Does Ben Belong in the Big Pen?

Does the end justify the means? Does it ever? Is there any circumstance under which we could pursue an end yet still feel unperturbed?

Clearly I think most of us, if not all of us, occasionally rationalize our own actions in pursuing some ends. Fortunately, not all of society engages in pursuing means to ends that harm others or seriously abrogate others' equal rights. But Ben seems comfortable pursuing his ends by any means necessary.

We don't yet know, if we ever will, what the first 10 years or so of Ben's life were like.



But we do know that the on-island Ben doesn't seem to bat an eyelash at even the most cold-blooded actions, most recently in Through the Looking Glass:

Tom: They're not talking.

Ben: Who do you have?

Tom: Jarrah, Kwon, and the dentist.

Ben: Shoot Kwon.

Tom: What?

Ben: If you want them to answer questions, kill Kwon, do it now.

Now, it's been clearly implied that there is something about the island that is of colossal importance. We've already been shown what the apparent consequences are of failing to press the Swan Station button every 108 minutes. But now that the failsafe key has been turned, there seems to be something even more important going on with the island.

We don't yet know what it is, but Ben certainly seems to be convinced of its importance. After living on the island for about 30 years, he "made a decision that took the lives of over 40 people in a single day"; he shot Locke in cold blood, leaving him for dead; he's conned and manipulated not only the Losties but also his own people; but probably more telling is his despairingly desperate (and seemingly genuine) reaction to Jack's attempt to reach the rescue ship:

He is frantic. Cataclysm is apparently imminent. One almost begins to feel some sympathy for Ben's cause, whatever it is. We begin to feel the gravity of the situation. Even though we may be tempted to feel drawn into league with Ben's goals, we still have to confront the ethical question of whether or not the ends ever justify the means.

The 18 Century German philosopher Immanuel Kant had a lot to say about the matter. Kant was essentially a moral philosopher, concerned with what human beings ought to do in various circumstances. Kant is notoriously abstruse, but he basically argued that human beings possessed an innate faculty of reason - a moral compass, one might say - that was more than merely a guide to the satisfaction of one's desires. He further argued that the possession of this faculty of self-governing reason is what endowed each human being with equal worth and respect. But while we can choose to remove ourselves from certain social institutions, and thereby not be bound by their 'laws', Kant argued that, by virute of our nature as rational beings with the capacity to modify our behavior on the basis of certain principles or 'laws' of rationality, we cannot choose to remove ourselves from our essential nature as rational beings subject to a Moral Law. We are bound to act out of duty because all other rational beings are similarly bound. In fact, Kant's formulation of a proper human ethic is "I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law."

Interestingly - and very relevant to the overall mythology of the show - Kant began his analysis of moral philosophy with a discussion of the concept of a 'good will'. He didn't mean a good will in the sense of someone having certain 'good' personality traits such as kindheartedness or a good-natured disposition, but rather whether or not one is a 'good person'. The Others talk of themselves as 'good people', but clearly not in the everyday sense of the word. I don't think anyone would call the Others kindhearted or good-natured!

What Kant meant was that what makes a good person good is the possession of this faculty of reason and its degree of conformity with the Moral Law, a law which is not determined by any particular culture or society. What he means is that one's decisions and actions should be wholly determined by moral demands, and not just any demands, but the demands required of rational beings. Kant also believes that human beings view this non-denominational Moral Law as a constraint on their desires. So since this Law is universally binding on all human beings, and since the faculty of self-governing reason that human beings possess imputes worth to each of us, we cannot simply pursue our desires without regard for our fellow human beings, using them as means to an end. We possess a sense of duty to act morally, and only those actions that align with this sense of duty have any moral worth at all.

Kant's view of morality seems to lack some basic human emotion, no? He seems to imply that a 'good person' is one who acts out of a sense of duty to the Moral Law by which each of us is equally bound. But many of us would argue that a good person could also be someone who acts from other motivations such as love, sympathy, friendship, or even common decency. But some have argued that Kant's point is not that we don't feel admiration for someone who acts from such motivations; only that, when one is deliberating, the actions that flow from this deliberation express a sort of motivational architecture that gives the considerations of one's moral duty priority over all other interests. Actions that flow from this duty are 'worth more' than actions that flow from any other motivations.

