Doctor Who and Philosophy

by Courtland Lewis

  If this is being logical, then being logical doesn’t sound very appealing. But would a logical creature really behave like the Cybermen do? If not, how would a logical creature behave? Or, to put it another way, what’s the “logical” way to live? That’s the question I’ll be examining here by contrasting the views of philosophers Thomas Hobbes, John Stuart Mill, and David Hume, asking what they’d think of Cyberman “logic” and how Cybermen might’ve looked if they’d been designed according to the principles espoused by these philosophers; how they might have designed the Cybermen differently, given a chance.30 While my examples come from Doctor Who, the issue of living logically has real-world importance. After all, we all have to decide if we care about living logically or not, and if we do want to live logically, we’d better know what “living logically” requires of us.

  Before proceeding, we’d better decide what’s meant by being “logical.” I take it that when the Cybermen use the term “logical,” they’re using it in its most ordinary sense, whereby “logic” is synonymous with “reason,” and to be logical is to make judgments that are reasonable. I’d better mention that philosophers use the term “logical” in several more technical senses, but I don’t believe that the writers of Doctor Who have generally been aware of these more technical senses, nor does their dialogue regarding logic make sense if the word is understood in a more technical way.

  In “Doomsday” (2006), when the Cybermen and Daleks meet for the first time and the Daleks refuse to identify themselves, a Cyberman complains, “That is illogical. You will modify.” I take it that the Cyberman means something like, “Come on dude, be reasonable. Tell me your name.” If the Cyberman instead means something like, “I want you to derive your conclusions in accordance with the rules for any artificial, formal language,” I no longer understand the scene, both because there’s no reason for the Cyberman to want that, and because there’s no way in which he could know if the Dalek had done it or not. Therefore, I’ll be using the terms “logical” and “reasonable” (and “logic” and “reason”) interchangeably. This is important because the philosophers we’ll be looking at spoke of acting in accordance with “reason” rather than in accordance with “logic,” as the Cybermen do, and I’m treating that as merely a terminological difference.

  We Will Survive

  If this is indeed what the Cybermen mean by “logic,” then the Cybermen believe that life should be lived in accordance with reason. Thomas Hobbes (1588 to 1679)31 believed that life should be lived in accordance with reason too. Reason, thought Hobbes, tells us to do whatever is in our own personal best interests. Our most fundamental best interest is to survive, so the most fundamental command of reason is that we ensure our own survival.

  This need to survive gives rise to what Hobbes called the “Laws of Nature.” He wrote “A Law of Nature is a general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life or takes away the means of preserving it or to omit that by which it may be best preserved.” Hobbes listed nineteen Laws of Nature that he’d discovered through reason, but the first three are particularly basic to his plan for a reasonable society.

  The first Law of Nature is that one must always seek peace and defend oneself against danger. Although Hobbes thought it was reasonable to seek peace, that doesn’t mean he thought humans are peaceful by nature. Rather, he thought that without strong government to keep order, humans naturally live in a state of violent anarchy, a “war of every man against every man.” In fact, Hobbes thought that harming others to help yourself is the reasonable thing to do if you can get away with it. Without police to stop you, why not steal? If your neighbor looks like a threat, why not kill him first? The reasonable person in such a society would be a dangerous, untrustworthy opportunist like the grim mercenary Commander Lytton from “Resurrection of the Daleks” (1984) and “Attack of the Cybermen,” the treasure-seeking thug Sabalom Glitz from “The Mysterious Planet” (1986) and “Dragonfire” (1987), or the Dalek-collecting tycoon Henry van Statten from “Dalek” (2005). Understandably, Hobbes saw life in such a society as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” However, he also thought that reason offered us a way out of this hellish chaos, through a social contract.

