Doctor Who and Philosophy

by Courtland Lewis

  The drums remained a part of the Master’s consciousness since that time—we might assume something along nine hundred plus years, because the Master reminisces with the Doctor in the wasteland scene of “The End of Time, Part 1” about them running through the red grass fields of his father’s estate on Gallifrey. The Doctor and other Time Lords thought the Master was insane, and it’s even recorded that way in Time-Lord history. The drums were thought to be a symptom of that insanity, but not so. The drums beating in a rhythm of four is the heart-beat of a Time Lord. The Master is the connection required to free the remaining Time Lords in the time lock and to restore Gallifrey. Driven by his passions, the Master succeeds in opening the time lock and the Time Lords return. Also in the self-aggrandizing spirit of a world-historical individual, he initially taunts them with his success at turning the human race into the Master race and suggests he’ll do that for the Time Lords as well. Lord President, Rassilon, reverses the Master’s success and restores each human to his or her original form—not because he’s kind and wants to help humans—the restoration of Gallifrey entails the destruction of Earth and all its inhabitants—but merely to demonstrate to the Master that he can. The Master isn’t getting the recognition he desires from the Time Lords—he’s been their tool all along. Rassilon tells him, “You were diseased, albeit diseased of our own making.” Realizing he’s not getting that desired recognition, he asks the Time Lords to allow him to ascend with them in their becoming beings of pure consciousness. He’s rejected. He’s still their slave.

  The Doctor, meanwhile, deals with his own dilemma: whether to kill Rassilon or the Master. The Master, after all, was the link used by the Time Lords to free them from the time lock that promises the end of time itself. Rassilon seeks to restore Gallifrey at the expense of Earth and time. The Doctor destroys the controls to the Gate which was a means for the Time Lords’ return, but in this struggle, the Master recognizes his own dependent consciousness—the need for recognition as ‘Master’ from others. He finally becomes an independent consciousness when he stands up to the Time Lords, killing Rassilon. Hegel says:Let us now cast a look at the fate of these world-historical individuals. ... they were not what is commonly called happy ... they achieved [their aim] through toil and labor.... Thus, they attained no calm enjoyment. Once their objective is attained, they fall off like empty hulls from the kernel. They die early like Alexander, they are murdered like Caesar, transported to Saint Helena like Napoleon. (p. 41)

  Though the fate of the Master is unclear at the end of the episode, he’s no longer a dependent master-consciousness, but attains the freedom that, according to Hegel, is inherent in slave-consciousness. He no longer needs or desires the recognition of others and, he’s free from the bondage of the Time-Lord Cunning of Reason; well, at least for now. 126

  25

  Is the Doctor the Destroyer of Worlds?

  ROMAN ALTSHULER

  “I name you forever: You are the destroyer of worlds!” With this pronouncement, Davros concludes his role in “Journey’s End” (2008). It’s a role in which he oversees both the revelation and the explosive fulfillment of a prophecy made by Dalek Caan: that the Doctor’s soul will be revealed. At a pivotal moment, when both Martha and Jack threaten mass destruction if their Doctor (and the Earth) isn’t released, the Doctor seems to recognize that the prophecy is coming true. Davros helpfully explains:The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun. But this is the truth, Doctor: you take ordinary people and you fashion them into weapons. Behold your children of time transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks, Doctor. You made this.

  Already I have seen them sacrifice today for their beloved Doctor… How many more? Just think, how many have died in your name?

  The Doctor, the man who keeps running, never looking back because he dare not out of shame. This is my final victory, Doctor. I have shown you yourself.

  No doubt the Doctor has flaws, but is he really a destroyer? Is his alleged “transformation” of his companions morally on a par, even remotely, with the creation of the Daleks, a species bent on extermination? And, in any case, how can the actions of the companions, the children of time, reveal the Doctor’s soul rather than just their own choices and actions?

