Game of Thrones and Philosophy (15 page)

Blaming the Gods for Natural Evil

Natural
evil is the harm caused by natural events, such as earthquakes and hurricanes. For instance, Steffon Baratheon, the father of Robert, Stannis, and Renly Baratheon, was killed along with his wife and one hundred men on his ship the
Windproud
during a storm. Stannis Baratheon, recounting this event, explains that “I stopped believing in gods the day I saw the
Windproud
break up across the bay. Any gods so monstrous as to drown my mother and father would never have
my
worship.”
12

At first glance, the existence of natural evil cannot be explained in the same way as the existence of moral evils such as murder and rape. For it appears that no one’s free will has directly caused these natural evils, nor can anyone, except the gods, stop such evils from happening. And as Stannis rightfully concluded, it seems that the gods, old and new, were not willing or able to prevent this type of evil.

However, Augustine and other proponents of the free will defense, such as the contemporary philosopher Richard Swinburne, would still blame humans for this type of evil. They argue that natural evil
is necessary for
moral evil to exist. To illustrate this, consider the prologue to
A Clash of Kings
. Master Cressen decides to poison Melisandre by using the
strangler
, a dissolvable crystal that in fact is a deadly poison.
13
But how did Cressen know that this crystal is poisonous? Well, he probably was taught that this crystal had the appropriate deadly effect by maesters of his Order. But how did these maesters know? There must have been a
first
murder using this crystal at some point in time. But how did the first murderer
know
that this crystal would have a deadly effect? Presumably, this person would have noticed that the crystal or its contents were deadly because someone had digested it by accident, dying in the process. But this latter event just
is
a natural evil. Thus, according to this line of reasoning, there must be naturally occurring evils if men are to know how to cause moral evils. Natural evils are thus a prerequisite for the occurrence of moral evils.
14

This reply seems very weak. The idea that moral evil requires the existence of natural evil doesn’t seem true. God—or in this case the gods—could’ve created human beings with an innate knowledge of how to harm or kill others. Or one might simply learn from trial and error. Further, even if one grants that poisons are needed for some reason, the existence of hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes, which lay waste without reservation or bias, remain unexplained. No one has figured out how to use such natural disasters to create moral evil.

A second explanation of natural evil is offered by the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716). Leibniz argued that the world we live in is the
best possible world
. God could not have created the world any better than it currently is. And natural evil just is a necessary part of the best possible world. To take a modern example, plate tectonics—which Leibniz of course knew nothing about—cause earthquakes, but they also refresh the element carbon in the so-called carbon cycle. Without this carbon cycle, carbon-based life forms (such as us) could not exist on this planet. Good and evil go hand in hand, and we simply live in the world with the most optimal combination of both.
15

This argument, as well as the previous one, has a flaw that we have noticed earlier. The sheer amount of suffering and evil around us makes us wonder whether God or the gods have actually done a good thing in creating this world if it has to include all these evil things as well. And in reply to Leibniz, it certainly seems possible to imagine a world that’s better than ours.

R’hllor and Natural Evil

Although humans cannot cause natural evils such as storms, floods, and earthquakes themselves, gods could. These would have to be malevolent and evil gods, of course. But does the existence of evil gods mean that there are no good gods around?

According to the religion of the R’hllor followers, there are two gods: R’hllor, the Lord of Light, who is the good god, and his enemy the Great Other, the god of darkness, cold, and death. These two gods are at war with one another, and the world is their battlefield. The R’hllorian faith displays many commonalities with Zoroastrianism, an old Persian faith in which the good god and evil gods are also at war, and humans are either on the side of the good god or else on the side of the evil god.

The faith of the R’hllor followers can explain why there are natural evils: they are caused by the evil god. Examples include cold winters and the fearsome Others.

Although this type of faith can account for natural evil while still including a good and just god, it suffers from two problems that we have seen before. The first is that R’hllor and the Great Other appear to be equal in power: neither of them is omnipotent. If R’hllor was omnipotent, then he could have simply destroyed the Great Other. That R’hllor has not done so suggests that he
can’t
do so, and the same goes for the Great Other. So neither is omnipotent, and Hume has taught us that without omnipotence the logical problem of evil doesn’t arise. Only an omnipotent god is capable of preventing all evil from happening. And, of course, the Christian God is omnipotent; so if you are concerned about defending his existence, you will have to look elsewhere.