  Hobbes’s second Law of Nature is that we should be willing to make social contracts with other people, giving up liberties equally in the interest of the common good. So, for example, we might all agree to surrender our freedom to kill one another, to drive on whichever side of the road we like, and to touch others if we’ve been infected by a Crinoid, like Mr. Keeler in “The Seeds of Doom” (1976). Reason tells us to make such deals even though we’ll lose some freedom by doing so, because living in a society that follows rules like these is in our own best interest. After all, none of us wants to be murdered, run down, or transformed into a giant predatory bush (no you don’t—think it through). Hobbes’s third Law of Nature is that we must keep these contracts we’ve made. He thought that the only way to ensure the contracts are kept is for society to appoint a dictator with absolute power. This is, of course, just the sort of dictator that Eric Kleig thought “logic” demanded for Earth.

  We are Human-Point-2. Every Citizen will Receive a Free Upgrade.

  So how do the Cybermen match up to Hobbes’s conception of a life lived in accordance with reason? In other words, just how logical would Hobbes think the Cybermen really are? They do better at some times than others. When we first see them facing off against William Hartnell’s Doctor in “The Tenth Planet,” they look like perfect Hobbesian heroes. Though they’re attacking Earth, they do it only to preserve their own lives. Cyberman Krang explains: “This close proximity of our two planets means that one has to be eliminated for the safety of the other. The one to be destroyed will be Earth. We cannot allow Mondas to burn up.” When the Doctor’s companion Polly pleads with the Cybermen not to let millions of humans die, one Cyberman replies, “We are only interested in survival. Anything else is of no importance. Your deaths will not affect us.”

  Furthermore, these Cybermen seem to show a fine understanding of Hobbesian social contracts. What the Cybermen (or their Mondasian ancestors) appear to have promised one another is to mutually give up many liberties for the sake of order and survival. The Cybermen co-operate closely and follow rules to the letter, submitting to complete regimentation and offering absolute obedience to authority. Appropriately enough from Hobbes’s viewpoint, Cyberman promises are only considered binding within the social contract of Cyberman society—“Promises to aliens have no validity,” one Cyberman reminds another as they prepare to betray the Master in “The Five Doctors” (1983). In the new series, John Lumic, once converted, is clearly the Hobbesian dictator of Cyberman society, holding absolute authority over them and receiving absolute obedience. “I will bring peace to the world. Everlasting peace and unity and uniformity” he decrees from his enormous throne of pipes in “Doomsday.”

  Feelings? I Do Not Understand that Word

  What would Hobbes say about the Cybermen’s most distinctive modification, the removal of all emotion? A somewhat Hobbesian justification is offered by the Cybermen themselves. “Our brains are just like yours, except certain weaknesses have been removed,” one explains to Polly in “The Tenth Planet.” Nevertheless, Hobbes would be horrified by what they’ve become.

  When Hobbes considered what’s valuable in life, he wrote that good is whatever people desire and evil whatever they hate: “whatsoever is the object of any man’s appetite or desire, that is it which he for his part calls good: and the object of his hate and aversion, evil.”32 If Cybermen lack emotions, then presumably they can’t desire anything. Since it’s desire alone that makes things valuable in Hobbes’s view, a life without desire would be a life without value.

  Locate and Destroy All Animal Organisms!

  Hobbes would approve of the Cybermen less and less as their history progresses. Arguably, the Cybermen are still just trying to survive in
the three Cyberman stories after “The Tenth Planet”: “The Moonbase,” “Tomb of the Cybermen,” and “The Wheel in Space” (up against Troughton’s Doctor). However, by the time they invade Earth in Troughton’s “The Invasion,” they’ve already established themselves and are now set on conquering everything they can get their silver hands on. By Tom Baker’s “Revenge of the Cybermen” (1975), they make clear that their ambition includes conquering the entire cosmos. They still see themselves as creatures of logic, but now, logic tells them not just to survive but to make war on everyone else. Hobbes would be horrified. The business of the Cyberman state is now effectively eternal warfare and eternal warfare is eternal threat to your personal survival. The Cybermen may have made mutual sacrifices for the common good, but they made the wrong sacrifices, and Hobbes wouldn’t call them reasonable. To be fair, it’s the plan of Cyberman creator John Lumic in “The Age of Steel” to “bring peace to the world. Everlasting peace ...” through Cyberman conquest. However, if you’re reading this book, you already know where Lumic’s plans really led.

