is generally in the interests of the individual to act in the interests of society.
I notice that you said "generally". In other words, sometimes it's not in the interest of the individual to act in the interest of society (which is true). Why in those situations should they act morally?
That's why, to my mind, there has to be more to it than belief in a higher authority. Otherwise, why would those who do not believe in such an authority act, as the majority do, in a moral manner?
Here is the the focus of all of my questions. Why should those who do not believe in a higher being, state of being, or truth behave morally?

You've given some non-theological reasons for moral actions already but I've shown that there are exceptions to every single one of those reasons, so why would those who are exceptions act morally? When I asked this earlier you said this-
They don't. That's why they act immorally.
Are we to just accept that some people can't be expected to act morally?

I don't. I believe that everyone does have a say in the way they act, but that they must be given a good reason to act a certain way. And if those exceptions, like you said, don't have any earthly reason to act morally then they must be given a non earthly reason.

Some sort of religious belief is the only thing that would compel everyone, without exception, to behave morally.

[Eurytus]

Some sort of religious belief is the only thing that would compel everyone, without exception, to behave morally.

It is probably not a debate we should be having here but I find this answer to be totally wrong. A quick look back through history shows that religion very rarely helps people to act morally, and when it does those actions often do not appear to be moral to outside observers.
Cynically speaking it is extremely unlikely that there will ever be a time when everybody acts in a moral way. People’s morals are different and hence people may act in a way that they feel is moral but that I, for example, do not.
The only really way to obtain a standard morality is to impose restrictions or guidelines and enforce them through either the carrot or the stick.
However human nature being what it is, this is unlikely to be successful.

[the phantom]

I think you're misunderstanding my intentions, Eurytus. I didn't say religion would make anybody act morally, I said it's the only thing that could compel everyone to act morally. Belief in a higher authority and eternal punishment is a reason to act moral.

Naturally there are religions that seem immoral to others, but I'm sort of discounting that by saying if we were to define morality by their choice of religion then they would be considered moral if they were following their religion's teachings.

In summary, anyone who genuinely believes in a specific religion and its teachings has an unquestionable reason to act morally (with morally being defined as the code of ethics that their religion teaches).
A quick look back through history shows that religion very rarely helps people to act morally
I don't know, there are countless people around the world right now who are trying to live a certain way specifically because of their beliefs. I readily admit that someone of any religion can behave immorally, but only when they deviate from what they believe.

Religion doesn't make people behave morally, it just gives them a reason to.
Cynically speaking it is extremely unlikely that there will ever be a time when everybody acts in a moral way.
I agree. But as I said before, I'm not trying to find what will make everyone be moral, but rather what would compel people on a personal level to be moral.

[Eurytus]

Belief in a higher authority and eternal punishment is a reason to act moral.
True to an extent but I also believe that punishment here on earth can compel some people to act morally. Just not all.

[Bêthberry]

I am very late in returning to this discussion, and do not, at this time, have the time to reply at length about some of the points I made earlier and which others took up. Partially I was, as Mr. Underhill suggested, playing the scamp to draw others into the discussion, but I do have a serious point to make about the kind of moral universe in LOTR.

For now, however, I wish to protest this statement strongly and emphatically:

Some sort of religious belief is the only thing that would compel everyone, without exception, to behave morally.


1. It is morally wrong to coerce or compel moral behaviour. Such behaviour would not, in fact, reflect a moral understanding but simply bullied fear.

2. The list is long and horrifyingly brutal of immoral behaviour which has been inspired by, supported by or otherwise condoned by religious belief.

A few quick examples include the following:
--the witch hunts of medieval Europe
--9/11
--the Protestant/Catholic terrorism in Northern Ireland
--the atrocities committed by both Protestants and Catholics after the Protestant Reformation in Europe
--Nazi persecution of Jews, gypsies, Slavs in WWII

3. I have, in my own personal experience, seen Atheists behave with more courtesy, decency respect for human life and with less ambitious greed to dominate other people than those who claim religious belief.

4. Large, grand sounding abstractions such as "moral behaviour" and "immoralitty" need to be closely and carefully defined in any discussion. I think it would be wiser to try to look at Tolien's work and attempt to discuss what he propounds as moral behaviour in LOTR than to simply assume that we all mean the same thing when we talk about moral or immoral behaviour.

My apologies for ranting with strength and feeling here, but such emphatic statements as the above quotation shows frighten me profoundly.

In my reading of history and of my personal experience, whenever we make such all inclusive statements, we close our eyes and ears to those who disagree with us, to thoughtful consideration of what precisely we mean. The moment anyone says, "Only I have the key to correct behaviour" is the moment when the most immoral actions become likely. Not that I am accusing the writer of immoral actions, but that that frame of mind leads to closed minds.

Humbly submitted,
Bêthberry

[Arwen1858]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Would it really be any different than having said killer executed?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes.

Murder is very, very different than executing a person convicted via due process.

Many would say that Frodo would have been justified in killing Gollum. But he chose to show mercy, and Tolkien's oint is that the mercy of Frodo towards Gollum actually saved the world on Mount Doom.



