Game of Thrones and Philosophy (14 page)

Reliabilism, though, is not a panacea. Just because a process is reliable doesn’t make it infallible—dark wings could, after all, bring bright words. Using absolute certainty, we would be justified in believing very little, but those things we were justified in believing would always turn out to be true. Reliabilism allows for a larger set of justified beliefs, but some of our justified beliefs may turn out to be false.

Getting back to Lysa Arryn’s deception, let’s ask again, should Catelyn and Ned take Lysa’s word as justification? Should the word of other people
ever
count as justification? Given how easy it is to be misled by others, it may be tempting to say no and to claim that the only good justifications can come from an individual’s personal experiences and thoughts. If we adopted absolute certainty as our criterion for justification, we would obviously have to conclude that the testimony of others cannot justify our beliefs. If, however, we adopted something close to reliabilism, it’s at least possible for testimony to justify belief.

One reason to allow testimony is that exclusively relying on personal experiences or reasoning would define most of what we believe as unjustified. For example, think of Ned Stark’s ultimate demise on the steps of Baelor’s Sept.
10
If testimony cannot count as justification, who, among Ned Stark’s family, could claim to know that Ned’s head was separated from his shoulders by Ser Ilyn Payne? Only Sansa. Yoren kept Arya from looking, and no one else from the Stark clan was at King’s Landing. If we restrict justification to personal observations or thoughts, we must conclude that Rob, Catelyn, Jon, Bran, Rickon, and Arya could never know that Ned Stark was beheaded by Ser Ilyn Payne, even if every member of the crowd in front of Baelor’s Sept told them.

To avoid such a preposterous conclusion, it is generally accepted that the testimony of others can provide justification. In technical terms, we call this “epistemic trust.” As a justification, epistemic trust grows stronger as the number of individuals who provide independent verification increases.

Back to the Wall

As we find out when Jon Snow says his vows, the men of the Night’s Watch are an ecumenical bunch. They do not demand that any member of the Night’s Watch say his vows before any particular gods—just the gods of that man’s choosing. In this way, the men of the Night’s Watch avoid (at least in the area of to whom one swears their vows) a particularly poor epistemic perspective—dogma.

In adhering to dogma, the reliability of knowledge resides in its ability to match up with a set of precepts or principles that are swallowed whole. These principles or precepts, often handed down from an authority, are not to be questioned. There are a number of dogmatic characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, from Aeron Damphair to His High Holiness, the High Septon. At the Wall, we see this in Melisandre’s beliefs about Stannis Baratheon as the messianic figure of Azor Ahai come to battle the Others, as well as the comet indicating the rightness of her cause. Despite the fact that Stannis’s sword fails to give off heat (as Aemon Targaryen notes), Melisandre does not consider the possibility that she is mistaken about Stannis’s role.
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And I doubt that telling Melisandre that not everyone takes the comet as proof of the rightness of her cause would dissuade her. She has reached a conclusion she is no longer willing to reconsider—her beliefs, like all dogmatic beliefs, suffer from a problem of circularity. Dogma claims that certain beliefs are true and justified. How do we know that these beliefs are true and justified? Because the dogma informs us. And why does the dogma tell us to believe these things? Because they are true and justified. And it goes on like that. As you may have inferred, dogma is an enemy to epistemic humility. It knows, just because.

A perspective that, in a moderate form, is key for epistemic humility is skepticism. In its most extreme form, skepticism doubts everything. Everything. As skeptics, then, we could never know anything. An intellectually provocative perspective, skepticism unfortunately lacks tractable application. It would literally keep us from claiming to know anything. In a sense, extreme skepticism is at the opposite extreme from dogma. While dogma just knows, skepticism never knows.

That said, a moderate version of skepticism is far better than dogma. This form of skepticism casts doubt on particular conclusions rather than knowledge in general. An easy example of this moderate skepticism is the way that Harma Dogshead and Rattleshirt view Jon Snow after his “betrayal” of Qhorin Halfhand.
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Despite the evidence (killing Qhorin Halfhand, wearing a different cloak, sleeping with Ygritte, providing information about the Night’s Watch garrisons and movements), they doubt that he has really turned his cloak. As you know, their skepticism turns out to lead to the true belief.

