Читать книгу Morality and the Construction of Religion in Anne Rice's "Vampire Chronicles" - Christina Beyer - Страница 5

At this point, a short explanation on how philosophers such as Immanuel Kant or David Hume define the importance to form social groups and in how far this is important for defining moral rights will be given. Portraying these philosophical ideas will allow to see if the vampire can be regarded as part of a moral community or not and what consequences follow in either case.

According to Nicolas Michaud, it is relevant to ask for the criteria of personhood in order to come to a conclusion on how to make these moral judgments for someone outside the human community. He defines a person as ‘a bearer of rights, someone worthy of respect.‘ (Michaud 39) He introduces the philosopher Mary Anne Warren, who is concerned with the question “What qualities would a being possess to make humans consider that being a part of the moral community?“ She comes up with five suggestions: 1) consciousness, 2) reasoning, 3) self-motivated activity, 4) the capacity to communicate and 5) the presence of self-concepts (Michaud 41). All of the above mentioned criteria are relevant for Anne Rice’s vampires. Louis is described as a very reflective, well-educated nobleman and Lestat does not lack self-motivated activity and challenges concepts such as the Christian religion and morality. Moreover, none of Rice’s vampires lack the ability to communicate. Therefore, from Warren’s perspective, there would be no reason to deny the vampire his personhood.

However, unfortunately, personhood always brings obligations to its holder. Michaud gives a short outlook on Kant’s ethics, for whom personhood requires rationality and the ability to think. Only because of these abilities, someone is worthy of having rights and deserves respect and dignity (Michaud 40). For Kant, a collective will is important for keeping the personal right to guarantee safety for every citizen. Since the will of a single person can interfere with the will of another person, there has to be a universal law which clarifies property relations and prohibits any violation against the personal freedom of a person (Kant, Metaphysik der Sitten 256). To keep it simple, Kant argues that no one could want to become a victim of another’s person’s will to hurt or even kill another person. “Kant’s concern is not with how people should interact, as a matter of ethics, but with how they can be forced to interact, as a matter of right.“ (Ripstein 162) The ultimate goal should be to respect the independence of another person by not interfering with it in any way (Ripstein 162).

Ripstein names a few examples of possible interferences with the independence of another being, such as bodily injury (Ripstein 162). Furthermore, he points out that “Interference with another person’s freedom creates a form of dependence; independence requires that one person not be subject to another person’s choice“ (Ripstein 162). Moreover, autonomy is important for Kant’s idea of freedom. Ripstein gives some examples to clarify situations of dependence and independence.

“(...) in principle a slave with a benelovent master and favourable circumstances could be autonomous in the contemporary technical sense. A slave could never be independent, because what he is permitted to do is always dependent on his master’s choice or grace.“ (Ripstein 163)

Therefore, universal rules are necessary in order to prevent any kind of violence against another person or his/her property. Personal interests and desires are different for everyone; therefore, it can become inevitable to keep others from fulfilling their wishes in order to keep the safety of a community. Kant thinks it is necessary to establish rules to prohibit violence and to hinder people from acting exclusively on their personal wishes. Therefore, freedom is not the possibility to act upon one’s will. Instead, it defines itself through the way in which people interact (Ripstein 163).

So, according to Kant, morality can only be defined within a moral community. That starts with the definition of freedom, which is always dependent on the interaction between at least two independent persons. Without a community, morality is not even relevant, simply because it requires interactions.

What we can learn from this is that the vampire is necessarily part of that community, even if he interferes with the victim’s ability to perform according to his or her own will, because he interacts with another person. According to this definition, it can be said that he is a person because of his rationality and ability to think, and also because of his interactions with other members of that community. As a conclusion, this means that from Kant’s point of view, he has moral obligations and therefore, by permanently penetrating rules, deserves punishment, so that the freedom of other members of the community can be reestablished. As a final explanation, Kant is known as a “rationalist“. This term defines a philosophical view in which no consequences of an action should be considered. The act itself has moral value. Justifications such as having the “need“ to drink human blood would mean nothing to Kant.

This rationality is criticized by David Hume, who believes that reason alone can never motivate to action. Instead, he believes that all moral decisions have to be based upon rationality and feelings. That is why his philosophy is often described as moral sentiment. As an empirist, motives are much more relevant for him in order to judge if an action has moral value. Hume makes a distinction between natural and artificial virtues. Natural virtues are part of human nature and motivate behavior (Norton 181). As an example for natural virtues he mentions the feeling of deprecation by being confronted with murder. Only through feelings such as compassion, the meaning of a moral action is created (Hume 465). Additionally to that, Hume also believes that artificial virtues are necessary to the public good. In small groups, these artificial virtues would not have been necessary, but since human society tends to increase in number, it has become inevitable to establish general rules. Therefore, conventions that regulate property and governance had to be developed (Norton 182). Hume‘s argument is that building a society is essential for humans in order to balance the difference between their weakness to acquire sources (such as food, housing, etc.) and their need to acquire such. The society is necessary to erase this inbalance. It even improves the availability of the required goods. Furthermore, the human being needs to be in groups because it is too weak to keep the standard of living that can be sustained by staying in a group. Norton justifies this by the following explanation:

“Of all animals, individual humans appear to have the fewest natural advantages in proportion to their needs and desires. Individually, humans are weak, inept, and in constant danger of losing whatever material goods they have gathered together. Only by joining forces could these deficiencies be remedied; only by forming societies could humans add substantially to their strengths, their abilities, and their security.“ (Norton 185)

Society becomes useful by increasing power, skillfulness and safety (Hume 480). Hume uses these arguments in order to clarify property relations and laws that are concerned with it. In the context of the question if a vampire can be part of a moral community, Hume’s considerations also show something else. Regarding his definition of a social community, it mainly exists because of the humans’ inability to lead a safe life on their own. This is certainly not true for vampires, but on the other hand, they also depend on the profits of a civilized society, such as houses, coffins or money in general.

Apparently, we cannot disconnect the vampire completely from society; neither from a rationalist perspective nor from an empiristic one. For further investigations, this means that he will be treated as a part of a moral community, fully responsible for his actions; but still an outcast who does not have much in common with society, other than moral obligations. Moreover, the assumption that the vampire is necessarily connected to a community is important in the context of religion, as will be shown at a later point when the beliefs of Louis become important.