Dexter and Philosophy

by Greene, Richard; Reisch, George A. ; Robison, Rachel

  Harry’s faults lead Dexter to question and eventually to rewrite the Code. When he learns of Harry’s indiscretions (having an affair with Dexter’s biological mother Laura Moser) and outright deceptions (lying about Dexter’s biological father, destroying evidence in his mother’s chainsaw murder case) Dexter rejects Harry as his “God” (a convenient external dictator of morality) and freely chooses to act according to the Code—rather than following it robotically as he does in the first season. At the end of season two he says: “The Code is mine now and mine alone, so too are the relationships that I cultivate. My father might not approve, but I am no longer his disciple. I am a master now. An idea, transcended into life” (“The British Invasion,” Season 2).

  His revised Code permits him to perform actions that would have been disallowed under the strict terms of Harry’s rules. After becoming his own man with his own rules, he kills Oscar Prado in self defense with no preparation; he wrongly condemns Freebo for killing Teegan (a murder that he did not commit, although he was guilty of others); and he kills Nathan Marten, a pedophile who was guilty of stalking Rita’s daughter Astor, but not of murder (which had been his strictest criteria in Season 1). By Season 3, Dexter has moved away from the strict rule-based Code of Harry and makes rules that fit his needs. He becomes less careful, he does less research, he misguidedly teaches Miguel his Code, and (in Season 4) he even mistakenly murders a photographer who was not guilty. Whereas in the early seasons Dexter’s killings were primarily a means of controlling his Dark Passenger, as the plot develops, killing isn’t just about channeling his urges anymore. It becomes a way for Dexter to control his own world. So, he needs his own Code.

  Weird but Likeable Psychopath?

  Dexter’s audience is led (at least early on) to believe that he has antisocial personality disorder44 (also known as being a psychopath or a sociopath). People who have antisocial personality demonstrate a “pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others.” They are incapable of really caring much about what others think, want, or need. Dexter meets a number of criteria for this diagnosis, including:

  • A “failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors”—he is, after all, a cold-blooded murder.

  • “Deceitfulness”—he manages to keep up relationships and appearances as a blood-splatter expert and works closely with the police while he slaughters people in his spare time.

  • A “lack of remorse”—he joyfully searches for new victims and feels no apparent guilt about the people that he dismembers and disposes of in the dark depths of the Gulf Stream.

  In the early seasons, Dexter does not and cannot feel empathy for others—sometimes despite his best efforts and strong desires to do so. He doesn’t understand normal human emotions, such as love, even though he wishes he did. He says at one point “I don’t have feelings about anything, but if I did, I’d have them for Deb” (“Dexter,” Season 1). He’s clearly attached in some meaningful way to Rita and her kids, but has no idea how to talk to them intimately and no conception of their emotional needs. In another example he confesses to being puzzled by grief; he says, “Most people have a hard time dealing with death—but I’m not most people. It’s the grief that makes me uncomfortable. Not because I’m a killer. Really. I just don’t understand all that emotion, which makes it hard to fake” (“Popping Cherry,” Season 1).

  He is, however, an odd psychopath. He doesn’t demonstrate “impulsivity or failure to plan ahead,” as demonstrated by the fact that he refers to himself as “a very neat monster” (his apartment and office are perhaps compulsively cleaned) and he meticulously follows prescribed rituals—preparation, cleanliness, organization, attention to detail, always bringing the right tools when killing his victims. Furthermore, he scrupulously follows most social norms (aside from those that forbid stalking and killing others) and even demonstrates concern for others when driving. He says on his way to work one day “the only problem with eating and driving—which I love to do—is that it makes it impossible to maintain the ten o’clock–two o’clock hand position. It’s a matter of public safety” (“Dexter,” Season 1). Obviously, he loves following rules despite his sociopathic tendencies.

  In the later seasons Dexter seems to develop something like empathetic responses, his care and concern for Rita and the kids deepens—enough for him to claim that he would rather that they “learn the truth” than lose them. He’s also genuinely concerned when he rushes to Debra’s side following her shooting, claiming “if anything happens to Deb . . . I would be . . . lost.” It remains to be seen whether he will continue to meet the requirements for antisocial personality disorder in Season 6 and beyond, and if he doesn’t how it will impact his role as a serial murderer.

  If Dexter is indeed a sociopath (whether sociopaths are made or born is a question we will leave to the psychologists and screenwriters), Harry’s training and channeling of Dexter’s murderous impulses doesn’t merely make sense; it’s an absolute necessity for him—at least to prevent him from receiving the death penalty, which was Harry’s biggest concern. But what does it mean in terms of morality? Dexter has the trappings of a moral life—he follows (at least a few) moral rules, he has developed what appear to be ethical principles; he doesn’t kill innocents, he doesn’t drive recklessly, and he tries, despite his limitations, to respond to the emotional needs of others. He attempts to be a good citizen in the ways he sees as most effective. Besides, he rids the world of the truly bad people who society is better off without anyway; he distributes vigilante justice. How immoral could he be?

