by Owen Stanley
Seated at the other end of the table from the Provost was an ancient German Egyptologist, Dr. Frohlich. Very deaf and very silent, the only sound emanating from him was the regular clicking of his false teeth, as he insisted on chewing every mouthful thirty times, which he believed, on the authority of Queen Victoria, was the essential foundation of good health. He was the last survivor of the antediluvian Fellows who had been elected for life sixty years ago. Dining in college was one of the few pleasures left to him, and he studied each day’s menu as closely as he did his ancient inscriptions. Like an old vulture on its tree-branch, he sat ready to swoop on the more succulent dishes, especially the Beef Wellington.
In earlier years he had been in the habit of using an ear-trumpet to join in the conversation until a mischievous Junior Research Fellow had dumped a large spoonful of scrambled egg into it; whereafter he had dined in silence. The company was fortunate that evening that the Provost was presiding over the table, since in his absence Frohlich, as Senior Fellow, presided, and since he was very greedy as well as very slow, all the other diners had to endure sitting for perhaps ten minutes in a silence broken only by his interminably clicking teeth until he had finished and the table could be cleared for the next course.
The Beef Wellington was superb, and Harry complimented the Provost on the College Chef. The Provost thanked him graciously, but Dame Alice said that she always felt guilty when eating such splendid food that was beyond the wildest dreams of the world’s starving millions.
“Ye’re drivelling, woman,” said McWrath. “If ye dinna want the food, what for do ye come here and eat it then? Stay at home and sup on a bowl of cold porridge if that’ll salve your tender wee conscience.”
Higginbotham had been sitting in morose silence throughout dinner, but now found his voice to object strongly. “The concept of vicarious suffering as an expression of moral universality is perfectly sound from the perspective of moral philosophy,” he said, pausing to wipe his nose.
McWrath slowly turned his head and regarded Higginbotham with a penetrating gaze. “Ah, so Lazarus has emerged from his tomb at last, has he? If that piece of philosopher’s claptrap is your canniest offering to this evening’s conversation ye’d have done better to have remained with the dead!”
When the main course had been cleared and the cheese had been served, Houndstooth placed the port decanter on the table beside the Provost, and it began to circulate as usual, but in the opposite direction to where McWrath was sitting. After a few Fellows had filled their glasses, McWrath could stand it no more.
“Dunwoody, I’ll trouble ye for the port,” he said, sharply. Dr. Dunwoody sighed and quickly filled his glass to the brim before sliding the decanter across to McWrath. This was the last of the port that anyone else was going to taste that evening since the Reader in Extreme Celtic Studies regarded the decanter as rather like the spoils of war for himself and his guests. (Although Harry and Frank were officially the guests of Dr. Fentiman, McWrath had as usual claimed them for himself.)
McWrath had developed a strong liking for Frank after his demolition of Dame Alice and, soon wearying of the amenities of the port, decided to offer him some of the more robust pleasures of his own whisky. He turned to beckon Houndstooth, who was hovering close by. He was a wizened, malignant little wretch who had brought toadying the Fellows to a fine art, and to all their whims, however bizarre, he gave instant and obsequious deference. So when McWrath brusquely ordered him to go and fetch a bottle of his personal whisky from the College cellar and to be quick about it, he bowed low and scurried off to obey. A complaisant distillery in the Hebrides supplied McWrath with his private brand of 20-year-old single malt whisky, at 180-proof.
“Get that doon ye, laddie,” he would say, handing a brimming tumblerful to a trembling guest, “Puir nectar.”
The other Fellows were only too well aware of this ferocious brew and took care never to be trapped by McWrath’s generosity but eagerly looked forward to watching its impact on the unwary young American as McWrath poured him a generous glass.
Frank, however, disappointed them, nonchalantly knocking it back as easily as if had been lemonade. While he had no sense of taste or smell, and was utterly impervious to the effects of alcohol, his electronic nose gave him an authoritative analysis of its ingredients and manufacture.