  Yet there’s something biting, too, to Davros’s last point: the Doctor is loath to look back. But why should he be? Davros’s other points, too, aren’t entirely new to the show: upon meeting Martha, Donna asks the Doctor, “Is that what you did to her? Turned her into a soldier?” (“The Sontaran Strategem,” 2008) Similar issues can easily be raised with regard to Jack’s involvement with Torchwood, or Harriet Jones’s trigger-happy use of that institute. But even if we accept that these companions have undertaken morally problematic actions, sometimes bordering on evil, why should the Doctor be held responsible for their deeds? Is Davros worth engaging with, or is his “final victory” mere posturing?

  Here’s a more plausible moral criticism. Having defeated the Family of Blood, the Doctor attempts to convince Joan Redfern to come with him. She responds with a pointed question: “If the Doctor had never visited us, had never chosen this place on a whim, would anyone here have died?” (“The Family of Blood,” 2007) This criticism seems far stronger than the previous ones, both because it’s made by a more sympathetic (and less morally suspect) judge of character, and because it reflects directly on the Doctor’s actions without the intermediary of others acting “in his name.” And it rings true, to boot: had the Doctor chosen to fight the Family of Blood instead of hiding, he would’ve spared their victims.

  The Doctor’s ostensibly flawed decision in this case shows a clear pattern of behavior. By attempting to reason with the Nestene Consciousness rather than using his anti-plastic, the Doctor allowed Autons to kill innocents while he struggled to free himself. By choosing to surrender rather than destroy the Daleks, he placed the entire universe at risk, an act he seemed ready to repeat in “Journey’s End.” By giving the Sontarans a choice, the Doctor risked the possibility that they might somehow prevail and destroy the Earth. And by rejecting Jack’s plan to kill the Master, he allowed the Earth’s population to be enslaved and “decimated” (something he couldn’t have been certain was reversible) and Martha’s family to be tortured. So, it isn’t just once that the Doctor has placed the lives of others at risk, sometimes resulting in many deaths, in order to avoid seemingly inevitable violence.

  Is the Doctor wrong to risk the deaths of innocent people, sometimes with devastating consequences, and if so, what could justify such apparent disregard for life? Also, how can the Doctor’s connection to his companions reveal his soul, and why should this revelation show him to be a destroyer?

  I Used to Have So Much Mercy

  We might go about offering a response to these questions in different ways, but the best place to start is to examine the Doctor’s character: his reasons for acting, his characteristic approach to conflict, and his relations with his companions. The traditional ethical approach best suited for an examination of character is the virtue ethics tradition descended to us from Aristotle. Virtue ethics approaches moral questions primarily by asking not about the principles agents ought to follow or the consequences that actions might bring about, but rather about the sort of character that the agent has, what kinds of virtues or vices he exemplifies in his actions.127 A brief excursion into the Doctor’s virtues can help us to “see the heart of him,” fulfilling Dalek Caan’s prophecy.

  The traditional list of virtues includes such traits of character as courage, moderation, justice, generosity, practical wisdom, truthfulness, and compassion. Most standard views, in addition, hold that no one can have the virtues in isolation: one can’t be truly wise without acting on that wisdom, for example; nor can one always be truthful without a certain amount of courage. And indeed we find that the Doctor exhibits most of the virtues (though he’s a bit sloppy on truthfulness). The Doctor also seems to exhibit a singleness of vision and a distinctive way of dealing with conflicts
; he isn’t simply an all-around good guy, but displays a particular approach that guides him through many of his interactions with hostile life forms. This approach is what unifies the Doctor’s many admirable qualities; it’s a chief virtue that gives unity to his character. But what is this virtue?

  The most obvious answer that comes to mind from the traditional list is compassion. Compassion is generally understood as a feeling involved in recognizing the suffering of another person and wanting to end or alleviate it through a concern for the other’s good. The Doctor’s compassion for humans (“Utopia,” 2007), subjects of medical experiments (“New Earth,” 2006), and other sentient species is a common element of the show. After being inhabited and almost killed by a living sun in “42” (2007), the Doctor still insists, “That sun needs care and protection just like any other living thing.” He also seems to be the only one concerned about his failure to save the Ood at the conclusion of “The Satan Pit” (2006), and feels that he owes them as a result (“Planet of the Ood,” 2008). He even explicitly offers to show compassion to the last Dalek (“Evolution of the Daleks,” 2007). Does the Doctor’s compassion, then, provide an answer to our first question? Is it out of compassion (or mercy, as suggested in “The Family of Blood”) that he attempts to save all sentient beings, even those bent on destroying others?

