Philosophical Reflections on Black Mirror

Dan Shaw, Kingsley Marshall, James Rocha, Dan Shaw, Kingsley Marshall, James Rocha

• Editore: Bloomsbury Academic
• Anno: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781350162198
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Philosophy
• Categoria: Philosophy History & Theory

Black Mirror is a cultural phenomenon. It is a creative and sometimes shocking examination of modern society and the improbable consequences of technological progress. The episodes - typically set in an alternative present, or the near future - usually have a dark and satirical twist that provokes intense question both of the self and society at large. These kind of philosophical provocations are at the very heart of the show. Philosophical reflections on Black Mirror draws upon thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault to uncover how Black Mirror acts as 'philosophical television' questioning human morality and humanity's vulnerability when faced with the inexorable advance of technology.

Section Three

Black Mirror and Relating to Others

8

“Crocodile” Going Too Far

Philosophical Reflections on Human Nature and Moral Character

Clara Nisley

This chapter considers the Black Mirror episode “Crocodile” (Hillcoat 2017), whose principal character Mia Nolan is a woman who, from the result of an accident, makes choices that expose the corruption of her character. From our first encounter with Mia, “Crocodile” paints a picture of a woman who voluntarily chooses bad actions. At any time, Mia is free to act and prevail over her self-interests; yet, she voluntarily chooses to commit bad acts. Through this illustrative example, I shall explore whether morally evil acts are entrenched or habituated in a human being and whether an agent’s moral failure relates to the conflict between our practical rationality and inclinations (self-interested desires) or an agent’s basic mere cleverness as the corrupting capacity. I hope to answer the question whether Mia’s initial vicious choice, never rectified, led directly to the corruption of her character. To philosophically explore Mia’s actions, I shall look at the works of Aristotle and Immanuel Kant to give us insight into how each philosopher considers an agent’s choices as indicators of a morally bad character and an evil one.

This chapter is divided into four sections to articulate how a rational agent, Mia Nolan, misguided by her friendship with Rob, turns into a callous, cruel, and evil character, when Rob demands that she accept his decision to reveal their wrongdoing. The first section describes their type of friendship and how their friendship led to a decision that paved the way to Mia’s moral descent into evil. The second section is on virtue and its significance on moral character. In the third section, I explain how it is through Mia’s lack of virtue that she is unable to resist falling into a trajectory of evil deeds. Finally, the last section is on Kant’s and Aristotle’s conceptions of evil which explains Mia’s wicked character.

Friendship

“Crocodile” starts with flashing lights at a nightclub where two young people kiss as they dance. The scene switches over to Rob driving and Mia sitting next to him. They are both smoking and laughing while listening to music. Suddenly, we hear the brakes screech and a body crashes and flies across the hood of the car and cracks the windshield. Rob turns and says, “I didn’t see him Mia.” She and Rob get out of the car to see the injured bicyclist lying on his back across from the mangled bicycle. Rob kicks the bicyclist’s arm with his foot and backs away. He realizes the bicyclist is dead. Mia takes out her phone and says, “We’ve got to call someone,” but Rob begs her not to make the call. He and Mia have been snorting cocaine and drinking. If Mia calls the police about the accident, it’s instant prison for Rob and perhaps for Mia as well. After a moment, she acquiesces to Rob’s pleas.

At this point in the story, we see two people who lack temperance. The excess of pleasure seems to be the basis of their friendship. Mia and Rob go wrong when they don’t call the police, but instead carry the bicycle, put rocks in the sleeping bag with the bicyclist’s lifeless body in it, and toss the sleeping bag into the lake with the bike. Mia makes the wrong choice by helping Rob, and her decision shows that at the time she acts as a woman who is drunk or partially drunk but voluntarily chooses to help Rob cover up the accident, which indicates a moral failure.

Mia was faced with a choice on which she should have deliberated carefully and wisely. Her choice to do what was wrong comes partly from her self-indulgence of a night partying with Rob. Aristotle says that “the man who abstains from bodily pleasures and delights in this very fact is temperate . . . and he who stands his ground against things that are terrible and delights in this or at least is not pained is brave, while the man who is pained is a coward” (Nicomachean Ethics 2.3.1104b5-8). Mia and Rob didn’t try to do what was just because they were indulging in pleasure induced by a drugged state. This type of friendship is based on sensual pleasure and is harmful to the other.