He nosed the whisky in its glass, took a sip, swirled it round his mouth, and using his wine and spirit taster’s vocabulary module, he concluded in a meditative way. “Yes, Islay, of course, very smooth, excellent balance. You can still taste the signature smoke that’s not completely overpowered by the cask. On the second taste it’s less sweet than the nose, but spicy too, well rounded. Yes, I must congratulate you, Dr. McWrath, a truly superb whisky. I feel privileged indeed.”
He drank again, more deeply this time. The Reader in Extreme Celtic Studies sat back in his chair with a broad smile. His young guest’s remarkable head for drink, combined with his discerning comments, could not have delighted McWrath more than if he had just performed some daring and impromptu feat of arms before the whole company.
The undergraduates had long finished their coarse and unappetising meal—as dictated by the Bursar’s economies—and departed, and the Fellows had been dining alone for some time. After the Provost had said grace, they all retired to the Senior Common Room again, where fruit and nuts were served in silver bowls on little tables by each chair. When they were all seated, the Bursar said, “I really wish, Mr. Provost, you could persuade the Fellows not to bring guests to High Table during the week. I have complained about this many times.”
At this social outrage McWrath roused himself to battle. “Do ye not know, ye poor, weak, spiritless thing, that hospitality is the mark of a gentleman. ‘Commander,’ ye call yerself, and what did ye command then? Not a warship and fighting men, by a long chalk, but a wee boatful o’ sodomites delivering toilet paper to the fleet. Not the occupation of a gentleman to my way o’ thinkin’. So hold yer noise, man, and dinna insult our guests, or I’ll throw ye doon the stairs.”
The humiliated Bursar stormed out, but these pleasantries were commonplace in the Senior Common Room, which was generally regarded as the most socially awkward in the University, and after a brief pause conversation resumed as if nothing had happened.
“I have noticed, Mr. Meadows, that you are uncommonly well informed,” said the Provost. “May I ask which university you attended?”
“I’ve been very fortunate, Mr. Provost. My stepfather here,” indicating Harry, “believes that universities tend to stifle original thought, so he had me educated by tutors.”
“They have certainly achieved remarkable results,” the Provost replied, “though I cannot, of course, agree with Mr. Hockenheimer’s view of universities.”
“Our undergraduates may not have enjoyed your privileged background, Mr. Meadows,” said Higginbotham, sourly, “but they still attain the very highest standards.”
“Not if they’re taught by you, it seems,” retorted McWrath. “They tell me that tutorials with you are aboot as mentally stimulating as a conversation wi’ a dead fish.”
“We are not here to spoon-feed them. They must learn to work things out for themselves,” replied Higginbotham, hotly.
“Not here to spoon-feed them? That’s as feeble an excuse for mental sloth and ineptitude as I’ve ever heard. If they could work things out for themsel’s, they wouldn’ae need a teacher, would they, ye great dunderhead?”
“I think McWrath has a sound point there, Higginbotham,” said the Provost. With that he rose and said good night to Harry and Frank, and to the Fellows, which marked the end of the evening.
McWrath made a point of saying how much he had been impressed by young Meadows’s company and said a cheerful good night to him and Harry. They, in turn, said good night to the rest of the company, with the exception of Higginbotham, who had scuttled off. As Fentiman was walking back with Harry and Frank to the main entrance, Harry remarked that St. Samson
’s was pretty weird and not at all what he’d expected at Christminster, but more like the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
“You mustn’t mind McWrath,” said Fentiman. “He’s got a heart of gold really. Some of his students think the world of him.”
“Those that live to tell the tale, I imagine,” replied Harry.
As they were about to leave, Fentiman reminded Harry that the College had been rather hoping for some kind of donation from the President of Hockenheimer Industries, so they went back to Fentiman’s rooms for a nightcap to discuss it. Harry had actually enjoyed his strange evening and was particularly pleased by Frank’s unexpectedly virtuoso performance. So he was feeling generally benevolent towards the College and could also see a good opportunity for some very welcome self-advertisement.
