Read Game of Thrones and Philosophy Online
Authors: William Irwin Henry Jacoby
Game of Thrones and Philosophy
CONTENTS
Part One: “You Win or you Die”
Chapter 1: Maester Hobbes Goes to King’s Landing
Hobbes Takes the Maester’s Chain
Lion and Direwolf, Dragon and Leviathan
Chapter 2: It is a Great Crime to Lie to a King
Lying and Deceiving in Westeros
Is Lying Worse than Deceiving?
Betraying Trust and Shifting Responsibility
Bad Consequences and Broken Oaths
Chapter 3: Playing the Game of Thrones
Chapter 4: The War in Westeros and Just War Theory
The Justness of Resorting to War
Proportionality of Loss versus Gain
Discrimination between Combatants and Noncombatants
Appropriate Treatment of Prisoners of War
Respect the Rights of the State’s Own Citizens
Part Two: “The Things I Do For Love”
“Is the Honorable Person Happy?”
“Is the Devious Person Happy?”
“I Do Not Know Which of You I Pity Most”
“Life is Not a Song, Sweetling. You May Learn That One Day to Your Sorrow”
“When You Play the Game of Thrones, You Win or You Die. There Is No Middle Ground”
What Game of Thrones Teaches Us about Happiness
Chapter 6: The Death of Lord Stark
“If the Wicked Do Not Fear the King’s Justice Then You Have Put the Wrong Man in Office”
“The Day Will Come When you Need Them to Respect you, Even Fear you a Little”
“Most Men Would Rather Deny a Hard Truth Than Face It”
Chapter 7: Lord Eddard Stark, Queen Cersei Lannister
“You Never Could Lie for Love nor Honor, Ned Stark”
The Madness of Mercy—The Price of Honesty
“When you Play the Game of Thrones, You Win or You Die”: The Rewards of Egoism
“And Pray That He is the Man I Think He is”
“How Are you Any Different from Robert, or Me, or Jaime?”
Chapter 8: It Would Be a Mercy
“You Love Your Children, Do you Not?”
Part Three: “Winter is Coming”
Chapter 9: Wargs, Wights, and Wolves That Are Dire
What is It Like to Be a Direwolf?
Chapter 10: Magic, Science, and Metaphysics in A Game of Thrones
Chapter 11: “You Know Nothing, Jon Snow”
Not Knowing That You Know Nothing
Calibrating Confidence in What We (Don’t) Know
Chapter 12: “Why is the World So Full of Injustice?”
Is the Problem of Evil Really a Problem?
Augustine and Catelyn Defend the Faith of the Seven
David Hume and the Impotence of the Old Gods
Blaming the Gods for Natural Evil
Part Four: “The Man Who Passes the Sentence should Swing the Sword”
Chapter 13: Why Should Joffrey Be Moral If He Has Already Won the Game of Thrones?
The World Will Be Exactly As You Want It to Be (“Lord Snow”)
A Man with Great Ambition and No Morals, I Wouldn’t Bet against Him (“Fire and Blood”)
The Truth Will Be What You Make It (“Lord Snow”)
You’ve a Long Way to Travel and In Bad Company (“Fire and Blood”)
Our Way is the Old Way (“Winter is Coming”)
I Must Be One of the Few Men in This City Who Doesn’t Want to Be King (“Fire and Blood”)
Chapter 14: The Moral Luck of Tyrion Lannister
The Virtues and Vices of Tyrion Lannister
It’s Out of the King’s Hand’s Hands
Chapter 15: Dany’s Encounter with the Wild
The Diversity of Ethical Codes
The Morality of the Seven Kingdoms and Beyond
Chapter 16: “There Are No True Knights”
The Death of Modern Chivalry: Good Riddance
Women, Not Wards: What Has Humanity Made of the Human Female?
Part Five: “Stick them With the Pointy End”
Chapter 17: Fate, Freedom, and Authenticity in A Game of Thrones
The Freedom to Be or Not to Be
Que Sera, Sera (What Will Be, Will Be)
Chapter 18: No One Dances the Water Dance
Zen and the Sword Master from Braavos
Chapter 19: The Things I Do For Love
The Dwarf’s Gamble: Non-Zero-Sum Games and Repeated Play
The Archaeologist and the Mad Fool
Pointing a Finger at the Crazies
We Had to Murder the Mad Murderer!
Am I Sane? I Think I Am. . . . I Think I Am. . . . I Think I Am. . .
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