Dexter and Philosophy
Page 36
4
Katherine A Fowkes, The Fantasy Film (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), p. 129.
5
Sharon Packer, Superheroes and Superegos (Greenwood, 2010), p. 233.
6
Robert Nozick, The Examined Life (Simon and Schuster, 1989).
7
Gary Watson, “Responsibility and the Limits of Evil: Variations on a Strawsonian Theme,” in Agency and Answerability: Selected Essays (Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 226.
8
Patricia Greenspan “Responsible Psychopaths,” in Philosophical Psychology 16:3 (2003), p. 418.
9
Georgie Ann Weatherby, Danielle M. Buller, and Katelyn McGinnis, “The Buller-McGinnis Model of Serial Homicidal Behaviour: An Integrated Approach” Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice Research and Education 3:1 (2009).
10
This one’s for my dad, Dale Haas.
11
Harry G Frankfurt. “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility,” Journal of Philosophy 66:23 (1969).
12
Charles Taylor. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Harvard University Press, 1989), pp. 34, 112.
13
Interview with Collider
14
Being and Time (Harper and Row, 1962), pp. 32, 236.
15
Alasdair MacIntyre. After Virtue (University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), pp. 218–19.
16
Sources of the Self, p. 39.
17
Even Nietzsche’s attempt to overcome humanity presupposes strong evaluations regarding what is “good,” what matters, and is worth pursuing: the will to power, strength, creativity with new values, the joyful celebration of life.
18
Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 47.
19
Hegel’s description of mutual recognition is a lot of fun: “Each is for the other the middle term, through which each mediates itself with itself and unites with itself; and each is for itself, and for the other, an immediate being on its own account, which at the same time is such only through the mediation. They recognize themselves as mutually recognizing one another.” Phenomenology of Spirit (Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 112.
20
Nicomachean Ethics, line 1169b7.
21
After Virtue, p. 218.
22
Plato, Apology, lines 24b3–28a1.
23
Plato, The Republic, Books II–IV.
24
Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, sections 1–2.
25
Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay in Abjection (Columbia University Press, 1982), p. 2.
26
Crucial thanks: to my doctoral committee for helping me flesh out some of these ideas in conversation and in writing and always pressing me to go further (Don Wayne, Denise Ferreira da Silva, William Arctander O’Brien, and Yingjin Zhang), to my advisor Alain J.-J. Cohen for his support and guidance through some truly disturbing material, and to Justine Lopez for unwavering intellectual and emotional support (and willingly watching and re-watching and re-watching Dexter with me in preparation for this article), and to Richard Greene for his inexhaustible patience as an editor. Any mistakes or omissions are my own.
27
On the Sublime and Beautiful. The Harvard Classics (Collier, 1909–14; 1965 reprint), p. 36.
28
Andrew Frost, “It’s the End of the World but Not as We Know It,” Sydney Morning Herald (4th December, 2009).
29
Known in the television show as the “Ice Truck Killer,” because he preserved the dismembered body parts in a portable freezer truck. In the books he is the “Tamiami Slasher.”
30
In Season 3 Dexter tells Miguel Prado, “There are six quarts of blood in the human body; this is not going to be pretty” (“The Damage a Man Can Do”). The Ice Truck Killer has bled five victims dry at this point, so 6 x 5 = 35.
31
Another instance of using the blood-spatter imagery to a frightening foreshadowing effect is in the Season 3 finale, “Do You Take Dexter Morgan,” when blood from Dexter’s broken wrist drips onto Rita’s white wedding dress. We see that this marriage will literally be the (very bloody) death of her.
32
The subsequent “Oh crap,” look on Dexter’s face as he realizes that there will be a consequence for this is priceless. That in a previous episode Paul had been looking for that very skillet to worm his way back into the household by cooking the kids’ breakfast is also a neat irony.
33
In an example of the show’s often flippant use of language for dark humor, while Dexter and Miguel search their potential victim’s house for evidence of crime, Dexter says, “We know he bludgeons people to death so look for something—bludgeony.” They find a baseball bat with blood on it, a possible call back to Rita’s use of a similar bat to ward off her ex-husband’s attempted rape of her in Season 1. Trinity is also a bludgeon killer in Season 4, preferring a claw hammer as his weapon of choice.
34
Jeff Lindsay, Darkly Dreaming Dexter (Vintage, 2004), p. 4.