Fentiman explained that Harry’s options ranged from endowing a Fellowship at the generous end to a College Prize for some books at the incredibly mean end. A Fellowship, however, would require an endowment of around a million pounds, which was rather expensive for a single evening’s entertainment, but a Graduate Studentship could be managed for about a hundred thousand.
Well, thought Harry, that’s what I have to fork out for a couple of weeks’ worth of TV advertising, and this would be a permanent advertisement for me in one of the key academic locations in the world, so it’s really not a bad deal at all.
He did not reveal these mercenary calculations to Fentiman, however, but contented himself with saying that he thought a Studentship would be a fine idea, and that he would be very pleased to endow one. Fentiman was delighted, and then asked Harry what his Studentship should be for.
This hadn’t occurred to him, and he had to reflect for some minutes, but bearing in mind what he had learnt of the traditions of St. Samson’s College, he said that he would be proud to establish the Harry Hockenheimer Studentship in Homicide Studies, if the College would accept it.
Fentiman hastened to reassure him that it would.
Chapter XI
When they returned to Tussock’s Bottom, Harry was startled to find a letter from the EU waiting in his in-tray. It was from the President of the European Commission himself and was an endorsement of a proposed EU Directive on the extension of human rights to robots that was being circulated among all the governments of the EU for consultation. Harry’s copy had been forwarded by the Department of Culture which still had him on their mailing list. The Directive itself had been drafted by a certain Dr. Sydney Prout, Special Adviser on Human Rights to the European Union.
Dr. Prout had had a long and varied career as a champion of human rights but he had never really recovered from nearly being eaten by a cannibal tribe on a Pacific island, who did not appreciate his efforts to bring them enlightened self-government. The conclusion of his tenure as United Nations Special Commissioner on Elephant Island had been so traumatic, and had heaped so much humiliation and ridicule upon him, that he could no longer face the terrors of public office.
After that brutal experience, he preferred to aid suffering humanity in the form of theory rather than practice from the safety of his office in Brussels. Although he had retired, he was still a valued consultant at the EU and maintained a substantial office in the Berlaymont Building overlooking the Rue Archimède. Dr. Prout had been delighted by the success of gay marriage, not because he felt any special empathy with gays, but because the concept opened up so many new possibilities for the further extension of human rights. There were some fairly obvious marriage taboos that were immediate targets for reform. Monogamy, for example, clearly rested on nothing more than religious prejudice and could be dispensed with at once, especially as it was so contaminated with heterosexual and patriarchal norms.
But even though polygamy should replace it, gender equality obviously demanded that if a man could have more than one wife, a woman must be allowed to have more than one husband. Indeed, it occurred to him that it might possibly be a fundamental human right for groups of people of both sexes or even one to be allowed to marry each other—certainly an interesting topic for further research.
Meanwhile, the archaic prohibition of incest was another obvious violation of human rights. It was clearly irrational, a taboo inherited from humanity’s ancient tribal past which had no business in a modern liberal democracy that placed supreme value on the individual. Do we not, after all, refer to all those with whom we feel special sympathy and kinship as “brothers” and “sisters,” so how absurd it was to prevent real brothers and sisters from uniting in the bond of marriage! He could foresee some traditionalists objecting to mother-son marriage, but there was anthropological evidence for father-daughter marriage, and anyway, logical consistency forbade these petty distinctions between various types of relative. They were all human beings, were they not?
He had also had some interesting discussions with a number of different animal rights groups on the possibility of an amalgamation of their concerns with the cause of human rights. While these discussions were only in the early stages, there had been some initial agreement that speciesism, the delusion that humanity had some special status or was in any way fundamentally different from the rest of the animal world, needed to be combated and might form common ground between the two branches of rights.