Kant could be said to represent a peculiarly Western mode of thought regarding 'duty'; in that he grounds his sense of duty in that aspect which is common to all rational beings. Further, Kant also maintained that the preservation of one's moral goodness is what makes anything else worth having; otherwise human beings achieve only cheap pleasure or happiness; fraudulent happiness and pleasure.

The Hindu Bhagavad-Gita espouses similar ideals, but the grounding of the sense of duty is in the overall Cosmic order. The Gita is a chapter in a larger Hindu work called the Mahabharata, and it recounts the conversation between Krishna and the warrior Arjuna taking place on the battlefield of an imminent war. Arjuna is confused and filled with doubt by an apparent moral dilemma: he has friends and relatives on both sides of this fight, so how could he possibly continue?

Krishna advises him on the ideal of dharma (we've heard that before, yeah?), or the doing of one's duty. Dharma essentially boils down to: one should do one's duty because it is the right thing to do. Essentially, Arjuna wants to abstain from action, but Krishna warns him that inaction will only cause the cosmos to fall out of order. He must do his warrior duty. Not doing one's duty is akin to going against the flow of nature, against the natural order and harmony, resulting in the obscuration of reality. Additionally, the Gita teaches that one's essential core - one's soul, if you will - is immortal and permanent and identical with ultimate reality, which is a unity. Corporeal selves are merely ephemeral manifestations of the ultimate reality: kill the body and the soul lives on in unity with this ultimate reality. Identification with and clinging to this false 'self-form' only causes suffering anyway. As Krishna puts it:

Bodies are said to die, but that which possesses the body is eternal. It cannot be limited, or destroyed. Therefore you must fight.

Arjuna must engage in battle even though he has friends and relatives on both sides, and with the full knowledge that they may be killed. He must subjugate his own will to the universal will, you might say. But Krishna states that the physical world must not be forgotten or neglected; on the contrary, one must live one's physically embodied life in accordance with greater laws and truths because that's how the universe works. (Think of Mikhail saying to the Losties: "The Man who brought me here, who brought all of my people here - he is a great man, a magnificent man", and you get an idea of what it means to live life according to 'greater laws'.) Krishna basically tells Arjuna that he must go to war - universal harmony and duty demand it - even if those he knows and loves must be killed. But only transient, temporal and illusory 'selves' will be destroyed, and not the kernel of who they are, which is identical to ultimate reality. Krishna says:

Die, and you win heaven; conquer and you win the earth. Realize that pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, are all one and the same: then go into battle. Do this and you cannot commit any sin.

Basically, he says do your duty because it doesn't matter if your physical form (and the physical forms of others) lives or dies; and to not do one's duty is a greater sin.

Does this view of morality provide Ben and the Others with some wiggle room? Could Ben believe that he is acting according to a universal Moral Law which he assumes everyone - not only the Others - are equally bound by, whether they realize it or not? Of course, Ben wouldn't be a true Kantian because he is clearly treating others as means to an end. But what if Ben adopts a Hindu view of duty? What if he feels he is acting in accordance with a unviersal law that transcends the moral law comprehensible by every rational human being, all the while believing that 'people' are mere illusions anyway, and the essence of who they are is immortal and eternal? And what if the end for which Ben treats all others as means is the Mother of all Ends? As Ben explains to Mikhail in Through the Looking Glass:

Ben: You have to understand, everything I did, I did for the Island.

Mikhail: The Island told you it was necessary for you to jam your own people?

Ben: Yes it did. You've always been a loyalist, Mikhail, now I'm asking you to trust me, to trust Jacob who told me to do this.

Mikhail: Why would Jacob ask you to lie to your own people?

Ben: Because this Island is under assault by forces stronger than anything its had to deal with in many, many years. And we are meant to protect it, Mikhail, by any means necessary. The jamming was for everyone's security. We are in a serious situation here.

So, what if the island is what's keeping all of humanity and civilization from being destroyed? Could the killing of some people in order to save the entire human race be justified?

Does Ben belong in the penitentiary, or is Ben really a good person?












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