The Simpsons and Philosophy by William Irwin; Mark T. Conard; Aeon J. Skoble

Author:William Irwin; Mark T. Conard; Aeon J. Skoble
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Publisher: Perseus
Published: 2010-06-15T05:00:00+00:00

In Nietzsche’s terms, The Simpsons goes The Critique of Pure Reason one better: it defends the common man against the intellectual, but in a way that both the common man and the intellectual can understand and enjoy.184

12

Springfield Hypocrisy

JASON HOLT

You talk the talk, Quimby, but do you walk the walk?

—Chief Wiggum

From the Ayn Rand School for Tots to Zen Buddhism, The Simpsons runs a gamut of philosophically interesting subject-matter. One can hardly forget Bart’s answer to the koan: What is the sound of one hand clapping? (He quickly closes the fingers of one hand, making a slapping noise that approximates applause.) William James would have been proud. The show is not intended to be “philosophical” in the way that, say, existentialist literature is. And that’s okay. Regardless of the writers’ or producers’ intentions, The Simpsons provides much animated grist for the philosopher’s mill, often in the form of illustrative examples. The result is not only reliably entertaining, it is also, on occasion, illuminating.

The Simpsons satirizes contemporary culture deftly, with Wilde precision and at Swift extremes. An important recurring theme is the role of morality, or the lack thereof, in the lives of Springfield citizens. In this respect, The Simpsons is rather like existentialist literature, both of which diagnose, in different ways, but arguably with equal aplomb, the moral crisis of the present age. What is the crisis? Well, that’s a long story, and a lot depends on who you ask. Suffice it to say, many people take values less seriously than they should. With so many different value systems to choose from, it is easy to miss the point of values, and tough to tell which system, if any, is correct. By what values should one live if morality has no discernible foundation?

This is a big question, of course, and I do not propose to answer it, much less by appeal to The Simpsons. But it is worth observing, as the existentialists did, that even if there is no objective morality, we can still talk in a meaningful way about values. More precisely, whatever one’s values happen to be, one can be judged in a morally significant way by how those values relate to one’s actions. According to some existentialists, we can be praiseworthy for being true to the principles or values we accept, whatever the values are and on whatever basis we accept them. Likewise, we can be blameworthy for being false to those principles or values. We can distinguish, in other words, moral content--that is, specific moral principles--from formal moral properties, in particular being true to oneself, and practicing what one preaches. Where these smack of consistency, or integrity, betraying oneself, and failing to practice what one preaches, smack of inconsistency, of hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is what I want to talk about, because The Simpsons not only illustrates many important features of this moral vice, it also reveals how certain things philosophers have said about it are false. It may seem odd that an animated sitcom could reveal what experts have

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.