35
The Macquarie Dictionary,
36
Nick Smith, “The Splinter in Your Ear: Noise as the Semblance of Critique,” Culture, Theory, and Critique 46:1 (2005), p. 45.
37
Theodor. W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life (Verso, 2005), p. 105.
38
Alisa Mullins. “What Serial Shooters and Steve Green Have in Common,” American Chronicle (September 1st, 2006),
39
Carol J. Adams, The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (Continuum, 2010).
40
Carol J. Clover, Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (Princeton University Press 1992), pp. 21–65.
41
Barry Keith Grant, “Screams on Screens: Paradigms of Horror,” Loading: Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association 4:6 (2010), p. 10.
42
Philip Jenkin, Using Murder: The Social Construction of Serial Homicide (Aldine de Gruyter, 1994), pp. 146, 165; Laura Lederer, Take Back the Night: Women on Pornography (Morrow 1980).
43
Carmela Epright hates it when people describe utilitarianism this way, but her hatred doesn’t stop anyone from doing it.
44
Antisocial personality disorder is the clinical diagnosis outlined in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel IV-TR, Section 301.7.
45
Jonah Lehrer, How We Decide (Houghton Mifflin, 2009), pp. 171–75.
46
How We Decide, p. 172. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 57.
47
The Philosophy of Moral Development: Moral Stages and the Idea of Justice (Harper and Row, 1981).
48
“Inside the Mind of a Psychopath,” Scientific American Mind (September 2010).
49
These distinctions were first put forth in Thomas Nagel, “Moral Luck,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplemental Volumes 50 (1976).
50
David Lewis, “The Punishment that Leaves Something to Chance,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 18:,1 (Winter, 1989).
51
Joshua D. Greene, “The Secret Joke of Kant’s Soul,” in Moral Psychology: Historical and Contemporary Readings, edited by Thomas Nadelhoffer (Blackwell, 2010), p. 359.
52
Donald Davidson, in Readings in the Philosophy of Social Science, edited by Michael Martin and Lee C. McIntyre (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 199
4), p. 81.
53
J. Haidt, “The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment,” Psychological Review 108 (2001).
54
P. Toit, “Childhood Trauma in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Trichotillomania, and Controls,” Depression and Anxiety 15:2 (2002).
55
J. Burger, “Desire for Control and Conformity to a Perceived Norm,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 53:2 (2002).
56
J. Burger and S. Solomon, “The Control of Death and the Death of Control: The Effects of Mortality Salience, Neuroticism, and Worldview Threat on the Desire for Control,” Journal of Research in Personality 37 (2003).
57
Ernest Becker, The Birth and Death of Meaning (Free Press, 1971).
58
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (Vintage, 1995), p. 8.
59
Richard Dyer, The Matter of Images: Essays on Representation (Routledge, 2002), p. 126.
60
Richard Dyer, White (Routledge, 1997), p. 13.
61
All Maslow quotations are from “A Theory of Human Motivation.” Psychological Review 50 (1943).
62
Many Maslow pyramids available in textbooks and on the web include inferred descriptions of the five needs, often with some cultural bias. Maslow makes it clear that while he is treating these five needs as universal, that is, beyond cultural differences, “No claim is made that it is ultimate or universal for all cultures . . . Basic needs are more common-human than superficial desires or behaviors.”
63
Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits (Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 352.
64
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and Nobody (Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 99.
65
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future (Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 39.
66
Sarah Kofman, Nietzsche and Metaphor (Athlone Press, 1993).
67
Harold Alderman, Nietzsche’s Gift (Ohio University Press, 1977).
68
Nietzsche, Friedrich, “Truth and Lie in the Extra Moral Sense,” in The Portable Nietzsche (Penguin, 1982), pp. 46–47.
69
Those who have taken Intro to Ethicss will note that I have completely dismissed utilitarians and other consequentialists who argue that the goodness of an action has to do with consequences only, and nothing to do with the governing duty or character of the agent. Yep, I have.
70
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and the Genealogy of Morals (Doubleday, 1956), p. 176.
71
Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 1, Chapter 1,
72
Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism,” in Basic Writings of Existentialism (Modern Library, 2004), p. 344.
73
Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (Washington Square Press, 1992), p. 100.
Volume 58 in the series, Popular Culture and Philosophy ®, edited by George A. Reisch
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dexter and philosophy : mind over spatter / edited by Richard Greene, George A. Reisch, and Rachel Robison-Greene.
p. cm.—(Popular culture and philosophy ; v. 58)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN : 978-0-812-69726-1
1. Dexter (Television program) I. Greene, Richard, 1961 Sept. 2- II. Reisch, George A., 1962- III. Robison-Greene, Rachel, 1983- IV. Title. V. Series.