I definitely agree with this. I was just posing some questions I had thought of to see the responses they would bring, and toget people to think about them, too. Frodo's mercy is one of my favorite aspects of the book. If Frodo hadn't shown mercy on Gollum, thering wouldn't have been destroyed when they got to Mount Doom.

I guess what I'm trying to get at here is this: If we don't know from our conscience most things that are right and wrong, or don't follow God and try to do what's right to please Him, or behave morally for some other religious belief, why do some of us try to behave morally? What's the point and the reason behind it? To benefit all of society? But why do that? Why not just benefit yourself? I'm pretty much trying to play the devil's advocate here to find out how y'all would answer these questions.

[mark12_30]

Bethberry, you wrote:

The list is long and horrifyingly brutal of immoral behaviour which has been inspired by, supported by or otherwise condoned by religious belief.
Some religions are violent by nature and encourage violence by their dogma (Aztec human sacrifices come to mind.) I would call these immoral religions; and I would also add that they are not rooted in truth. And I would argue that that judgement can and should be made.

Other religions are deeply pacifistic. It does matter whether an atrocity which is committed in the name of religion is performed **according to the precepts of that religion.** if it is performed **despite ** the precepts of that religion, then it is not a religious act, regardless of under what name the act is performed.

A Fransiscan monk who commits murder is acting despite his religion, not because of it. To blame an atrocity on the religion to which its perpetrators belong, when the religion expressly forbids such an act, is hardly a fair judge of the religion.

Would you really put St. Francis in the same category as bin Laden? Perhaps you would like to clarify your intent here.

I have, in my own personal experience, seen Atheists behave with more courtesy, decency respect for human life and with less ambitious greed to dominate other people than those who claim religious belief.
But in what do they base their actions? By its very nature, Atheism has no higher authority, and hence, no rules. Stalin murdered his share of people and he was an atheist. In fact, Stalinist Russia holds the record for genocide: well beyond twenty million dead. China and Cambodia have similarly dismal records and full graveyards. Communism and socialism, founded in atheism, overall have a dismal human rights record. I fail to see the connection between atheism and morality.

Perhaps you would care to elaborate on your attitude towards religion. How do you feel about Tolkien's catholicism? Do you feel it was no help to him in behaving morally?

Tolkien believed in absolute truth, believed that God is the supreme authority. Do you feel that his belief in God, that his staunch faith in the Gospel, his devotion to his religious practices, and his belief that the Gospels are The One True Myth (sounds pretty absolute to me) gave him license for immoral behavior? Do you feel it made him a tyrant who imposed his immoral views on others?

[Child of the 7th Age]

I am stepping into this discussion as an outsider. As I read over a goodly chunk of the thread, several thoughts came to mind.

First, I think folk are trying to come up with a single, magic, controlling key to explain behavior, which simply does not exist.

Some sort of religious belief is the only thing that would compel everyone, without exception, to behave morally.


There are a thousand different reasons why a person might choose to follow a path which he or she deemed to be "moral." Religious belief is certainly one possible reason to compel a person in a moral direction but it is not the only one. There are people out there who do not hold any formal religious beliefs or even a belief in the existence of God but who feel compelled to act in a decent way towards their fellow human beings, who put themselves out again and again to help others. There are people who act morally because they are afraid of the consequences that might occur if they behave in a different fashion. Such individuals may be motivated by the law set down by the state or by religion itself -- the belief or fear that retribution could be forthcoming. And there are saints among us who can see beyond the mundane and truly glimpse a vision of a universe grounded in morality. That vision may be based on the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of Man, or some combination of both... But, whatever it is, they see and understand more than I could ever do.

My basic point is this. The world contains such amazing variation in people, cultures and belief structures, religious and otherwise, that one can't jam everything into a single explanation. The one thing I will say with certainty is that whatever Creator brought this universe into existence, he or she must have loved diversity and complexity. We were all given brains and each of us thinks a little differently. The Creator did not turn us out on a one-size-fits all model, and I would therefore argue that a one-size fits all approach to morality just doesn't work.

You run into similar problems when you get into discussions of religion and immoral behavior. You can judge a movement-- any -- movement on the basis of its beliefs or you can judge it on its results.

If you look at core beliefs in terms of morality, then you would not find a great deal to criticize harshly in the major relgions of the world. (Yes, I'm sure you could debate this or that, but we're talking real evil, and that's not there.) But if you were to look at actual behavior or results, then it is quite a different story.

But where does that evil come from? The movement itself or the individual souls of the people who make up that movement. And I would say it is the latter. Whatever institution you look at -- the home, the school, the government--you can find instances of the "dark side." A religious movement or organization is no exception. And it would be possible to make a list of individual and mass atrocities which grew out of institutions and beliefs that had nothing to do with religion. We can put the word "nationalism" at the top of that list and go on from there.

The interesting thing is to take a close look at Middle-earth itself and see if the basic idea holds -- that of religious belief compelling morality. And the answer there is absolutely no. Tolkien has depicted characters who are deeply moral, but who do not act out of a religious impulse.