  Emotions, and Rules, and Morality (Oh My!)

  While Dexter can follow rules, he has trouble creating any that take into account things beyond his own psychopathic desires. This is because he lacks what some thinkers hold to be the central tools of a moral life, namely, emotions. Neuroscientist Jonah Lehrer says psychopaths are particularly dangerous because “they have damaged emotional brains,” because they are “missing the emotions that guide moral decisions in the first place. There’s a dangerous void where their feelings are supposed to be.” 45 Dexter’s disorder does not prevent him from making reasoned judgments, from learning and following rules, it only prevents him from having appropriate and unrehearsed emotional responses. Lehrer says, “The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason;” in particular he is the person who has lost the ability to empathize, as has Dexter.

  From the standpoint of traditional, rule-based moral theory, the fact that sociopaths operate strictly in accord with reason yet come to such appalling moral conclusions makes little sense. As Lehrer points out “The luminaries of the Enlightenment, such as Leibnitz and Descartes tried to construct a moral system entirely free of feelings. Immanuel Kant argued that doing the right thing was merely a consequence of acting rationally—no more no less. Immorality, he said, was a result of illogic.” Lehrer quotes Kant when he claims that “the oftener and more steadfastly we reflect on our moral decisions the more moral those decisions become” as we impose reason onto our responses.46 Kant, the quintessential stuck-in-his-head philosopher, thinks that the essence of morality consists in following reason and shunning emotion. But this doesn’t seem right. With respect to their total incapacity for emotion, Star Trek’s Spock and Dexter would get along famously, yet they hardly make similar moral judgments.

  If Lehrer and current neuroscience is to be believed, ethical decisions are more like aesthetic judgments (that rely on emotion) than purely rationally based judgments; we respond to moral questions emotionally first and foremost. Rational judgments come after the emotional assessment has already been made. According to Lehrer,

  Kant and his followers thought the rational brain acted like a scientist: we used reason to arrive at an accurate view of the world. This meant that morality was based on objective values; moral judgments described moral facts. But the mind doesn’t work this way. . . . When it comes
to making ethical decisions, human rationality isn’t a scientist, it’s a lawyer. This inner attorney gathers bits of evidence, post hoc justifications, and pithy rhetoric in order to make the automatic reaction seem reasonable. (p. 172)

  According to Lehrer, most of the major players in the history of philosophy are completely wrong about the role of emotions in our moral life. As it turns out, emotions are essential to being moral. They don’t work against moral decision-making. Who knew? Certainly not philosophers who, since Plato, have denied that emotions could do anything but distract us from The Truth.

  Good? Evil? Icky? Sticky?

  From the perspective of this new neuroscience, attempting to base morality on reason is pure folly—it would require us to conclude that a perfectly logical and consistent sociopath like Dexter is moral, a claim that not even Dexter would make. For his part, he just throws up his hands at the question “Am I evil, am I good? I’m done asking those questions. I don’t have the answers. Does Anyone?” (“The British Invasion,” Season 2). Although we do not claim to have all of the answers to Dexter’s questions, we’ll try to make some sense out of our visceral, emotional hesitation to see Dexter as moral because he follows moral rules.

  One reason that we hesitate to call Dexter moral is that his ethical responses are so immature, particularly before he revises Harry’s Code, but even with his modified list of rules. In response to interviews with children and adults about moral decision-making, social psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg developed what he referred to as the Three Levels and Six Stages of Moral Development.47 The lowest, “pre-conventional” level is broken into two categories. The first of these, the “punishment and obedience orientation” is generally exhibited by ten-year-olds. This stage is typified by moral reasoning that is motivated by fear of physical punishment or desire for a reward. Children who reason in this way are usually trying to get cookies and avoid being put into “time out.” Dexter is trying to avoid a lethal injection and satisfy his murderous desires. The stakes are a bit higher for him, but he is still less morally developed than a fifth-grader. He progresses a bit by revising the Code, but still doesn’t escape what Kohlberg refers to as “pre-conventional” reasoning. Indeed he barely crosses into the second stage of pre-conventional thinking—“the instrumentalist relativist orientation” (who talks like this?).

  In this stage, eleven- to twelve-year-olds think in terms of satisfying their own needs, which occasionally requires satisfying the needs of others. Dexter demonstrates some form of this reasoning through most of his relationships—Rita is a cover for normalcy, and to obtain this he has to give her, among other things, sex (much to his hesitation, especially in Season 1, and again in Season 4 when he would much prefer sleep to a romp with Rita and her basket of sex toys). His relationship with Miguel, although in some respects based on a real desire for friendship, is similarly instrumental. He wants Miguel to like him, so he is willing to let him in on some aspects of his ritual (he keeps some from him too, as exemplified by the fact that he never tells him how he disposes of his bodies). As Kohlberg notes, this stage is filled with “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” reasoning, which seems to be as far as Dexter has advanced.

