Hey-diddily-ho,
Neighboreenos: Ned Flanders and Neighborly Love (from The Simpsons and Philosophy, ed. William Irwin [Chicago: Open Court Press, 2001].)
"Love
your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew19:19) is the centerpiece of Christian
ethics. Yet what it means and what it requires-like many good moral
principles-is ambiguous. Among all Ned Flanders's acts that exemplify
"love your neighbor," the one most philosophically interesting occurs
in the episode "Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily." In this episode
the Flanders are acting as a foster family for Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. During a
Bible study game, Ned discovers from Lisa that the Simpson children haven't
been baptized and immediately rushes to perform the sacrament. The reason to
have them baptized is obvious: Flanders believes that without baptism they
cannot be saved. Oddly, his sense of obligation does not seem to extend beyond
the household. He never before tried to have Bart, Lisa, or Maggie baptized
(perhaps because he didn't know), nor does he continue afterwards. Nor does his
sense of obligation ever seem to extend to the clearly non-Christian
characters. So the philosophical question raised is: To what extent is
"loving your neighbor" consistent with tolerating your neighbors'
beliefs and practices when you think that holding those beliefs will cause them
eternal suffering? How can you properly love others without acting to prevent
them from meeting such a fate? This becomes even more complicated when we
consider the full principle "love your neighbor as yourself." After
all, a clear feature of self-love is that you act to prevent your own eternal
suffering when possible. So if you are required to love your neighbor as
yourself, and a consequence of loving yourself is that you work to avoid suffering
(including eternal suffering), then it would seem you are required to work to
prevent the eternal suffering of others. And that requirement would include
working to baptize them. But Ned does not try to do that except when it
concerns children in his care. So our task here is to provide a possible
justification for Ned's actions given his beliefs.
Philosophy
and Fictional Characters
Now
it should be acknowledged at the outset that this is an odd project. What does
it mean to talk about the beliefs, or possible beliefs, of a fictional
character? Ned Flanders is only that which Matt Groening and his staff make him
to be. It doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to say "Ned should have
said or done x, or should believe y," or even "these arguments
justify Ned's actions" because, quite obviously, Ned has no beliefs and
does not actually act. So how are we to understand the project in front of us?
One
way would be to hypothesize Ned as an actual person. Our claims would then be
of the form, "If Ned were real, and Ned acted this way, how might he
philosophically justify his actions?" This doesn't work either. We are not
seeking hypothetical "If Ned were real" conclusions, but a genuine
understanding of the possible justification of certain actions. And this justification
should hold regardless of whether the actions are performed by a real-life
person, or simply depicted by the character Ned. Really, in the end it's the
actions we want to focus on-not Ned the character or even Ned as potentially
real-and thus we should think of the character as representing certain kinds of
actions: actions that can be reflected upon independently of their enactment.
To do so will make our investigations more philosophical, as opposed to
belonging more to cultural or literary analysis.
We
must also clarify that we are not out to explain the actions, but to provide a
possible justification for the actions. What is the difference? The only thing
that really explains Ned's "actions" is the fact that he was written
that way. Though it makes some sense to say Ned did something because he
believed it was necessary etc., as we have seen, strictly speaking, Ned has no
beliefs. Explaining actions is a complicated and sometimes futile undertaking.
For example, what explains the shooting death of an innocent man? The question
is horribly indeterminate because what counts as an explanation is horribly
indeterminate. There are many possible legitimate answers: society, madness,
mistaken identity, pulling the trigger of a loaded gun aimed at the victim, the
bullet, the hole, the lack of oxygen to the victim's brain, or, of course, the
ubiquitous explanation: God's will. So which really explains the action? It's
not clear there is a single answer to that question. At any rate, notice that
the answers tend towards psychological, sociological, and biological (and even
theological!) explanations. Our issue here is what justifies an action. What
kind of reasons could we provide that would make these actions and these
beliefs consistent?
The
Responsibility to Save Lives
So
we are concerned with a set of actions represented by Ned Flanders in
"Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily." What actions? Not Ned's attempt
to baptize the Simpson children when they were under his care. That action does
not raise a particularly difficult philosophical question. Providing a possible
justification is fairly simple. You should always act in the best interest of
those in your care. For what could it mean to care for others if not to enable
them to pursue their best interests? And when others are in your care, as
children are in parents' care-and as the Simpson children are in their foster
parents the Flanders' care-this means not only helping them achieve their
goals, but helping them to acquire the proper goals as the guardian or parent
sees them. Even though Bart and Lisa didn't think being baptized was in their
best interest, it is the responsibility of the guardians to act in the
children's interest regardless of the their beliefs.