Moreover, Mia and Rob cannot be friends for long, since their love lacks steadfastness and since the pleasure they have taken is in what is advantageous to the other. Aristotle says that young people like Mia and Rob often have the type of friendship that is based on pleasure, and “these friendships are only incidental,” as their pleasures change and “are easily dissolved, if the parties do not remain like themselves” (Nicomachean Ethics 8.3.1156a17-20). These friends do not like each other for their own sake “but in so far as he is useful or pleasant” (8.3.1156a17). A true friendship is ideally that of two people who reciprocally esteem each other. In the Lectures on Ethics Kant holds “that the reciprocal love in friendship must absolutely be coupled, among friends, with mutual respect for humanity in the person of the friend” (Van Impe 2011: 136). Rob had a duty to respect Mia for her humanity, and not ask her to help him dispose of the bicyclist’s body. Mia had a duty to Rob to respect his humanity as well as her own. She should have pleaded with Rob to do the right thing—report the accident. As Aristotle observed, a true friend keeps the other from doing an action stemming from their moral weakness and saves them from error (Nicomachean Ethics 8.1.12-13).

Aristotle claims that the types of friendships we form correspond to our character traits. For Aristotle, a morally good character is fundamental to a friendship. He emphasizes that good character is a state concerned with the actions and choices of an agent (Nicomachean Ethics 2.6.1106b24-36). However, Mia and Rob’s friendship was not based on each other’s characters, because they lack the virtue to act appropriately in their situation. Mia was in a conflicted state and could not respond rationally to Rob’s pleas, and Rob failed to bring his inclinations under the control of reason. Of course, if Rob were to regard Mia’s character, he would become good to his friend and would have the virtue to deliberate and act appropriately in regard to his friendship (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 8.4.1157a11–1157b33). However, his drug-induced state prevented him from avoiding—“the base, the injurious, [and] the painful” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 2.3.1104b31), making choices that were shameful, harmful, and will eventually cause each of them great pain. Rob neither had the deliberative skills to act correctly when confronted with the dead bicyclist nor did he feel a duty to his friend. Immanuel Kant holds that a friendship is a duty and “is an ideal each participating and sharing sympathetically in the other’s well-being through the morally good will that unites them” or it is an “idea that we strive for (as a maximum of good disposition toward each other)” (1996: 215). Failing to recognize the other person for their good character, they engaged in a vicious act.

Both Mia and Rob have relatively weak characters, so that when Rob pleads with Mia not to call the cops and help him toss the body and bicycle in the lake to get rid of the evidence, his decision on how to extricate himself out of the predicament is not based on an action done from the virtue of friendship, as it would require that he possess and exhibit certain feelings for her. Hence, the state of character becomes the basis for all of their actions - leading them to do what is wicked. Wickedness of character shows that Mia and Rob cannot be friends for long, since their love lacks steadfastness and since the pleasure they have taken is in what is advantageous to the other. Hence, whenever one friend no longer satisfies the other’s want for pleasure or is advantageous, the friendship ends. Steadfastness of character must be demonstrated, and their friendship lacks the morally good character that requires certain character traits such as temperance, wisdom, and honesty. Aristotle holds that friends who like each other for these properties will like each other for their sake. Their relationship, however, was based on enabling each other’s pleasure, instead of promoting each other’s morally good character. Mia and Rob have shown, their friendship lacks temperance and wisdom needed to deliberate correctly. Mia has, moreover, shown that she is not pained by what is terrible, and she did not stand her ground when Rob asked her to do a vicious act.