PN1992.77.D49D49 2011
791.45’72—dc22
2011008735
Table of Contents
Popular Culture and Philosophy
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Know Thyself?
BODY PART I - Maiming and Necessity
Chapter 1 - The Killing Joke
What Is a Superhero?
Deeds Not Words
Origin Stories: The Orphan Makes Good
The Superhero Syndrome
The Only Truly Decent Man Left on the Planet
Chapter 2 - Dexter’s Pointy Ears
Dexter’s Loss Is Our Gain
The Spock Problem
The Dexter Problem
As Goes Dexter, So Go We?
The Good Life and The Dexter-like Life
Chapter 3 - Dearly Damaged Dexter
You’re a Killer, I Catch Killers
I’ve Always Sensed There Was Something Off about Him
A Little Bird with a Broken Wing
You Can’t Help What Happened to You. But You Can Make the Best of It
Chapter 4 - Can We Blame a Man with No Choice?
How Much Control Does Dexter Have Over the Butcher’s Knife?
Does Inevitability Absolve Us?
Judge Frankfurt Rules Dexter Guilty
Any Way You Slice It
Almost Caught!
Chapter 5 - What Dexter Doesn’t Know Can Hurt You
Reasonable Doubts
Bodies of Evidence
Hey Dex, Is Your Spidey-Sense Tingling Yet?
More than a Feeling?
Chapter 6 - Dexter the Self-Interpreting Animal
Dexter’s Inescapable Framework
Has Dexter Overcome Humanity?
The Need for Recognition
A Story in Search of a Narrator
Chapter 7 - Is Dexter Morgan Practically Perfect in Every Way?
Groomin’ Lumen
Corrupting the Youth of Miami
The Homicidal Imperative?
Kickin’ It New School
I’ve Got No Strings . . .
BODY PART II - The Cut of Dexter’s Jib
Chapter 8 - Dexter’s Mirror
The Seduction of Blood
The Void, Dread, and Murder
Dexter’s Ritual Transcendence of Death
All for Love
Chapter 9 - A Very Special Kind of Monster
Corpses and Nothingness
Violence and the Return of the Abject
Taking Out the (Six) Garbage (Bags)
Kicking the Dark Passenger
Rule Number One
Chapter 10 - The Sublime Dexter
The Power of the Sublime
The Passions Aroused by the Sublime
Look for Something Bludgeony
Dexter’s Aesthetics
Chapter 11 - Dexter’s Specimens
Try Our New Dahmerland Section at Specimens ‘R’ Us
Counting Specimen Slides
Dexter, Specimen Maker
Buddy’s Bones
Born Free of All That’s Human
Pulled Pork Sandwiches and the Sexual Politics of Meat
You Kidnapped a Cop This Time, You Know? Not Some Invisible Hooker
Designing Women in Dexter
Homosocially Yours, Dexter
Specimen Watching
BODY PART III - What Would Dexter Do?
Chapter 12 - Pathetic Rule Follower or Vigilante Hero?
What Is a Moral Code?
Weird but Likeable Psychopath?
Emotions, and Rules, and Morality (Oh My!)
Good? Evil? Icky? Sticky?
Vigilante Hero?
Chapter 13 - Deontology in Dahmerland
Why Might Dexter Be Amoral?
The Three Moral Theories
Dexter’s Deadly Virtues
The Dark Defender and the Needs of the Many
Dexter’s Dark Deontology
You Control Your Urges—They Do Not Control You
Chapter 14 - Best of Luck, Dexter!
Picking Up the Dark Passenger
Better You than Me, Dex!
Teaching the Code of Harry
. . . And No More Fucking Remorse
Where the Bodies Lie
Chapter 15 - Why Kill or Not Kill? That Is the Question
The Mind Thinking about Its Sense of Duty
Dexter Doing His Duty Dutifully?
The Mind Serves the Heart
Harry’s House
Dexter Is a Needy Ned
De-Deontologizing Dexter
BODY PART IV - Bad Blood and Bad Behavior
Chapter 16 - The Discipline of Dexter’s Punishment
The Wimpiness of Modern Punishment
Following Harry’s Code
You Can’t Always Kill Whom You Want