  This answer isn’t wholly satisfactory. For one thing, compassion seems to be something the Doctor learns or relearns, at least partly, from his companions. For example, the Doctor shows no compassion for Cassandra, the “last human,” in “End of the World” (2005), despite Rose’s pleading for him to help.128 But the Doctor’s refusal to destroy a sentient being out of hand, knowing full well the risk this refusal poses to others, is already evident in his earlier dealings with the Nestene Consciousness. So it seems that something other than compassion is behind his action. He doesn’t feel sorry for the Nestene Consciousness; he doesn’t seek its good. Rather, he wants to allow it to seek its own good without endangering others. And here’s the key: throughout the show, whenever any creature threatens the well-being of others, the Doctor offers it a choice (see: “The Next Doctor,” 2008; “World War Three,” 2005; and “School Reunion,” 2006).

  To some extent compassion lies in the background of the choices the Doctor offers, which almost inevitably take the same form: back off and let me help you without harming anyone, or I’ll stop you. He’s loath to take action against any aggressor until the latter has chosen to escalate the confrontation, and he’s prepared to work out a peaceful solution that will allow the aggressor to thrive on his own terms—provided, of course, that he ceases his aggression. So compassion does go a long way toward providing an ethical justification for the Doctor’s risking so many innocents to protect a being that aims to destroy them. But to really understand the Doctor’s motives, we must look at his emphasis on choice.

  I Am Giving You a Choice

  Choice figures prominently in the metaphysics of the Whoniverse. We might say that it’s a fundamental building block of reality. For instance, there’re several creatures on the show that feed specifically on the products of choice, the “potential energy” of choices that could’ve been made but weren’t due to some temporal meddling: Weeping Angels (“Blink,” 2007) and the Time Beetle (“Turn Left,” 2008). The Doctor frequently implies that ordinary people are important (“Father’s Day,” 2005), presumably because their choices shape the universe. And he even suggests that every time someone makes a choice, a parallel world comes into being (“Doomsday,” 2006). This is a bit metaphysically suspect (some might call it a “plot hole”), since in “Turn Left” the Doctor claims that the universe usually compensates for small changes in choices, and creates a new world only in extreme cases, like the choice that kept Donna from their fateful encounter. Whatever the difficulties, however, choice plays a major role in the constitution of the Whoniverse.

  Aware of this value of choice, the Doctor seeks to make the universe better not at the expense of choice, as would occur if he simply took choice out of the hands of all aggressors, but rather on the basis of the choices they make. What happens to them as a result of their disregard for others must be their own doing, and they must always have the possibility to make a choice for the better. This is why the Doctor normally takes care not merely to issue a “cease and desist” order to his adversaries, but to offer them an alternative that’ll be for their own good. This attempt to allow others to make their own choices, to seek their own good or destruction, thus seems to be the Doctor’s most characteristic virtue.

  Following the philosopher Martin Heidegger, we might call this virtue “concern,” or more specifically, “authentic concern.”129 Heidegger distinguishes between two kinds of concern that characterize our relations to others. First, we might attempt to resolve others’ problems for them, making decisions for their own good. Treating a person in this inauthentic way compromises her role in shaping her own existence, her ability to choose the sort of being she is, and her responsibility for her life. Instead, we shape her existence, or “leap in” for her, and drop her back into her life unchanged. Authentic concern, on the other hand, gives the other person a role in the way she relates to and cares about the world, others, and most importantly, herself. It allows “the other to become transparent to himself in his care and free for it” (p. 115). In other words, we can choose to treat others as objects in ways we see fit for their own good, or we can treat them as persons capable of shaping and taking responsibility for their own lives. The latter way helps others recognize that they are free to choose the ways in which they care about others and themselves, and to take responsibility for that freedom.