The second problem is that the followers of R’hllor are not innocent little kittens. Melisandre, the priestess of R’hllor, has caused many deaths. Think of poor Cressen, who drank the
strangler
poison that was meant for Melisandre.
16
And think of Renly Baratheon, killed by the shadow of Stannis, which was created by Melisandre.
17
If we can infer the will of the god by the actions of his followers, then it is doubtful that R’hllor can be counted as a good god, despite his colorful titles.

Gods Don’t Care about Men

The problem of evil poses some interesting questions for the gods of Westeros, but it doesn’t establish their nonexistence. At least in Westeros, the
logical
problem of evil, which says that the problem of evil leads to a
logical contradiction
, fails. However, there is a second type of the problem of evil, which is called the
evidential
problem of evil. The evidential problem of evil is less stringent, concluding simply that evil provides
evidence
against the existence of gods. As we have seen in this chapter, although there are possible explanations for why there is, or must be,
some
evil, philosophers sympathetic to these explanations are hard-pressed to show why there is so much cruelty, evil, and injustice in the world. It therefore seems that the sheer amount of evil in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, and perhaps also in our own world, provides evidence, though not absolute proof, for the nonexistence of the gods.

Notice again, though, that these arguments concern only just, good, and powerful gods. The problem of evil, whether logical or evidential, does not argue against uncaring gods. And many of the inhabitants of Westeros would agree that the gods lack such charming characteristics. Thus when Catelyn Stark told Brienne:

I was taught that good men must fight evil in this world, and Renly’s death was evil beyond all doubts. Yet I was also taught that the gods make kings, not the swords of men. If Stannis is our rightful king . . .

Brienne replied:

Robert was never the rightful king either, even Renly said as much. Jaime Lannister
murdered
the rightful king, after Robert killed his lawful heir on the Trident
. Where were the gods then?
The gods don’t care about men, no more than kings care about peasants.
18

NOTES

1
. David Hume,
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
(part 10, 1779), ed. Richard Popkin (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1980), p. 63.

2
. George R. R. Martin,
A Clash of Kings
(New York: Bantam Dell, 2005), p. 757.

3
. Ibid., p. 169.

4
. St. Augustine,
The City of God
, ed. R. W. Dyson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), book XI, Chapter IX, p. 461.

5
. St. Augustine,
Confessions
, ed. M. Boulding (New York: New City Press, 1997), book VII, chapter 3, verse 5.

6
. Martin,
A Clash of Kings
, p. 793.

7
. G. Ryle,
Dilemmas
(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1960).

8
. Richard Double,
The Non-Reality of Free Will
(New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1991); and more recently from scientists, Daniel M. Wegner,
The Illusion of Conscious Will
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002); and Benjamin Libet, “Do We Have Free Will?,”
Oxford Handbook on Free Will
, ed. Robert Kane (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002), pp. 551–564.

9
. H. J. McCloskey, “God and Evil,”
Philosophical Quarterly
10, no. 39 (1960), p. 111.

10
. Martin,
A Clash of Kings
, p. 683.

11
. George R. R. Martin,
A Game of Thrones
(New York: Bantam Dell, 2005), p. 116.

12
. Martin,
A Clash of Kings
, p. 162.

13
. Ibid., p. 21.

14
. T. J. Mawson, “The possibility of a free-will defence for the problem of natural evil,”
Religious Studies
40 (2004), p. 27. See also R. Swinburne,
The Existence of God
(Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2004).

15
. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz,
Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil
(New York: Cosimo Books, 2009), p. 198.

16
. Martin,
A Clash of Kings
, p. 29.

17
. Ibid., p. 502.

18
. Ibid., p. 561.

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?