  If Thomas Hobbes Had Designed the Cybermen

  If Hobbes had been allowed to redesign the Cybermen to be genuinely logical, their history would be different. They might still have attacked humanity in “The Tenth Planet,” “The Moonbase,” “Tomb of the Cybermen,” and “The Wheel in Space,” if that seemed to offer them the best chance for survival. However, as soon as they’d established themselves away from their doomed home planet, they’d have avoided warfare where practical, seeking peace and security instead.

  In the new series, the Cybermen we’ve been watching didn’t arise on Mondas but on a parallel Earth. If these Cybermen were reasonable, in Hobbes’s terms, they’d see no logic in trying to convert other humans. After all, for Hobbes, reason tells us to seek our own good. The new Cybermen should be able to see that they’d be better off keeping the gift of conversion to themselves. Of course, this would require disobedience to their ruler, John Lumic, and Hobbes didn’t generally believe in disobedience to authority, but he also stated, “The obligation of subjects to the sovereign is understood to last as long as, and no longer, than the power lasteth by which he is able to protect them.” Since the Cybermen no longer need Lumic’s protection, they’ve no further reason to respect his authority.33 So, rather than killing the president of Great Britain when they crash Jackie Tyler’s birthday party, it seems more likely that the Cybermen would’ve entered into immediate negotiations, demanding billions of pounds in return for letting British scientists study them.

  Have You No Emotions, Sir?

  John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)34 came to a very different conclusion about the sort of life that reason recommends. On his view, reason recommends spreading happiness. The only proof that something’s worth having, according to Mill, is that people want it. What people value, he thought, is happiness, and concluded that pleasure is the only good and suffering the only evil. This might make Mill sound like a selfish hedonist, but in fact, he thought it unreasonable to treat other people’s happiness as any less important than your own. Since only happiness has value, it doesn’t matter whose happiness it is. Far from advocating selfishness, he advocated universal concern for others and campaigned for political change to improve the wellbeing of the poorest and most disadvantaged members of society. The most reasonable sort of life, according to this view, is a life devoted to doing good in the world, like hippy scientist Cliff Jones from “The Green Death” (1973), the chair-bound Keeper of Traken from “The Keeper of Traken” (1981), or the Doctor himself.

  Mill believed that people should enjoy themselves as well as help others. Even while enjoying oneself, though, Mill’s life of reason is no wild party. While he thought that all pleasures are good, he thought that some pleasures are better than others. In particular, he thought that “higher pleasures,” pleasures that exercise the intellect, like studying philosophy or reading poetry, are more valuable than “lower pleasures,” pleasures that don’t exercise the intellect, like gambling or drinking or watching Adric explode again.

  There Are Some Corners of the Universe which Have Bred the Most Terrible Things

  So what would Mill think of the Cybermen? Like Hobbes, he’d be appalled at what they’ve become and would see nothing logical about their actions. He’d look at the endless warfare Cybermen wage and would be repelled—Cybermen are agents of misery. This is ironic given that the elimination of suffering is presented as one justification for conversion from human to Cyberman. “Why no emotions?” Rose asks David Tennant’s Doctor in “Rise of the Cybermen.” “Because it hurts,” he replies. A Cyberman explains: “We think of the humans. We think of their difference and their pain. They suffer in the skin. They must be upgraded.”

  It’s possible that Mill might approve of surgical alterations that prevent negative emotions. After all, Mill thought that unhappiness is the only thing that’s intrinsically bad and that it’s only reasonable to reduce unhappiness if we can. However, Mill wouldn’t find it reasonable for the Cybermen to have removed their positive emotions as well. In removing their ability to feel happiness, they’ve abandoned the very thing it would have been reasonable to pursue. “When did you last have the pleasure of smelling a flower, watching a sunset, eating a well-prepared meal?” demands Peter Davison’s Doctor of Cybermen in “Earthshock,” making a similar point.