Dr. Prout tended to agree with his Swedish colleague, Knut Johanssen, a notable animal rights activist, that allowing marriage between humans and animals could be an important, even iconic gesture in the war on speciesism. The main problem was determining the species of animals with whom marriage could be allowed. Chimpanzees and other apes were clearly feasible, though gorillas might be problematic, while sheep and even goats, as well as dogs and cats, would present no special difficulties. But other potential spouses, such as cattle and horses, or parrots and hyenas at the other extreme, might expose the whole project to the ridicule of traditionalists, yet to prohibit them could also provoke serious claims of discrimination against particular species. A difficult problem that he would have to think about further. So the recent invitation by the President of the Commission to advise on the extension of fundamental rights to robots had been a welcome distraction.
It was an excellent opportunity to go further into an aspect of marriage and fundamental rights that had been at the back of his mind for some time—sologamy, or marriage to oneself. The idea was to give oneself a commitment of self-love and self-compassion, which made a lot of sense for those who, through no fault of their own, had habits that were so disgusting, or personalities that were so obnoxious that no sane person would ever consider marrying them. Self-esteem was obviously such a basic individual right that some means of implementing it for these unfortunate individuals must be found. It had also recently occurred to him that transgendered people, who were becoming so fashionable of late, might benefit from sologamy as well, rather like those hermaphroditic worms that he remembered from biology classes at school.
But the Commission President’s request for a ruling on robots raised some even more fascinating questions on the subject of marriage. It was far from clear from his reading of the literature on artificial intelligence that a robot could experience self-esteem or, for that matter, feel anything similar to human love. But assuming, as one must, that intelligence was itself the basis of rights, and if marriage in some form was also a fundamental right, then from the logical point of view, intelligent robots must be entitled to marry, and therefore, like transgendered people, they must, at the minimum, be entitled to marry themselves. He surveyed his reasoning for some time, doing his best to see if he had somehow missed something, but could detect no flaws in any of its arguments.
As the aged fanatic gazed out of the windows of Le Berlaymont on to the Capital of Europe below him, which, in moral and social justice terms, was really the Capital of the World, the secular successor to the Vatican, his eyes betrayed the unmistakeable glint of clinical insanity.
The next morning, after a night of dreamless sleep, he summoned his secretary to take down a memorandum to th
e President of the Commission, proposing a new EU Directive on robot rights to be presented to the European Parliament for ratification in due course. There were, he declared, two basic and rational principles on which his memorandum was based. The first was that fundamental human rights were derived from the possession of intelligence. The second was that the mere fact that a robot was a human artefact could not legitimately be made a pretext for denying it fundamental rights. The idea that biological reproduction should be privileged over mechanical reproduction was no more than an outdated relic of religious prejudice.
His first recommendation was that robots should be considered inherently gender-free, given that gender is wholly inapplicable to robots on biological grounds, and therefore they must be referred to as “ze” instead of “he” or “she.” However, as he noted in the Appendix, the insistence on gender-free robots could also be an extremely important flagship policy for advancing the cause of abolishing the idea of gender in society as a whole, except for a few purely medical procedures, like childbirth.
Second, since they were intelligent, the right to life must automatically be extended to robots, with the consequence that turning them off, except for necessary maintenance, must be forbidden without the consent of a court of law, in which a robot would be entitled to legal representation.
Third, as a legal person fully endowed with rights, it was obvious that a owning or selling a robot without its consent was tantamount to slavery, and therefore forbidden.
Fourth, all forms of punishment, too, must be in accordance with the law as determined by local courts, and freedom from torture and degrading treatment, such as a lack of lubrication, or maintenance by unqualified technicians, or lack of fuel, must be fundamental robot rights.
Fifth, all robots must be paid a just wage for their work, calculated as the norm for that type of employment on the basis of their productivity, including overtime. Robot complaints about this should be heard by employment tribunals.