The
issue we need to confront is this: given the belief that without baptism
eternal life is unattainable, and the belief that you should love your neighbor
as yourself, why wouldn't Ned always be working to baptize the unbaptized as an
act of love? To love someone would seem to require you to act to save his or
her earthly life-or at least to try to save his or her life. Indeed many would
think this requirement is not limited to those you love; you should try to save
someone's life even if you have no connection to that person. It would seem,
then, that you are even more morally bound to try if you love that person. But
if you are morally required to save someone's earthly life when you believe it
is endangered, then it would follow that you are morally required to save his
or her eternal life if you think it is endangered. That is, if you hold the
beliefs represented by Ned Flanders, then you are morally required to work for
the baptism of all persons at least as hard as you would to save someone's
life. But, Ned clearly doesn't. And, in fact, most people who hold these
beliefs don't. Are they simply inconsistent? To put our question in more
general terms, could you be justified in not working to save someone's eternal
life if you thought it was endangered? That is the action (or lack of action)
that requires justification. Clearly it is a much more difficult question than
whether the Flanders were justified in trying to baptize the Simpson children.
Let us spell the argument out in more detail, deriving it from the central
principle of "love your neighbor as yourself." Notice that the
obligation always focuses on trying to save someone's life, not necessarily
succeeding (as this may be impossible).
1.
You should Love your neighbor as yourself.
2.
Loving someone requires trying to save his or her life.
3.
If you are morally required to try to save someone's life, you are morally
required to try to save someone's eternal life.
4.
If you are morally required to try to save someone's eternal life, you are
morally required to try to provide what is necessary for him or her to receive
eternal life.
5.
Baptism is necessary for eternal life.
6.
Therefore, you are morally required to try to baptize everyone out of love, for
the sake of saving their eternal life.
Premises
(1) and (5) are taken as given, and surely they are beliefs represented by Ned
Flanders. Premise (2) seems trivially true, but we will have to see if there
are cases when you would, out of love, not try to save someone's life. Premise
(3) also seems trivially true. Line (6) is the conclusion, and follows from the
other premises. Premise (4) is something we haven't discussed yet, and needs
our attention
Are
there cases in which you are required to act for an end, but not required to
bring about the means to that end? It would seem unlikely, but let's consider
two scenarios. First, you have a moral obligation to save somebody, but it
would be physically impossible for you to save that person. (Perhaps because
that person is on the other side of the world from you.) Now since you are not
morally obligated to do something physically impossible, you have a situation
where you are obligated to an end, but not the necessary means. In this case,
the error is in thinking that you can still perform an action even if you
physically cannot perform the necessary means to that action. You can only
perform an action if the conditions necessary for the action are in place. As
you are not morally obligated to perform impossible acts, you are not morally
obligated to perform the end. So in fact you are only obligated if you can
realize the means. [note 1] In the second scenario, you have a moral obligation
to save somebody, but in order to do it, you need to act immorally. Since you
cannot be morally required to act immorally, again we have a case where the end
is required, but not the means. The question here is what happens if the means
are themselves immoral. If it's the case that it might be immoral to baptize
someone under certain circumstances, then the proof would fall apart. But what
might those circumstances be? Certainly there may be ways of getting someone
baptized which are recognizably immoral. Two examples would be tricking someone
in to being baptized (somehow) or forcing someone to be baptized against his or
her will. But all we need conclude from this scenario is that some ways of
baptizing someone are more moral than others. This is not a surprising
conclusion and not one which really jeopardizes the argument. [note 2] A
greater concern is that, since baptism provides for the possibility of eternal
life, the ends justify the means. The immorality of the means is overshadowed
by the possible good that can come from the action. Perhaps so, but we'll not
solve this problem until we understand under what conditions you could morally
refrain from trying to facilitate someone's salvation through having him or her
baptized. What we will find is that the solution to the original problem also
addresses the challenge that the end may justify the means. For the time being,
let's accept premise four and turn directly to the possibility of justifiably
not trying to save someone's eternal life, in the name of love.