Daniel Haas

The first season of
Game of Thrones
ends with a cruel and immoral boy seated on the Iron Throne. Joffrey Baratheon, thanks to the Machiavellian maneuvering of his mother and the death of his “father,” becomes king over all of Westeros. He is an absolute monarch who answers to no one, as Eddard Stark dramatically discovered.

Joffrey’s newly acquired power bodes ill for all of Westeros. As king, he is above rebuke and immune from punishment for his actions. While his subjects cower in fear, surely they must hope that Joffrey will change his ways and become a just and moral ruler.

But why should Joffrey be moral if he doesn’t have to face any negative consequences for his actions? Although the people of his kingdom might prefer him to be a moral ruler, why should that motivate him? If he has the power to do whatever he wants, isn’t it reasonable for him to do exactly that? In fact, what reason do any of us have to be moral in the absence of negative consequences?

The World Will Be Exactly As You Want It to Be (“Lord Snow”)

King Joffrey doesn’t see any reason why he should behave morally. He’s born to privilege and power and is well aware that few people have the power to overtly question his behavior. Even before his “father’s” unfortunate “accident,” Joffrey is well aware that he can get away with pretty much whatever he wants. And that’s exactly what he does.

When Joffrey decides to pick on Arya and her friend Mycah, the butcher’s son, it’s not Joffrey who is punished for being a bully. Sure, Arya disarms the prince, her direwolf bites his hand, and Joffrey’s sword is thrown in the river, but Joffrey is not called to account for picking a fight with Arya in the first place. Instead, Arya is punished, her direwolf is chased off, and both Mycah and Sansa’s innocent direwolf, Lady, are killed. Joffrey literally gets away with murder. He treats others poorly, and they get punished for calling him out on his misbehavior.

Not surprisingly, when Joffrey becomes king, he continues to act as if he can do whatever he wants. Cersei says of her son, “Now that he’s king, he believes he should do as he pleases, not as he’s bid.”
1
What changes when Joffrey is king, however, is that he believes he really is accountable to no one for his actions. Before his coronation, he at least knew he answered to his parents and, to a lesser extent, to the rest of his family, but once the Iron Throne is his, Joffrey believes he is above rebuke. This perceived privilege gives him license to engage in all sorts of horrible actions, not least of which is the merciless beheading of Eddard Stark.

Joffrey’s self-indulgent, sadistic behavior leaves most fans of A Song of Ice and Fire with a visceral distaste for him. Even George R. R. Martin has admitted that he took a certain guilty pleasure writing the scenes in which Joffrey finally gets his comeuppance.
2
We can all agree that Joffrey ought to be a better person. Even though he has the political power to do whatever he wants, there are some things you just don’t do. No matter how much your future in-laws upset you, you don’t cut off their heads in front of your fiancée.

But does Joffrey have reason to behave differently, given that there’s no external negative consequence for his actions? Isn’t he rational to do exactly what he wants to do, given that he need not fear punishment? What reason does Joffrey have to behave morally if nothing outwardly bad will happen to him as a response to his actions? Wouldn’t we all do the same (maybe we wouldn’t beat up our fiancées)? If you can get away with it, why not smite your enemies, cheat on your college entrance exams, or download a couple of movies without paying? If you’re guaranteed not to get caught and guaranteed not to suffer any negative repercussions for your misbehavior, why care about what morality dictates? Wouldn’t it be rational to behave like Joffrey and do whatever you want when you know you can get away with it? Or is there some self-interested reason that Joffrey and the rest of us should behave morally, even in the absence of external negative consequences for our actions?

A Man with Great Ambition and No Morals, I Wouldn’t Bet against Him (“Fire and Blood”)

Why be moral? This question dates back to Plato’s (428–348 BCE)
Republic
, in which the characters Socrates and Glaucon discuss the nature of justice.
3
Playing devil’s advocate, Glaucon makes the case that we behave justly (or morally) only because we’re afraid of getting caught and punished. Socrates (speaking for Plato) disagrees and suggests that the just man is always better off than the unjust man. As a counterexample to Socrates’ claim that the just man is always better off, Glaucon recounts the myth of the ring of Gyges.
4

In Glaucon’s story, Gyges, a simple shepherd, discovers a magic ring that turns whoever wears it invisible. Once learning of the ring’s magical properties, Gyges realizes he can fulfill his wildest ambitions. He uses the ring to fulfill his lust for power. He seduces the queen, kills the king, and seizes the throne for himself. Gyges has the ability to satisfy his every desire, and so he does.