Those who've read my posts from way back when know I love to look at Tolkien's Catholicism and see how it influenced his writing. But having said that, I would also argue this: Arda in the Third Age was a world in which religious belief per se was virtually absent. Eru is a very distant figure whom only a few folk know about, at least in any formal sense. Yes, there are the Elves... But how many were there? They kept to themselves and did not go around telling people about their stories. It took a little rotund hobbit named Bilbo Baggins to decide to translate the tales into Westron!

A few men like Faramir still preserved some of the religious customs of Numenor, but this was not the norm. Most of the Men of Middle-earth had no idea who Eru even was. As Tolkien states in his Letters:

There is no embodiment of the One, of God, who indeed remains remote, outside the World, and only directly accessible to the Valar or Rulers."

And hobbit culture is among the most "secular" that I have ever seen. If Frodo was extraordinary, it was because he seemed to instinctively grasp truths (which might be labelled 'spiritual') that had never actually been revealed to him. He was unusual in this regard. Yet, despite their total lack of formal beliefs, the hobbits as a whole were basically a moral people. (Alright, I know there were a few exceptions like the Sackville-Baggins family, but hobbit "sins" are really rather small!)

T.A. Shippey has some interesting things to say about all this---how Tolkien used LotR to study how Man clung to morality and stayed the course despite all the forces pushing him towards darkness and despair. And this was at a time when Man had not been given the slightest revelation of what lay beyond.

Tolkien did not feel that religious beliefs were the only reason to compel a person to act morally. His book carries a different message. Even in a world where Eru is a distant figure glimpsed only through an occasional providential act, Man is expected to act in a moral fashion and not to give in. There are no acceptable excuses for not doing so-- belief or no belief. Certainly, there are times when man will fail -- Frodo and the Ring is a case in point -- but, as Tolkien states in his Letters:

He [i.e. Frodo] was honoured because he had accepted the burden voluntarily, and had then done all that was within his utmost physical and mental strength to do.

It would have been easy for Frodo to say "no" to the Ring quest at several points in the story, but he chose to go on. Tolkien doesn't say a lot about why Frodo and the other characters choose to follow such a moral road. But we do get glimpses -- things like friendship, a way of life in harmony with the earth, and the feeling that some things are simply worth fighting for. I can't help feeling that he was telling us that there is a still, small voice in each of our hearts that, despite the pull to evil, tells us the track we should be on, if only we would listen to it.

[ October 29, 2003: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]

[Bêthberry]

Hello Helen,

My comments were directed solely to the rhetorical nature of the passage I quoted. My point was to suggest that, as the statement stood, it was faulty, in that throughout much of human history religious belief per se has not stopped believers from engaging in immoral behaviour.

You raise the quite valid point that people have often committed acts contrary to the precepts of their faith. The passage I was addressing did not make this distinction. It merely argued that any kind of religious belief is the one thing needed.

I also objected to the idea of coercion being essential to moral behaviour.

Other than that, I don't think it is fruitful for this thread to engage in an argument over the greater virtue of faith or atheism or to speculate on Tolkien's private, personal thought, to which we are not the ones who have (or had) access.

Bêthberry

[Eurytus]

I find this assumption that there are Good and Bad religions to be pretty naive to be honest.
Most people would classify Christianity amongst the 'Good' religions and yet its roots lie in the Old Testament of the Bible, within which lies one of the most violent religious tracts in existence.
Not to mention Christianities long and shameful history of violence, persecution and hypocrisy.
Religions are a human construct and like their makers are full of flaws. To pick some as 'good' and some as 'bad' is to ignore the evidence.

[Bêthberry]

Child,

I was posting my reply to Helen as you were posting and so have just read it.

You have, with great sensitivity and clarity, expressed many things I would have said about this question, had I had time, that the path to moral behaviour is diverse and complex, and that an essential element in LOTR is Frodo's voluntary choice to take the Ring.

Kudos!

Bêthberry

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Thank you very much, Child ot7A, for getting this discussion back on the basis of Tolkien's writing. I ask all participants to refrain from an exchange of religious opinions, since that is not our topic here.

[Mister Underhill]

Gone for a day and now it’s me who’s scrambling to catch up. I’ll try to keep things succinct.

Aiwendil, any relevance it may have had is now surely unimportant, but I am almost certain that you are in error as regards Plato (Aristotle is up for grabs at present; I make no claims one way or the other). In his Republic, Plato, like Kant, postulates an absolute, objective morality. Virtue is virtue for anyone. Practicing virtue (i.e., being in tune with objective morality) results in a “healthy soul”, while giving in to vice results in a sort of soul-sickness. Where am I going astray? My readings of Kant and Plato (which I grant may both be in error) seem to agree at least on this broad principle.

Physics and astronomy used to be casual hobbies of mine (I have less time to stay current nowadays, alas). My point about physics was that while it can describe in detail how its laws work, it can’t explain why they work. “Whence come I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question, the same for every one of us. Science has no answer to it,” said physicist Max Planck. I might add, “And why am I here?” This is neither an ill-formed nor an irrelevant question for a great many people.

You say, “...we can be as strictly rational as possible in admitting further evidence.” I say, we need be only if we conceive of logic as being the highest and most important avenue to truth. Logic and science have little of substance to say about, for instance, creativity – but that does not make creativity any less interesting, less useful, or less real. I contend that, just as we know a great many things about the laws of physics, we also know a great deal about the principles that govern human behavior. Just because they don’t lend themselves well to scientific study and incontrovertible logic doesn’t make them any less interesting or valid.