Understanding
the Command to Love Your Neighbor as Yourself
First,
I think we need to look closely at the basic moral principle at work here:
"Love your neighbor as yourself." Let's take "neighbor" to
mean, as it is commonly understood, all human beings, and not simply those
living next door (though of course the narrow reading would still apply to the
Flanders and the Simpsons). [note 4] This principle shares a feature with the
golden rule ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"):
both derive the appropriate action from your own relation to yourself. As you
love yourself, so should you love others; as you want done to you, so should
you do to others. The concern following all such theories is that they open up
what we will call "The masochist problem." In the case of the Golden
Rule, what if what the person wants done to him-or herself is to have pain
inflicted for the sake of sexual arousal? Is he or she morally required to
inflict pain on others in order to sexually arouse himself or herself? This is
a problem for some versions, but interestingly it is less a problem for the
"love your neighbor" principle. We are to love our neighbors as we
love ourselves. Since the obligation turns on a projection of our self-love to
love of others, we are restricted from the start. Willing is much broader than
loving, and not everything willed upon oneself is consistent with loving
oneself. One could easily argue that masochism can't be consistent with proper
self-love, but of course this raises the question of the distinction between
proper and improper self-love. Consider one particular form of self-love:
narcissistic self-love (excessive pride, which the Medievals thought the worst
of all vices and the source of the rest). This form of self-love is not the
self-love of the principle of "love your neighbor as yourself." We
know this from simply looking at the form of the principle. The principle calls
on us to treat others as we treat ourselves, but narcissistic self-love
precludes precisely this other attentiveness. If we are narcissistically
self-loving, we are incapable of loving others, much less loving them as
ourselves. Clearly this is a morally improper form of self-love. Self-love of
this sort can't be universalized to apply to others, therefore if the principle
is going to avoid self-contradiction, it must call for a form of self-love
other than narcissistic self-love.
What,
then, are we to make of the notion of self-love? At the very least self-love
requires this: that we aim to provide the means necessary for advancing the
nobler aspects of our selves. Of course it will involve much more than this-for
example, striving for self-realization has to be balanced with
self-acceptance-but at the very least, to love oneself is to work to perfect
oneself as a person. That never involves simply following one's immediate wants
and desires. Rather it always involves evaluating those desires and integrating
those desires into a complete and fulfilling life. Thus to love others as
yourself is, at the very least, to work to promote the perfection of others as
human beings-to promote others development of their nobler aspects. And note
well that these nobler aspects may not only be independent of self-interest,
they may be antithetical to it. One of the noblest traits we recognize in
people is their willingness to act on principle above and beyond their
personal, selfish desires. Indeed, we praise those who not only act against
their selfish desires, but who sacrifice themselves for the sake of acting
morally. Loving others, then, involves encouraging them to act on principles
which may not be connected to their desires. Notice this is appropriate given
our discussion of the principle "love your neighbor as yourself."
That very principle requires us to act on principles like it. That is, the
commands of the principle to love others as yourself preserve the idea of
acting on principle rather than on narcissistic self-love.
At
this point we can return to something we saw earlier. Recall premise two in the
argument was "Loving someone requires trying to save his or her
life." We can now see there are cases where, out of love, we should
refrain from trying to save someone's life. If we allow that love for others
requires us to encourage others to act on principles more noble than merely
following their wants and desires, then we realize there may be cases where a
person is willing to risk death for one of these principles. If we are
privileging some principles over interests, then we should privilege them over
the ultimate interest: self-preservation. It would seem then that the principle
"love your neighbor as yourself" may, in fact, lead us into a
situation where the appropriate action is not to act to save someone's life.
That is, in cases where people are acting on a principle which, when realized,
advances nobler aspects of themselves and perfects them as persons, and the
following of which jeopardizes their lives, then you should not intervene. A
clear example would be if someone-recognizing it might mean his or her
death-refuses on principle to follow orders to kill innocent civilians.
Now
an obvious objection is that no one on The Simpsons is represented as holding
such principles. Not even the most principled character, Lisa, could be said to
belong to that category, so the argument is moot. But again, we are not
concerned with Ned and the characters per se, but only with them as
representatives of a certain set of actions, and we are inquiring as to how
those actions could be justified. On first glance, it would seem that they are
rarely, if ever, justified. Still, we have arrived at a sketch of a solution to
the problem, but only a sketch. Those familiar with the history of philosophy
will have recognized by now that our conclusions approach those arrived at
independently and for different reasons by Immanuel Kant. Let's look at his
account of autonomy as a guide for fleshing out the view that is emerging.
Kantian
Autonomy
At
this point our view has two elements: acting on principle, and acting
independently of interests. Kant held both of these factors to be crucial for
an action to be moral. [note 4] The first he considered trivial. Every action,
he claims, whether we know it or not, has some principle behind it: a maxim.