Glaucon then asks Socrates to consider a scenario in which there are two magic rings, one given to a just man and the other given to an unjust man. Glaucon proposes that both the men will behave poorly. Not even the just man could resist the temptation to fulfill his every desire. After all, why should he resist? With the ring of Gyges, the just man has no reason to fear reprisal. His immoral acts will go unseen. With this kind of power, wouldn’t it be rational for him simply to do what is in his best interest, to do whatever he feels like? Wouldn’t he be kind of silly not to take advantage of the opportunity? Glaucon maintains that not only would most people use the ring, but that it would be irrational not to use the ring.

If Glaucon is right that only a fool would act morally in the absence of sanction, perhaps Joffrey is on to something. The ring-of-Gyges scenario is very similar to the way in which Joffrey conceives of the privilege of sitting on the Iron Throne. As king, Joffrey believes he will be immune from sanction. After all, justice in Westeros is the “king’s justice.” What the king says and does goes. If someone doesn’t like it or, even worse, questions his behavior, then Joffrey, as king, can simply dish out one of his many ingenious punishments, such as when he has a traveling minstrel’s tongue cut out for singing a song that mocks the death of Robert Baratheon and not so subtly accuses the Lannisters of killing the king. From Joffrey’s perspective, the privilege of sitting on the Iron Throne is just as good as having your own magic ring.

Being king might come with nearly limitless power, but unfortunately for Joffrey, not even a king can hide his actions from his subjects. The ring of Gyges is so enticing precisely because its wearer gets to behave immorally without gaining the bad reputation that Joffrey and other despicable people earn for themselves. And as much as Joffrey would like to believe he can do whatever he wants, people remember tyrants with hatred and loathing. A generation before Joffrey, the people of Westeros rose up against the mad king Aerys Targaryen. This rebellion eventually led to Aerys’s murder at the hand of Jaime Lannister. As season one of
Game of Thrones
comes to an end, Joffrey is fast following in Aerys’s footsteps.
5

With each act of cruelty, with each harm inflicted for selfish gain, Joffrey turns a potentially loyal ally into a lifelong enemy. Whereas Gyges gets to enjoy the benefits of appearing to be a good person, Joffrey is not so lucky. Before his rise to power, Joffrey’s behavior was offensive enough to warrant a good beating from his uncle. Did you cheer the first time you watched Tyrion Lannister slap his nephew? I know I did. And being crowned king did nothing to improve Joffrey’s behavior. A few short days after Joffrey takes the throne, Sansa, Joffrey’s loving bride-to-be, is contemplating pushing him off a bridge. Joffrey’s misdeeds all but guarantee that his time on the Iron Throne will come to a quick and bloody end.

Joffrey has clearly misunderstood what sitting on the Iron Throne means. But is Joffrey’s mistake that he acts immorally? Or is it something else? Perhaps believing that he’s invincible?

Joffrey believes that as king he can do whatever he wants and that there will be no negative consequences. This is hopelessly naïve. His fatal mistake is not so much that he behaves immorally, but rather that he incorrectly believes that he is invincible. After all, immoral behavior has given him a bad reputation and made many enemies. He’d be wise to start behaving better.

Members of Joffrey’s court, such as Lord Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish, are better at concealing their misdeeds. And, like Gyges, Cersei and Jaime Lannister are capable of keeping their moral transgressions secret, even if it means pushing a child or two out a window. Maybe the real take-home lesson is that Joffrey just needs to be more careful about who
sees
him acting immorally.

The Truth Will Be What You Make It (“Lord Snow”)

Cersei and Jaime Lannister are wise enough to keep their moral lapses secret. They act as if they’re morally respectable when they’re with other people, and they keep their love affair and political maneuvering in the shadows.