I find your explanation for personally living a moral lifestyle quite interesting. You seem to be operating on an intuition that there is a rational derivation for morality despite apparent evidence to the contrary. (!)

Legolas – nice post on 10/27 regarding Saruman. It’s an interesting point that in Tolkien, evil often arises out of an intention to do “good”.

Saucepan, it’s easy to hypothesize evil villains who are “fulfilled” by their immoral crimes and achieve “happiness” and “inner peace” only by doing bad, but I’d wager it’s difficult to scare up actual examples outside of fiction. Your argument seems to be that in the vast majority of cases, living a more or less moral lifestyle produces the expected results – healthy relationships, inner contentedness, and happiness – but that since a few possible hypothetical cases may contradict the rule, the rule is invalid. Well, fair enough. But I’d answer that I can just as easily hypothesize situations where the laws of physics don’t apply. You can’t definitively prove me wrong if I hypothesize that somewhere out there in the universe are a few planets that don’t obey the laws of gravitation. But you’d think me silly for arguing such a point when the vast weight of evidence suggests otherwise.

Your moral dilemma regarding Gandalf sacrificing Pippin and Merry to achieve Sauron’s downfall is an interesting one. Your conclusion seems to contradict your theory. An evolutional, societal model of morality would seem to logically endorse the sacrifice of a few (innocent or not) for the good of society. This sort of morality seems to give rise to situational ethics, as you hinted in one of your posts, where the individual good, the good of society at large, and the cost of the sacrifice called for are weighed in every decision.

Lush, you’ve made a characteristically provocative assertion – that people who suppress their immoral impulses are worthy of scorn because they not only have the urge, but they are hypocrites in some sense for not at least honestly following through on the urge. No doubt you have in mind seemingly innocuous and harmless “immoralities”, such as doing the occasional line of coke or hit of X. But we can easily imagine dozens of situations that have more obvious implications. A guy is alone with his passed out date after a night of partying. He feels the urge to have sex with her – to rape her, since she’s in no condition to say either yes or no to his advances. A frustrated mother feels the impulse to shake her baby because he won’t stop crying. A corporate executive feels the impulse to rob the company blind – no matter that his immorality may end up in financial disaster for hundreds of people. Surely in each case we can breathe a sigh of relief if the person is able to suppress the immoral urge?

Even supposedly “harmless” immoralities have deeper consequences. For instance, just by participating in the use of illegal drugs, a person is, at however distant remove, helping to perpetuate the deeply immoral structure that provides those drugs.

I’m hardly a paragon of virtue and I certainly don’t claim to have all the answers. I’m simply suggesting the idea that immoral actions have consequences, and that there can be a world of difference between impulse and action.

I take your point about what your priest says about the divine being unreachable through “works”, and that we are all fallen and corrupted somehow. This sounds like a bit of selective listening though. Check back with your priest on whether or not it is still incumbent upon us to do our best to live up to high moral standards. I think I can guess his answer – unless he’s one of those dudes who sent away to an ad in the back of Rolling Stone to get ordained, in which case he is much less likely to give an answer that would kill your buzz.

Child, great post, and one that brings us back around full circle in some respects, inasmuch as Tolkien strongly comes down on the side of a moral lifestyle being the best, in spite of its challenges, sacrifices, and occasional disappointments. And oddly enough, despite the great number and disparity of reasons why, people here on the thread seem to generally agree.

[ October 29, 2003: Message edited by: Mister Underhill ]

[the phantom]

Some sort of religious belief is the only thing that would compel everyone, without exception, to behave morally.
Child of the 7th Age, Bethberry, and others appear to have translated the meaning of this statement incorrectly. It doesn't say that religion is the only thing that can compel someone, it says that religion is the only thing that can compel everyone.

In other words, I'm not discounting the ability of other factors that cause someone to behave morally, I'm saying that religion appears to be the only thing that could compel those "exceptions" that SPMan and I were discussing (those "exceptions" being people who can derive their contentment from immoral acts).

I hope this makes my statement more clear. I should use more careful wording next time.
Such behaviour would not, in fact, reflect a moral understanding but simply bullied fear.
You are focusing merely on the eternal punishment aspect of religion. What about those who behave morally in order to please their creator because they are thankful for the existance that they have been given?
but I also believe that punishment here on earth can compel some people to act morally
Agreed. That's why we have laws.
The list is long and horrifyingly brutal of immoral behaviour which has been inspired by, supported by or otherwise condoned by religious belief.
And as I said earlier, there are some religions that seem immoral in their nature, and who knows what to do with them. But often, those that are acting immorally in the name of religion are doing so against the fundamental beliefs of their religion.

For instance, if someone who claims to be Christian regularly blows people up with bombs in the name of Christianity, is that person really a Christian?