  Dexter’s moral reasoning never really crosses into the third or “conventional level”—where most people who don’t spend their days obsessing about moral theory bottom out. Although he does care about social approval (Kohlberg’s Stage Three) for pragmatic reasons, he doesn’t seek the approval of society in making moral judgments, such as whether or not it’s a good idea to wrap people in hefty bags and throw their dissected bodies off the side of his boat. He doesn’t think that it’s necessary to adopt the rules of the social body, such as laws or church doctrines (Kohlberg’s Stage Four) because of a reasoned understanding and respect for the authority of those rules.

  Kohlberg’s highest level of moral reasoning is defined not by rule following, but by an understanding of universality and genuine respect for others. Here moral actors develop principles based on the long-term needs of others, and recognize the inherent worth of persons. Rules, to the extent that they are followed, are adhered to because they have validity outside of the scope of an individual’s needs and speak to the greater concerns of humanity. Highfalutin? Yes. Consistent with anything that Dexter does? No. So despite his best efforts to “do good” Dexter really fails miserably on the morality scale (this one at least).

  Someone more morally mature than a fifth-grader might also respect rules, but would not follow them so blindly in the way Dexter does. He follows Harry’s rules early on as an externally imposed structure so he knows how to most productively channel his urge to destroy life. Without those rules Dexter would likely kill arbitrarily and would likely get caught. But even after the beginning of the Season 3 when he claims he owns that Code, that he has internalized it, he is still merely following a set of rules. He doesn’t ever shift to a greater sense of justice that needs to be served. He could have matured into someone who sees the real benefits of ridding his community of the really bad people, but he doesn’t kill for his community. He doesn’t do it for justice. Dexter kills merely to pacify the Dark Passenger. More morally developed people can move beyond rule-following because they can see the bigger picture of the consequences of their actions.

  Vigilante Hero?

  If we’re right that your average elementary school student reasons with more moral sophistication than Dexter, then he really is just a pathetic rule follower. But is he also a vigilante hero? In all but three cases—his murder of photographer Jonathon Farrow (who he mistakenly thought to have committed several murders that were actually committed by his assistant), his mercy killing of Camilla Figg, and a murder committed in the heat of passion in Season 5—every one of his murders dispensed vigilante justice by eliminating the worst of all possible criminals (assuming here that pedophiles rank near murderers on the “bad people” scale). So you might argue that he is actually doing good, that he is a righter of moral wrongs.

  Can you be a pathetic rule follower and a vigilante hero? Could he really be doing some good in the Miami-Dade area? He’s ridding the community of some seriously evil people who for one reason or another the justice system has failed to put away (usually due to some pesky rule designed to protect the innocent from the abuses of authority). It would be easy to contend that any community would better off with a “Bay Harbor Butcher” who protects innocent citizens by taking out the evil ones.

  Although we tend to think of the vigilante heroes as idealizations of days past, and they are very popular as fictional characters, there are (at least) two charges against real men who also saw Dexter as a vigilante hero and idol. Mark Twitchell committed a murder in 2008 after luring his victim to his home by posing as a woman on-line who was looking for married men to have affairs with. Twitchell had just completed a manuscript for a Dexter movie when he committed his crime and he claimed Dexter’s kind of justice to be an inspiration. In 2009 Andrew Conley, only seventeen years old at the time, killed his ten-year-old brother, and also claimed to be inspired by Dexter (more that he had killing tendencies than that he was seeking justice). He even used black Hefty bags to dispose of his brother’s body.

  While taking the law into your own hands, especially when the law is limited and imperfect, seems exciting and morally praiseworthy, the real Dexter-inspired murders bring gravity to this moral analysis. As much as we might idolize these renegade heroes, the reality is that most of us don’t really want to live in a community where a psychopath—with a Dark Passenger—delivers the justice. As Dexter says, “when it comes to my brand of justice, I don’t have to compromise” (“Turning Biminese,” Season 3). And his brand of justice is somewhat arbitrary (or at least subject to mistakes) and is particularly brutal. This works great for fiction and drama, but the reality of it is that he can’t be considered a hero in this light at all.

  In the final analysis, poor Dexter remains a pathetic rule-follower and not really much of
a hero, even though he is really good looking, which can sometimes distract us from a realistic moral evaluation. The plot is hugely successful not because he is somehow seen as moral (as appealing as that might be) but because of the idea of a serial killer who only kills other killers and the kind of justice that idolizes. Dexter isn’t moral though, and he doesn’t kill for moral reasons. He is a selfish killer who kills in a somewhat controlled (read “rule governed”) way to indulge his own needs. We don’t think this can be construed in any way, shape or form as moral.

  Don’t get us wrong here, though. Dexter himself is one of the most intriguing characters to hit the screen, but that’s largely because his character is well developed (along with lots of the other characters on the show) and the idea of a killer who only kills other killers seems intuitively curious to lots of viewers. He doesn’t kill because he’s moral, he kills because he’s an addict. He doesn’t use the Code to be just in any way whatsoever, he uses the Code so he doesn’t get caught. The lesson here might be, however, that merely following a set of rules or a “Code” doesn’t constitute morality. Merely following rules will never make any action good, and it doesn’t justify what Dexter does.