  If John Stuart Mill Had Designed the Cybermen

  Mill would’ve thought it reasonable to design the Cybermen to be happy. Since Mill thought that “higher pleasures”—intellectual and cultural pleasures—are more important than “lower pleasures” that don’t challenge the mind, he might also find it reasonable to sacrifice some lower pleasure if it was likely to bring about more higher pleasure.

  Mill might think that extending life by replacing organic parts with cybernetic ones would be worthwhile even if it required the loss of certain bodily pleasures, such as those of smell, taste and touch. If so, Mill’s Cybermen might not look very different from the Cybermen we’re used to seeing. However, instead of devoting their extended lifespans and high intelligence to developing schemes for conquest, Mill’s Cybermen might compose exquisite poetry, debate philosophy, or study science just for the joy of it (as opposed to studying science to design viruses, head-mounted firearms, and killer robot silverfish). Their society wouldn’t resemble a fascist state, but the sort of peaceful, intellectual civilizations we’ve seen on Traken in “The Keeper of Traken,” on Logopolis in “Logopolis” (1981) or even (sometimes) on Gallifrey itself.

  The thing that Mill would consider most important to give the Cybermen is the one thing they’re most famous for lacking: a concern for the suffering of others. Mill’s Cybermen would’ve listened when Polly begged them in “The Tenth Planet” to think of the millions of human lives their plan would destroy. They’d then calculate whether it would bring about more unhappiness to destroy Earth or Mondas and would sacrifice whichever of those planets that would cause the least suffering. Admittedly, they’d probably decide to destroy Earth, predicting that their own world would have a happier future.

  Even if Mill’s Cybermen would’ve tried to wipe us out in “The Tenth Planet,” they’d have gotten on with us much better in subsequent adventures where their survival wasn’t at stake. Rather than trying to enslave or destroy humanity, Cybermen who are reasonable by Mill’s standard would want to help us so as to raise the level of happiness in the universe, starting by sharing their miraculous medical technology. They might be strange neighbors, but they’d be kind ones. Of course, kindness can be misguided and so we might still fear that the Cybermen would “help” us by force in accordance with their idea of what we should be.

  You Will Become Like Us

  Such mandatory “help” is common in Cyberman stories, such as when Eric Kleig, in “The Tomb of the Cybermen,” is judged by the Cyberman Controller to be good Cyberman material, whether Kleig wants to become a Cyberman or not. The theme of involuntary “hel
p” is even more prominent in the new series, in which Cybermen speak of “upgrading” humans into Cyberman form in order to reduce the subject’s suffering.

  John Lumic, inventor of the Cybermen, is himself converted without consent in “The Age of Steel,” his protests dismissed by his creations with the words: “This man worked with Cybus Industries to create our species. He will be rewarded by force.” Similarly, Kleig, who presents himself as humanity’s benefactor, thinks that logic tells him to be “master of the world” so that he can enact his plans. He’s so eager to enforce his way of thinking that he wants a world in which, as the Doctor describes it to him, “no country, no person would dare to have a single thought that was not your own. Eric Kleig’s own conception of the ... of the way of life!” Would Mill agree that reason instructs us to be so coercive towards other people?

  He wouldn’t. Mill thought that reason tells us to do just the opposite. He thought that human beings are the best judges of what will make them happy; taking away people’s freedom and making decisions on their behalf for their own good tends to make them miserable instead. Like Eric Kleig, Mill sought political position to bring about his plans for changing society—he became a member of the UK parliament. However, far from agreeing with Kleig that reason demands a totalitarian state, Mill campaigned for a freer society, advocating such things as voting rights for women and the abolition of the slave trade. He wrote, “The only part of the conduct of anyone for which he is amenable to society is that which concerns others.... Over himself . . . the individual is sovereign.”