I thought that mark12_30 summed this up well-
A Fransiscan monk who commits murder is acting despite his religion, not because of it. To blame an atrocity on the religion to which its perpetrators belong, when the religion expressly forbids such an act, is hardly a fair judge of the religion.
An estute observation, mark.
I have, in my own personal experience, seen Atheists behave with more courtesy, decency respect for human life and with less ambitious greed to dominate other people than those who claim religious belief.
Most certainly, but as I said before the behavior of those who claim religious belief is not necessarily following the doctorine of their belief.
Large, grand sounding abstractions such as "moral behaviour" and "immoralitty" need to be closely and carefully defined in any discussion.
And this is another huge question I have. Is it really possible to define moral behavior? If we use religion, there are several religions so can we pick one to impose on everyone? If we don't use belief in a higher authority then what do we use? Our own definition? That wouldn't be good because not everyone agrees.

The only thing that we can do with morality is determine what is right and wrong in Tolkien's world.

And what is morality in Middle Earth? Well, I suppose Eru is morality. But Tolkien also appears to have given every individual the ability to discern and choose without guidance in most situations. It seems that everyone, while different, was given the same basic moral compass in Middle Earth.

Does this reflect his view of the real world?

[Ransom]

It is morally wrong to coerce or compel moral behaviour.

I understand your statement about coercion, Bethberry, but I'm a little confused about your use of the word "compel".

According to the American Heritage Dictionary:

compel (tv)
To force, drive, or constrain
To necessitate or pressure by force; exact
To exert a strong, irresistible force on; sway


I think it's safe to assume that you used the word compel to imply one (or more) of the above statements.

A ordered society (as apposed to an anarchy) is based on the idea that *some* sort of behavior or act *somewhere* should be curbed or even outright banned for *some* reason. The actual reasons and conditions(and their relative morality) are largely irrelevant at the moment. I think it's fairly clear that both bad laws (e.g. persecution of religous groups) and good laws (e.g. penalties on rape, murder) both fit into this extremely rough template.

At least in America, government holds power by the consent of the people. It has a mandate from the people to perform certian duties (listed in the Constitution).

For example:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The highlighted section seems to fairly clearly indicate that the new government is intended to keep order and justice. To such an end, the government has passed a large number of laws. It bans premeditated murder, grand larceny, drug use, child abuse, and a large number of other questionable activities. It regulates (and sometimes bans outright) certain economic activities.

In the case of criminal laws, the government takes a fairly uncompromising position on enforcement. People know that if they commit murder, it's extremely likely that the police will find them and arrest them. The fear of punishment would therefore force a certain reaction from citizens. (E.g. Not murdering)

This (hopefully) becomes even more clear in the economic aspect. The government forces companies to operate in a free market through anti-trust litigation. It drives durg companies to comply with FDA rules and regulations. Both are economically necessary--monopolies promote economic inefficiency and defective drugs that cause irreperable harm or death would harm the industry's productivity.

Basically, I'm wondering if your statement that compeling a "moral behavior" (whatever that is defined as smilies/tongue.gif) is wrong would lead to a direct (or indirect) condemnation of the modern system of judicial thought.

[ October 29, 2003: Message edited by: Ransom ]

[Lush]

Lush, you’ve made a characteristically provocative assertion – that people who suppress their immoral impulses are worthy of scorn because they not only have the urge, but they are hypocrites in some sense for not at least honestly following through on the urge.

Nah, nah, nah, as much as I like to stay in chatacter when jabbering about illegal substances and whatnot, what I really meant was:

It's wrong for a person that doesn't do drugs to judge a person that does. It's wrong for us to judge Frodo for screwing up at the last minute. As I see it, it's wrong to judge in general.

Naturally, in order for our society to function somewhat (though whether or not it has really ever functioned is a question I'm still trying to answer for myself), we must bring criminals to trial and punish them according to law.

In that context and in many others, it is therefore our responsibility as human beings to search for that which constitutes morality.

I just don't think that any one of us will ever be wholly successful in that regard.

That doesn't, for one second, mean that we shouls stop trying however.

How's that for a conundrum?

Anyway, having decided on the ultimate failure of secular reasoning en masse, I join the good Professor in leaving the final answers and decisions up to God and the individual together (in my view, religion is an intimate, one-on-one conversation).

My apologies to anyone that isn't satisfied with the progression of my pseudo-logic.

[mark12_30]

In letter 156, after a discussion of the decline of Numenorean religious practices and Gondorian refusal to create temples or worship anything created or any 'dark lord'or satanic demon. He then speaks of the third age during and after the War of the Ring:

...the Shadow will arise again (as foretold by Gandalf), but never again (unless it be before the great End) will an evil daemon be incarnate as a physical enemy... But if you imagine people in such a mythical state, in which Evil is largely incarnate, and in which physical resistance to it is a major act of loyalty to God, I think you would have the 'good people' in just such a state: concentrated on the negative: the resistance to the false, while 'truth' remained more historical and philosophical than religious.

Hence, Tolkien connects resistance to the false, the shadow, as being a major act of loyalty to God. The context is a discussion of The Third Age.

Other than that, I don't think it is fruitful for this thread to engage in an argument over the greater virtue of faith or atheism

Clearly the Professor had an opinion on the relation of faith with morality, for instance, Letter 310:

With that we come to religion and the moral ideals that proceed from it.

or to speculate on Tolkien's private, personal thought, to which we are not the ones who have (or had) access.