The relationship between Mia and Rob became one in which they had to hide the accident from everyone. Mia had a duty to tell the truth and is responsible for the unforeseeable consequences of her lie. She has committed a crime that she could have prevented by telling the truth. It is this lie that Mia is keeping that will lead her into a downward spiral. According to Immanuel Kant, Rob has a duty not to lie and not use Mia as a means to pursuing his end—in fear of punishment. Asking Mia to keep the accident a secret not only violates the duty he has to Mia but also he is violating her dignity as a human being by using her as a means to avoid the consequences of his recklessness. There would surely be a murder inquiry into the whereabouts of the bicyclist. By agreeing to lie, Mia is contributing to the degeneration of her own character as well as her friend’s character. In this friendship, truthfulness regards a gain, but as we shall see it also regards reputation. By avoiding going to prison, neither thought about how their decision would affect their reputation. Lying stems from “motives and character defects that result in acts that are detrimental to the community” (Zembaty 1993: 10). The lie that Mia and Rob are keeping is shameful, and “in the long run . . . will be exposed, and . . . the repercussions for the liar include the loss of trust [that is] essential to any friendship” (Zembaty 1993: 16). The lie is harmful because something profound is at stake: a man’s life. Neither thought that it would destroy their lives. It is shameful and base, and both are culpable. And, as we shall see, Mia, in saving her reputation, will commit the ultimate heinous act.

The Necessity of Virtue and Practical Reason on Character

It has been fifteen years since the accident, and Mia has pursued a career in architecture. Now we watch as Mia prepares for a presentation on her vision of the future. She has become “one of the most innovative architects of her generation.” The object of her desires has changed, and she is now concerned with “injustice, intolerance, and . . . environmental challenges.” Mia seems to care about what is good in terms of the conditions of human beings in their living communities. Therefore, Mia now seeks to bring about what is good, and she is able to do so by reasoning. How can we account for the present motivating desire to do what is good and her previous failures to do so? Has Mia’s character really changed so that her motivation is for what is good? In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle says, “by doing acts that we do in the presence of danger, and being habituated to feel fear or confidence, [we] become brave or cowardly” (2.1.1417). Rob’s actions have shown that in the presence of danger, he became a coward by doing a cowardly act from fear. Rob ran away out of fear, but now he wants to write an anonymous letter to the cyclist’s widow. The body of the cyclist has never been found, and his widow believes he is still alive. Mia, despite the speech she gives to the architectural community, acts out of fear when Rob tells her that he wants to write a letter to the cyclist’s wife. Mia, afraid that the letter will be traced back to Rob and eventually reveal her as an accomplice, will act according to her underlying character.

Aristotle tells us that “each man speaks and acts and lives in accordance to character” (Nicomachean Ethics 4.7.1127a26-28). Although she speaks about injustice, Mia decides that power and reputation are finer than justice. We find that because of her intemperate past that when Mia faces the danger of losing her reputation and power, her commitment to virtuous ends collapses. Mia does not want to give up the life she has. She thinks about how writing an anonymous letter will hurt her, her career, her status, and her family. She reminds Rob that it was his idea to keep their vicious act a secret. Mia has kept the disappearance of the bicyclist from everyone including her husband. After pursuing status and wealth, she will lose her affluence and her status in the architectural community. Moreover, if Rob writes the letter to the cyclist’s wife, Mia will lose her reputation as a virtuous agent concerned with injustice. Mia’s practical reason requires and facilitates her to develop virtue. Aristotle says that “virtue either natural or produced by habituation is what teaches right opinion” (Nicomachean Ethics, 7.8.1151a18-19). After her youth, Mia lacks the development of the virtues of character.

It seems that Mia never developed the virtues, which is what would have made her good in respect to character. Aristotle holds that individuals who lack the development of virtue are inconsistent in character. He states that the virtuous person is “concerned with choice that lies in the mean relative to us” (Nicomachean Ethics, 2.6.1106b35ff). When faced with a dire moral challenge, Mia’s disposition to act in a certain way in response to Rob’s intention to write an anonymous letter shows a character that succumbs to both rashness and cowardice; Mia shows rashness in her inclinations to kill and cowardice in her refusal to confront the authorities, if the anonymous letter were to have been traced to her. Her rash action is a failure because her passions and the action she took is an excess, and because killing Rob was in itself bad (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 2.61107a12).

Mia has the aid of reason to deliberate and achieve her ends; however, Mia took Rob’s self-disclosure as a threat, and without developing virtue Mia has mad...