In a pivotal scene, Cersei advises Joffrey that “the occasional kindness will spare you all sorts of trouble down the road.” (“Lord Snow”). Cersei is trying to teach her son the importance of keeping up the appearance of being a good person by acting as if he’s a just ruler and cultivating the reputation of a moral person. Her advice is that it is fine to do whatever you want in secret, but to outwardly act a villain is to make quick enemies and set yourself up for a huge fall.

Cersei, of course, doesn’t have a magic ring like Gyges. She has to resort to political doublespeak, her lover pushing children out windows, and other Machiavellian strategies for concealing her true motives. But assuming she’s successful at maintaining the appearance of being a noble and just queen, does she have any reason to be moral in her private life? Given that Cersei’s done her part to make sure she never has to face sanction, does she have any reason to be moral? Is fear of retribution the only real reason to be moral?

You’ve a Long Way to Travel and In Bad Company (“Fire and Blood”)

Perhaps Cersei and Joffrey should be moral because of the social contract we’re all part of as members of communities. It’s clearly in both their best interests to live in a society where people behave morally, where they respect the rights and interests of others. After all, if Cersei knew that everyone else at King’s Landing was guaranteed to behave morally, provided she also behaved well, then she would have far less motivation to plot and scheme. Likewise, if the only way that Joffrey could ensure that his subjects would not try to usurp his throne was if he were a just and noble ruler, then he would also have a strong reason to behave morally.

The social contract theorist Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) would agree. Hobbes worried about the danger of humans competing with one another to satisfy their own goals. He recognized that in a world without legal, moral, and social constraints on what we can and cannot do, there is nothing stopping us from deadly conflict. It’s a grim reality that humans pursing their own goals and interests will inevitably come into direct conflict with one another. And it’s an obvious truth that even the weakest of us can pose a threat to the strongest. Hobbes was well aware that an imp can always hire a sellsword, a queen can always resort to treachery or poison, and even a strong warrior like Drogo can be taken down by a mere flesh wound. When we all pursue our own goals and desires without the constraints of morality and society, we compete. And when we compete, we end up killing each other.

This fear of mutual destruction gives us a powerful motivation to find a way of ensuring that we all are on our best behavior. Rationally, we ought to be willing to do just about anything to ensure an environment without constant deadly competition. And one way to do this is to agree to live by a set of rules. If I agree to be a moral and just person provided you agree to be a moral and just person, and you agree to the same, we both have assurance that we’re able to cooperate and live in peace. The reason that Joffrey and Cersei have to be moral, then, is to ensure the preservation of the social contract, to ensure that everyone else behaves morally as well.

At first glance, this seems to be a powerful answer to the “Why be moral?” question. It gives even the most warped and psychopathic person a compelling reason to be on her best behavior. If you step out of line and indulge in immoral acts, you’re breaking the contract with your fellow citizens. And if you don’t play by the rules, then they have no reason to either. Once you can no longer rely on your neighbors to behave morally, you’re jumping at every shadow, expecting a knife in the back.

The men of the Night’s Watch embrace a philosophy very much in the spirit of Hobbes’s reason to be moral. The Night’s Watch is a sort of prison colony made up of murderers, rapists, thieves, and those with nowhere else to go. Most end up joining the Night’s Watch reluctantly. They’ve been given a choice between “taking the black”—pledging their lives to defend Westeros from the unspeakable horrors beyond the wall—or death. Clearly, when you’re living among thieves and murderers, it’s vitally important to have some assurance that your neighbor won’t slit your throat while you sleep. The Night’s Watch pulls this off by making sure its members understand that if they step out of line, they’ll be killed.

But King’s Landing is a place very different from the Wall, and Joffrey’s court is far less honorable than the band of vagabonds that make up the watch. Even if Joffrey and Cersei were to agree with Hobbes that the desire for a stable, moral society gives us some motivation to behave well, that obligation lasts only as long as others keep up their end of the contract. And you don’t need to be Eddard Stark to know that there is no contract in Joffrey’s court. Behaving morally is not a good survival strategy at King’s Landing.