He gives us that access in his letters. For instance:

Letter 246:

Frodo indeed 'failed' as a hero, as comvceived by simple minds; he gave in, ratted. I do not say 'simple minds' with contempt: they often see with clarity the simple truth and the absolute ideal to which effort must be directed, even if it is unattainable. Thier weakness, however, is twofold. They do not percive the complexity of any given situation in Time, in which an absolute ideal is enmeshed. They tend to forget that strange element in the World that we call Pity or Mercy, which is also an absolute requirement in moral judgement (since it is present in the Divine nature). In its highest exercise it belongs to God. For finite judges of imperfect knowledge it must lead to the use of two different scales of 'morality'."

He continues with his description of these two scales, and then returns to his discussion of Frodo's 'failure' at the Sammath Naur.

Note the following:

... Pity or Mercy, which is also an absolute requirement in moral judgement (since it is present in the Divine nature).

All of Letter 310 is another fascinating treatment of morality flowing from religion, but since the Professor does not delve into Middle-Earth as such, I will not quote more of it here.

[ October 29, 2003: Message edited by: mark12_30 ]

[Child of the 7th Age]

We may be running into problems because we're trying to carry on a discussion framed in terms of one overarching question. To my mind, there are at least three separate issues involved here, which need to be dealt with individually

Tolkien's view on the relation of religion and morality in terms of his personal life and beliefs.

The extent to which Tolkien portrayed the general framework of Arda and its moral underpinnings as having been determined by Eru.

The relation of religious beliefs and/or worship to morality in terms of the individual characters and their choices.



Helen,

Several of the quotes you provided definitely tie in with the first two questions. I think few would dispute that, in his own life, Tolkien regarded religion as the single more important factor shaping and influencing his moral choices and actions.

Similarly, reading over the early pages of the Silmarillion, the reader is left with no doubt that Eru is the creator of Arda. He is the one who understands the music in a way no other does; it is said that even those who think they are rebelling against his plan will find their actions turned around and mysteriously used to advance Eru's intentions.

With the third question, we're in a different realm, at least as far as the late Third Age goes. Tolkien consistently states:

(....there is practically no overt 'religion', or rather religious acts or places or ceremonies among the 'good' or anti-Sauron peoples in The Lord of the Rings

There were two reason for this. First, because of what happened in the Second Age, with the worship of a 'dark lord', good Men refused to partake in any worship for fear it could be perverted. Secondly, Eru generally kept himself at a distance from Arda. Tolkien explained:

The immediate 'authorities' are the Valar (the Powers or Authorities): the 'gods'. But they are only created spirits--of high angelic order we should say, with their attendent lesser angels--reverend, but not worshipful...

As a Catholic, Tolkien could not bring himself to create a world in which beings less than Eru would be worshipped. As a result, although God or providence occasionally acts behind the scenes in LotR, it is only in the most extreme situations and in very veiled ways. There is a note in Letter 153 which goes into this in depth. Let me quote just a small piece which stresses how distant Eru is...

There are thus no temples or "churches" or fanes in this 'world' among 'good' peoples. They had little or no 'religion' in the sense of worship. For help they may call on a Vala.... But this is a 'primitive age': and these folk may be said to view the Valar as children view their parents or immediate adult superiors, and though they know they are subjects of the King he does not live in their country nor have there any dwelling. I do not think Hobbits practised any form of worship or prayer (unless through exceptional contact with Elves)....

All this has implications for the whole question of the relationship of religion and morality in terms of The Lord of the Rings. The "good" characters in the book are exceedingly moral. As Aragorn put it, right does not change from one age to the next..., but this morality did not rest on formal religious beliefs or worship, since the latter simply did not exist in Middle-earth. And nowhere was this more true than in the Shire; Bilbo and Frodo and Sam were exceedingly unusual in even knowing a few tales and names of the Valar.

Yet what the Shirelings lacked in belief or knowledge, they made up for with a basic goodness and morality. In some ways the hobbits, with all their silliness, put modern men to shame. Would that we could say no man had killed another for the past 500 years!

In the Letters, Tolkien clearly states that none of the rest of the story makes sense--the entire struggle to be rid of the Ring-- without the Shire standing in the background. The meaning of the whole tale, the reason why Frodo struggled on, is that he could not bear to see the goodness and morality of the Shire destroyed. So Tolkien can and does depict decent men who struggle to act in a moral way out of some innate goodness rather than any formal belief system or mode of worship.

I do not doubt that Tolkien viewed resistence to the shadow as an act of loyalty to God. But this was not something the hobbits themselves were consciously aware of, since they had no knowledge of who Eru was, either in terms of his nature or deeds. Tolkien himself says "the Third Age was not a Christian world", but rather one of "natural theology" (Letter 165), and this natural stance, devoid of revelation, is something all of us can understand and appreciate, whatever our individual religious views.

[Bêthberry]

Ransom,

Basically, I'm wondering if your statement that compeling a "moral behavior" (whatever that is defined as <http://forum.barrowdowns.com/cgi-bin/smilies/tongue.gif> ) is wrong would lead to a direct (or indirect) condemnation of the modern system of judicial thought.


