Good and Evil in Lord of the Rings
Intentionally Wicked: Thoughts on The Lord of the Rings and Our Motivation in Committing Evil Acts
The Main Point:
The following analysis deals with the nature and source of evil and whether, given our innate motives and moral obligation, we willingly choose to succumb to our desires or are slaves of our passion. From this argument, I intend to show that our human nature requires that we play into our desires in order to affirm our free will. This is not to say that our desires are necessarily evil, but quite the opposite. In some sense, whatever people actually want has some relative value to them, and that all wanted things contain some good. But given that there are so many such goods and a whole spectrum of varying arrangements among them, that there is no way we can conceive anything as embodying an overall good just because it is to some degree wanted by one or a group of persons. In this light, there arises conflict which can only be resolved by a priority system defined by a code, maybe of moral foundations, which allows us to analyze the complexities of human motivation. I do not intend to set down the boundaries of such a notion, nor do I want to answer whether it benefits one to lead a morally good life, but rather want to find out how the constructs of good and evil affect our freedom to choose.
The Starting Point:
Free will can be wholly responsible for my motivation to write this paper. I was really hoping for Hitchhiker 's Guide to the Galaxy to come out in time to be used as the film for analysis, but to my disappointment, it opened in theaters the day this paper was due. So, I chose to write instead on The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. The films, though not really about our freedom to choose, inspired me to look into the topic of whether it is in our nature to willingly choose the path of evil to gain personal fulfillment. Our motives are not as clear cut as the archetypes portraying good and evil are in the film, but part
The Main Point:
The following analysis deals with the nature and source of evil and whether, given our innate motives and moral obligation, we willingly choose to succumb to our desires or are slaves of our passion. From this argument, I intend to show that our human nature requires that we play into our desires in order to affirm our free will. This is not to say that our desires are necessarily evil, but quite the opposite. In some sense, whatever people actually want has some relative value to them, and that all wanted things contain some good. But given that there are so many such goods and a whole spectrum of varying arrangements among them, that there is no way we can conceive anything as embodying an overall good just because it is to some degree wanted by one or a group of persons. In this light, there arises conflict which can only be resolved by a priority system defined by a code, maybe of moral foundations, which allows us to analyze the complexities of human motivation. I do not intend to set down the boundaries of such a notion, nor do I want to answer whether it benefits one to lead a morally good life, but rather want to find out how the constructs of good and evil affect our freedom to choose.
The Starting Point:
Free will can be wholly responsible for my motivation to write this paper. I was really hoping for Hitchhiker 's Guide to the Galaxy to come out in time to be used as the film for analysis, but to my disappointment, it opened in theaters the day this paper was due. So, I chose to write instead on The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. The films, though not really about our freedom to choose, inspired me to look into the topic of whether it is in our nature to willingly choose the path of evil to gain personal fulfillment. Our motives are not as clear cut as the archetypes portraying good and evil are in the film, but part
References: Bassham, Gregory and Eric Bronson (eds.) The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy. Chicago: Open Court, 2003. Benjamin, Anna and L.H. Hackstaff (tr). St Augustine On the Free Choice of the Will. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964 Fromm, Erich. The Anatomy of Human of Human Destructiveness. London: Jonathan Cape, 1974. Jowett, B. (tr). Plato 's Republic. New York: W.J. Black, 1942. Midgley, Mary. Wickedness. London: Routledge, 1984. Stent, Gunther S. Paradoxes of Free Will. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2002.