  This notion of authentic concern, in various forms, has permeated much of existentialist literature.130 Even if we incorporate it into an account of the Doctor’s portrayal of virtue ethics, it’s still not clear that having the virtue of concern justifies the Doctor’s actions. In order to attempt to match our moral intuitions with the Doctor’s, it’ll be helpful to reformulate our initial question: “Is the Doctor justified in risking the lives of innocents in order to promote an aggressor’s freedom of choice?”

  Imagine a being having godlike knowledge and skills with a TARDIS. Such a being has great potential to do good, but also great potential for evil. Should such a being attack other living beings unprovoked, it’d clearly be an evil act. However, if he attacked beings that clearly meant harm to others, but did not provoke him, that might still be evil—but it might be the lesser evil, and thus might be the right thing to do. So, how do we distinguish between beings that may, and those that may not, rightly be harmed? The answer might seem obvious: any serious intent to harm another sentient being makes one deserving of harm. But this is much less obvious than it seems, as we can easily illustrate with an example.

  Suppose you’re quietly studying in your den when the buzzing of a fly disturbs you. Absent-mindedly and wishing only to get back to work, you grab a fly swatter. The fly is within reach and you’re about to swing when, suddenly, an alien entity appears with a warning: “If you wish to continue quietly studying, I can help move you to a room without flies or I can take this fly outside where it will no longer distract you. But this fly is a living thing with interests of its own, and if you attempt to kill it, I will be forced to stop you.” You can still choose to swing at the fly, but now something has changed. Earlier, when you first intended your swing, you were doing it without thinking, almost instinctively. The interests of the fly never occurred to you. And now, perhaps, they still don’t; after all, it’s only a fly. But if you continue swinging at the fly after this warning, after having been forced to consider the consequences of your action, and consciously weigh your values (Is killing the fly really that important to you?), you’ve become genuinely responsible for your action in a way you weren’t before.

  The many hostile species the Doctor encounters are, often, much like you; and their intended victims are much like the fly. These hostile beings
frequently act on instinct, as the Daleks do, or out of a sense of honor, like the Sontarans, or simply out of greed, like the Sycorax. Regardless of their motives, they probably haven’t considered that humans131 (or whoever their victims are) have interests worthy of consideration. Their plans seemed to need no revision. They, like you and the fly, weren’t genuinely responsible for the harm their actions would cause, because they weren’t forced to reflect on them. Punishing these hostile beings without first making them aware there’s a choice to be made, and asking them to make a choice, would be as wrong as, say, decimating the human population for its unkind treatment of flies.132 Concern—a virtue focusing on giving another a choice, or an opportunity to take genuine responsibility—may not always have the best consequences. But an immensely powerful being acting without concern might quickly pave the road to hell with his good intentions. The Doctor’s genuine concern for the responsibility and choice of every entity, no matter its nature or history, is what makes him a morally sympathetic hero rather than a violent destroyer like the Master.

  The Doctor’s long history with some species may raise special problems. For example, he has good reasons, solidly grounded in past experience, to believe that neither the Sontarans nor the Daleks will change their course of action despite his strong warning and their belief that he will succeed in stopping them. To date, only a couple of species over the course of the new series have agreed to back off after a warning from the Doctor: the Vashta Nerada in “Forest of the Dead” (2008) and the Atraxi in “The Eleventh Hour” (2010). But if the Doctor has good reason to believe that his adversary won’t cease hostilities, and knows that offering a choice may lead to the deaths of innocents, is he still right not to “shoot first”? The Doctor could be justified in acting without first offering the adversary a choice only if he knew for certain that, despite the choice, his adversary will still make the wrong one. But even a Time Lord doesn’t know the future with such certainty. Some events are in flux, and the Doctor can see the different possibilities without knowing which one will occur, as he tells Donna in “Fires of Pompeii” (2008). Given the metaphysical importance of choice in the Whoniverse, the future choices of free beings are probably beyond the Doctor’s knowledge.