I would answer this by examining first your initial assumption that the obverse of ordered society is anarchy and second by taking the point back to Tolkien.

Most of North Americans' general assumptions about constitutions and governments derive from the Age of Reason, the eighteenth century. We assume that these are good things and represent a progressive, positive form of social organization.

However, not all contemporary thought accepts this. Here, I am thinking particularly of the philosopher Michel Foucault, who argued that the ideas of a "disciplinary society", of a society marked by systems of judicial thought, supervision, regulation, discipline and punishment, institutionalization, and mechanization were formed in the eighteenth century but were not constituted as such in earlier structures of society.

The question of how we come as cultures to create government is not, I think, as cut and dried as saying that a government is established by a written constitution to act upon the will of the people. Anthropology, sociology, philosophy, psychology would all have very different ways of looking upon how governments come to have power.

In fact, there is one form of argument which suggests that the very act of institutionalizing human conduct in governmental organizations, penal insitutions and madhouses, factories creates a very different relationship between moral and immoral behaviour. This placed these concerns within an authoritarian order rather than within a moral order, linking them to civil law. I am greatly simplifying the complex argument here, but essentially it is an argument which says that the very forms of immoral or anti-social behaviour which we now fear are created by the social constructs we now have in place. (Note, he does not say that theft, murder, madness, cruelty did not exist before this form of social organization, but that they were differently understood and handled.)

What I find fascinating here is to look at Tolkien's ideas about power, domination, personal moral responsibility and obligation and consider how he depicted his various races. We know little about dwarven social organization, not terribly much about Rohirrim or Gondorian social order. We probably know The Shire best. All of these societies are what modern rational thought would call primitive and even pre-literate (with the possible exception of Gondor here). Tolkien seems to harken back to some kind of "organic" form of social organization where the people as individuals were responsible for their society.

Think of Saurman's supervisory tower, his desire to impose his will upon others, the nature of The Shire when the hobbits return. It is true that Tolkien creates a Shire initially under the protection of Rangers and then under the jurisdiction of Aragorn, who closes it off to men. But I cannot help but wonder if Tolkien's view of the horrors of modern mechanized society extends also to a sense that moral order should not be relegated to civil order.


This is a very greatly generalized statement which I offer for suggestion only.

Bêthberry

[The Saucepan Man]

Phantom

I'm looking for a reason for everyone to behave morally.

There is no reason for everyone to behave morally.

… suddenly he's immoral where as he was moral before? I don't get it

A person is capable of both moral and immoral actions.

This seems to indicate that moral behavior is merely evolved instinct.

It is in its basic form, yes. But, as I explained above, I believe that we have gone beyond the merely instinctive, so that the pleasure which moral action can bring has become an end in itself. We all eat to survive, don’t we, animals and humans alike? And yet we have taken eating to a new level, beyond that which is simply necessary for survival, by cooking our food, flavouring it, combining dishes, and generally striving towards a more pleasurable eating experience.

… and morality, free will, and choice have been negated.

No more so than if we are compelled by a higher authority to act in a certain way. Indeed, no more so than if you believe (and I think that we all do here, whatever the reason) that humans have a tendency (to put it at its lowest) towards moral behaviour.

In other words, sometimes it's not in the interest of the individual to act in the interest of society (which is true). Why in those situations should they act morally?

They won’t necessarily. If they do, it is because they derive more pleasure from doing so than from satisfying their material desires.

Are we to just accept that some people can't be expected to act morally?

I think that we have to. Although that doesn’t mean that we have to accept immoral behaviour – we have laws to compel people not to perpetrate it in its most extreme form.

Some sort of religious belief is the only thing that would compel everyone, without exception, to behave morally.

This quote has been discussed by others, and I concur very much with what Bêthberry said. I agree that most if not all modern religions (in theory if not in always in their practical application) advocate a basically moral lifestyle. In my view, that is because religion has adopted as its model pattern of behaviour that which has gudied the development of society. But religious faith cannot compel everyone to behave morally because not everyone can be compelled to have religious faith.

Helen

Atheism has no higher authority, and hence, no rules.

If that were the case, then there would be no reason for atheists (or agnostics like me) to act morally. And yet, on the whole, we do.

Sharon

I think folk are trying to come up with a single, magic, controlling key to explain behavior, which simply does not exist.

I firmly believe that there is a fundamental reason why humans tend towards moral action (my “evolution” of society theory). But I wholly agree with you that there are a myriad of different factors (both internal and external) governing whether a particular individual might or might not act in a manner which he or she perceives as “moral”. And I also believe that there are a myriad of different factors affecting exactly what each individual perceives as “moral” or “immoral”. While there are certain types of behaviour which can, I think, be objectively labelled as either moral or immoral, there are a lot of “grey areas” in between.

Mister Underhill

You can’t definitively prove me wrong if I hypothesize that somewhere out there in the universe are a few planets that don’t obey the laws of gravitation. But you’d think me silly for arguing such a point when the vast weight of evidence suggests otherwise.

But where is the weight of evidence to suggest that an immoral person will inevitably be less happy than a moral one?

Your conclusion seems to contradict your theory. An evolutional, societal model of morality would seem to logically endorse the sacrifice of a few (innocent or not) for the good of society.