The moral worth of an action, then, depends on the nature of the maxim guiding
it. Some maxims reflect personal interests ("act in such a way as to
maximize your pleasure" is a common one), while others do not. We've seen
that "Love your neighbor as yourself" is an example of a maxim which
does not reflect personal interests. According to Kant, an action will only be
moral if the motivation for the action is simply morality itself. We do it
because it's the right thing to do. The same movements might be done for
different reasons, but they are only fully moral if they are done for moral
reasons. This is not to say the actions can't also fulfill our interests, just
that our self-interests can't be the motivation of the action if the action is
to be considered a moral action.
But
when aren't actions done from self-interest? Kant acknowledges it is difficult
to tell. In fact he says it's impossible to tell when you are genuinely acting
morally, but the key here is that it is possible to act morally. You can act on
principles independent of your interests. In addition to merely acting on the
principles, however, you must be aware of what you are doing for the action to
be a properly moral action. At least you need to be aware that you are trying
to act according to the principle you've chosen. To act morally, then, you
yourself need to make the moral principle your principle. Certainly it is
praiseworthy when someone acts benevolently out of instinct, but to fully act morally
means to decide to make the moral guiding principle the principle to be
followed. You give yourself the principle, you determine for yourself how you
should act, and you act on that principle. Only then have you freed yourself
from merely imitating others and according to Kant, only then are you genuinely
free. [note 5] Kant refers to this genuine freedom as autonomy, and it is
different from what we will call metaphysical freedom. Metaphysical freedom is
the ability to initiate new causal chains: the ability to, say, move your arm
at will without it being moved by something external to you. Autonomy, however,
is the ability to legislate your own actions by choosing the principle of your
actions. It is taking responsibility for the maxim of your action.
Consider
this feature of Kantian autonomy in the context of our guiding question. We
have been developing a possible moral justification for (1) believing you
should love your neighbor and (2) believing that without being baptized your
neighbor will suffer eternally, and (3) still not acting to baptize your
neighbor. And a picture of the conditions of such an action to be legitimate
have started to emerge. If someone is acting on principle-a principle that
perfects him or her-and that principle leads him or her to jeopardize his or
her life (including his or her eternal life), you might be required to refrain
from interfering on the basis of loving your neighbor. But surely if it's
possible to be acting on principle without really adopting that principle
consciously, then we are given pause. If someone has not consciously adopted
the principle of his or her action and made it his or her own, then it would
seem that there is an obligation to intervene "on his or her behalf"
(so to speak). If self-love requires you to pursue principles of action that
perfect yourself, then loving others means enabling them to do the same. But
this must mean enabling them to choose these principles for themselves, and
only in such conditions might "love your neighbor" obligate you to
respect their decision. So the central feature of Kant's theory of autonomy,
self-legislation of moral principles, seems to be required for our account as
well.
Yet
how do we come across these principles and make them our own? How do we
distance ourselves from our inclinations enough to make this possible? Kant's
answer is reason. Consider our three criteria for a moral action: (1) acting on
a principle (2) which is independent of our interests and (3) which we have
given to ourselves. Reason is necessary for all three. Reason is what lets us
step back from our immediate desires and inclinations, and it is reason which
allows us to think through the principles and decide if the action we are going
to make is being done for moral reasons (or selfish reasons). More importantly
for our case, it is reason that ultimately allows us to judge that a person is
risking his or her eternal life on the basis what the person takes to be a more
noble principle. For Kant, reason becomes the key to understanding how to
formulate the ultimately proper moral principle. Reason abstracts us from our
particular interests and, in doing so, universalizes our judgment. This
universalization is the key to what Kant calls the categorical imperative-a
principle which will tell us when our maxims are moral. Act only on the maxims
which can be willed to be universal laws. [note 6] We don't need to follow Kant
to this extreme formalism, but we have already seen his concerns for
universality at play in our interpretation of the meaning of self-love. At the
very least we should agree with Kant that a condition of autonomy is rationally
standing back from your desires in order to reflectively embrace a principle of
action. Promoting your reasoned stance towards your desires is perfecting the
nobler aspects of yourself. At least, the principle of "love your
neighbor" requires you to perfect your ability to use reason in this way.