No it doesn’t. A society which sanctions immoral behaviour, even for the greater good, will not serve the interests of the majority of the individuals within that society (for a variety of possible reasons: less security, increased brutality, increased criminality, greater likelihood of conflict with other societies etc). Often societies such as this will serve only the interests of the (immoral) ruling elite. They are therefore not properly functioning societies and most will suffer the consequences of their immoral character in that they will be unhappy and, frequently, short-lived societies.

Sorry Esty. My next post will be Tolkien-related, I promise. smilies/rolleyes.gif smilies/smile.gif

[The Saucepan Man]

Tolkien seems to harken back to some kind of "organic" form of social organization where the people as individuals were responsible for their society.

You make an interesting point, Bêthberry . Gondor and Rohan did have military institutions which no doubt acted as some form of "police force" and would have been used to keep order where necessary. And in the Shire, of course, Shirriffs were charged with keeping order. We do hear very little of crime and punishment in LotR, although that is no doubt because the narrative is focussing on wider events. I would suspect that there were criminals in both Rohan and Gondor, and that each had in place some form of criminal justice system.

I can see wat you are getting at with regard to the Shire, though. The Shirriffs clearly had very little "serious" work to do, and the fact that Sharkey's Men had to use storage tunnels as Lockholes suggests that there had previously been no requirement for a jail.

Similarly with Elvish society. There seems to have been little need for individuals specifically charged with keeping order. Although Thranduil had dungeons in his Palace, I would suspect that these were more for locking up outsiders than for incarcerating denizens of his realm. Really, it is difficult to imagine there being much need for a system to compel good behaviour in Elvish communities. There are, of course, exceptions (Saeros' dispute with Turin and the Kinslaying at Aqualonde spring to mind), but on the whole Elves seem to have been fairly capable of taking individual responsibility in this regard.

But these are surely highly idealised societies. I really cannot imagine any but the most rudimentary of societies existing in reality without some means of keeping order. And, in terms of the level of advancement of the Hobbits and Elves in LotR, the equivalent societies in our history had criminal justice systems of sorts (even if they were not terribly just by our standards today).

As I said, I can imagine the Human societies in Middle-earth having formal systems directed towards compelling comliance with the law. I wonder, therefore, whether Tolkien was intentionally drawing a distinction between Elves (and Hobbits) and Men in this regard.

[Bêthberry]

Hi there Saucepan,

My point was really to suggest that our current, contemporary concept of morality and immorality is heavily determined by our criminal codes. Many, many behaviours are now deemed 'criminal', to various degrees, which were never in the past subject to law enforcement per se. (The history of the regulation of alcohol consumption in the USA and in Europe is one example.) In fact, the USA has one of the highest rates of incarceration of any of the Western nations.

It might be interesting, as an aside, to look at these links on the history of policing. Many of our modern ideas of policing are still derived from Sir Robert Peel's ideas when he established the first London Police force c. 1829 (the 'Bobbies', named after him).

The descriptions of the social organization for Anglo Saxon England (prior to William the Conqueror's invasion and usurption of the English throne) are fascinating in terms of Tolkien's depiction of The Shire.

History of Policing (http://www.carleton.ca/~nlhorne/history_of_policing.htm)

Tything and Hundreds, Reeves in Shires (http://www.klis.com/allsaints/pnotes.htm)

It might be a bit mad to discuss a post modern philosopher like Foucault (for whom all knowledge is a social construct) alongside an author like Tolkien (who believed, of course, in absolute truth), but I thought it was a helpful way to suggest that our current conceptions might not reflect the historical accuracies which Tolkien suggests.

Crime and punishment, as you correctly note, have little to do with Tolkien's moral universe.

[ November 01, 2003: Message edited by: Bêthberry ]

[Kuruharan]

Saucepan

There is no reason for everyone to behave morally.

-and-

I firmly believe that there is a fundamental reason why humans tend towards moral action

I suggest that there is, at the very least, an inconsistency here.

It is in its basic form, yes. But, as I explained above, I believe that we have gone beyond the merely instinctive, so that the pleasure which moral action can bring has become an end in itself.

I’m going to try again and ask "How?" and "Why should it have developed in the first place?"

[The Saucepan Man]

I suggest that there is, at the very least, an inconsistency here.

Not at all. The phantom was considering whether there was a reason for everyone to behave morally. I do not believe that there is. But I do believe that humans tend towards moral behaviour and, if so, there must be some reason for this.

Why should it have developed in the first place?

It's an evolved pattern of behaviour originally directed towards facilitating the survival of the species - see my earlier posts.

I really don't think that it's worth taking up any more space on this thread discussing my views on this. But feel free to PM me if you do want to discuss these issues further. smilies/smile.gif

[Kuruharan]

I really don't think that it's worth taking up any more space on this thread discussing my views on this.

Well, you are perhaps right about that. Things have wandered a bit. smilies/biggrin.gif

[mark12_30]

*bump*

I’d like to introduce the first chapter and hear your ideas on it.


Any interest in The Next, or subsequent, Chapters?

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Though I'm not currently reading in this book, I'd welcome contributions and try to take time to post if someone begins to discuss further chapters. Go for it!