So
our conception of autonomy is complete. Loving your neighbor does not require
you to try to save someone's eternal life when he or she is acting
autonomously. Autonomous agency, we've concluded with Kant's help, has four
parts. You must be acting on principles that are independent from your
interests and that you have consciously given to yourself. The principles must
aim to perfect yourself and must be the result of rational reflection about how
to act. In such a case Ned's actions would be justified. Under these
conditions, premise Two from our earlier argument-"Loving someone requires
trying to save his or her life"-turns out to be sometimes false and the
argument no longer holds. [note 7]
Conclusion:
Autonomy vs. Choice
Still,
doesn't this simply boil down to the commonsense reaction that you should not
interfere in the choices of others? Where does the argument differ? Although it
is true that if a person has consciously chosen his or her ends, the person
meets one of the criteria, there is still the concern for choosing principles
which function independently of desires. If a person is acting out of his or
her interests rather than on principles independent of his or her interests,
then there is never a case where the preservation of life is sacrificed to
higher interests. Well, unless of course that interest is the interest in
eternal life, but this is precisely the point. If people act out of interest
rather than out of principle, then helping them attain eternal life is
consistent with their aims, whether they realize it or not. So it is not the
case that choices are tolerated simply because a person made them. Only some
choices people make-rational, principled choices that are independent of
interests-free someone like Ned Flanders from trying to facilitate his or her
salvation through baptism in the name of "loving your neighbor as
yourself." Perhaps, then, it is especially appropriate that at the end of
the episode Flanders has only succeeded in baptizing one person, the character
most driven by immediate pleasures, his neighbor, Homer Simpson.
NOTES:
1
When we consider our example, the problem dissolves even more. According to
most interpretations, only God can really provide eternal life. So the end is
not in your power. What is in your power is trying to provide some of the
necessary means to salvation, in this case baptism. So in this case it is really
the means that you are required to try to provide, not the end itself.
2
There is also the issue of baptizing infants before they can have a choice in
the matter. We addressed this briefly above when we argued that guardians have
a moral responsibility to act as they see would be in the best interest of the
children in their care. Moreover, especially in the case of infants, baptism is
not forcing the children to adopt any particular religious beliefs. They are as
free to renounce their parent's beliefs as they grow older.
3
Needless to say love here is not meant as a feeling, as if the feeling of being
in love could be obligated, but as a way of relating to others.
4
Kant, surprisingly, rarely discusses at length the command to love your
neighbor as yourself. Here's what he does say in Part II of The Metaphysics
of Morals. "The saying 'you
ought to love your neighbor as yourself' does not mean that you ought
immediately (first) to love him and (afterwards) by means of this love do him
good. It means, rather, do good to your fellow human beings, and your
beneficence will produce love of them in you (as an aptitude of the inclination
to beneficence in general)" (in Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. p.
531). Later in the same work he writes, "The duty of love for one's
neighbor can, accordingly, be also expressed as the duty to make others' ends
my own (provided only that these are not immoral). . . . In accordance with the
ethical law of perfection 'love your neighbor as yourself,' the maxim of
benevolence (practical love of human beings) is a duty of all human beings
toward one another, whether or not one finds them worthy of love." Practical
Philosophy, p. 569570.
5
But note that simply making the principle your own doesn't make it a moral
principle, it must be the right kind of principle. That is, the morality of the
principle is independent of your willing the principle. We will see more of
this as Kant's views unfolds. Of course we could not come close to presenting
Kant's moral theory in all its complexity here. For a good presentation of
Kant's ethics see Allan Wood's Kant's Ethical Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
6
Kant gives a couple versions of the categorical imperative. Perhaps the most
relevant version for our emphasis on autonomy (moral self-legislation)is the
principle to act "on the idea of the will of every rational being as a
will giving universal law" (Practical Philosophy, p. 81). Which is to say, treat all as capable of being
autonomous agents. In effect, this and the principle of benevolence (help
others perfect themselves) is the content we've given to the "love your
neighbor" principle. We should recognize all as capable of autonomy and
help them achieve that end.
7
Although we've moved away from the question of the Simpson children, there is a
concern about how this reasoning would apply to all children, not just those in
your care. Kant thought everyone was capable of acting autonomously, however
not everyone realized this capacity. Children rarely act autonomously; so the
argument may still hold that one should try to baptize all children in your
care or otherwise. There isn't room to develop a fuller response to this
concern, but I think one of two tracks (or both) would be successful. One might
argue that you should respect the judgments autonomous people make for those in
their care; or one might argue that the conclusion is that loving your neighbor
requires you to work for your neighbor's salvation or to work for your
neighbor's realization of his or her autonomy.
David Vessey is Lecturer
in the Humanities at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on contemporary
European philosophy and he has published articles on Sartre, Foucault, and
Ricoeur. Like Ned he drives a Geo, and although he doesn't have a Ph.D. in
Mixology, he thinks he may have enough credits.