And yet, skepticism about particular conclusions doesn’t always help us. When Janos Slynt and Alliser Thorne claim that Jon is a traitor, they are skeptical of his claim that he was only pretending to join the wildlings. When Jon doubts that he saw the wildlings on the Milkwater through Ghost’s eyes, he is being skeptical of that fact.
13
In both of these cases, though, it turns out that the skepticism keeps them from the true belief. Jon was looking through Ghost’s eyes and Jon was not a traitor, or at least not the kind of traitor that Slynt and Thorne paint him to be. And so skepticism about particular conclusions will not always help us avoid false beliefs or keep us from epistemic arrogance.

The Horn of Winter

One of Jon’s false beliefs is that Mance never found the Horn of Winter. One blow from the Horn of Winter was said to bring down the Wall. He, the Old Bear, Stannis, and, it seems, everyone south of the Wall, “knew” that the wildlings’ goal was to bring down the Wall. They “knew” that if the wildlings had the Horn of Winter, they would blow it. Only when Jon sees the horn in Mance’s tent
14
does he learn of yet another failure to be epistemically humble. As it turns out, the wildlings goal was not to bring down the Wall, but to leave the Wall intact and get south of it. If only the people of the Seven Kingdoms had been humble enough to see this possibility, they might have been able to work with the wildlings to discuss their common enemy—the Others. Because, after all, winter is coming.
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NOTES

1
. George R. R. Martin,
A Storm of Swords
(New York: Bantam Dell, 2005), pp. 1057–1059.

2
. Ibid., pp. 558–559.

3
. Ibid., p. 645.

4
. Ibid., p. 581.

5
. Ibid., pp. 644–646.

6
. George R. R. Martin,
A Game of Thrones
(New York: Bantam Dell, 2005), pp. 520–522.

7
. Martin,
A Storm of Swords
, p. 252.

8
. Martin,
A Game of Thrones
, p. 552.

9
. Martin,
A Storm of Swords
, pp. 1114–1115.

10
. Martin,
A Game of Thrones
, pp. 725–727.

11
. George R. R. Martin,
A Clash of Kings
(New York: Bantam Dell, 2005), p. 149.

12
. Ibid., pp. 952–954.

13
. Ibid., pp. 766–767.

14
. Martin,
A Storm of Swords
, p. 1018.

15
. Thanks to Darin McGinnis for his insights and help with the chapter.

Chapter 12

“WHY IS THE WORLD SO FULL OF INJUSTICE?”: GODS AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

Jaron Daniël Schoone

The grief on Lady Catelyn Stark’s face was clearly visible when she hit Ser Jaime Lannister with a large rock in the final episode of
Game of Thrones
’ season one. She had just received word that her husband, Lord Eddard Stark, had been beheaded by order of King Joffrey. Catelyn tells Jaime Lannister that he will be “going to the deepest of the seven hells if the gods are just.” Jaime, still recovering from the head trauma, replies with a question: “If the gods are real and they are just, then why is the world so full of injustice?” (“Fire and Blood”).

This question is the essence of what philosophers call
the problem of evil
. The problem centers around the apparent contradiction between the existence of a good and just God on the one hand, and the evil that is clearly visible in the world on the other hand. For why would a good being with the power to stop evil allow it to exist? Many philosophers and theologians have attempted to answer this question. We know the world that George R. R. Martin has created in A Song of Ice and Fire contains many different gods and beliefs. Does the problem of evil challenge belief in these gods as well?

Is the Problem of Evil Really a Problem?

The Greek philosopher Epicurus (341–270 BCE) was one of the first to state the problem. His version, quoted by the eighteenth-century British philosopher David Hume (1711–1776) in his
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
, asks: “Is he [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?”
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In other words, according to Hume and Epicurus, the existences of God and evil are logically incompatible. Suppose one believes in the existence of a god who is:

If such a god exists, then there should be no evil at all in the world. However:

Therefore, the conclusion must be that such a god does not exist.

Omniscience, omnipotence, and perfect goodness are three important attributes of the God of the major Western religions. For those religions the problem of evil presents a real danger; if left unsolved it would make belief in such a God irrational. Jaime makes a similar point when he presents the problem of evil to Catelyn: because of evil, believing in the gods of Westeros is irrational as well. And Jaime is certainly not the only one who draws that conclusion. Consider the Hound, Sandor Clegane, who is confronted by Sansa Stark in
A Clash of Kings
with all his evil deeds:

“Aren’t you afraid? The gods might send you down to some terrible hell for all the evil you’ve done.”

“What evil?” He laughed. “What gods?”

“The gods who made us all.”

“All?” he mocked. “Tell me, little bird, what kind of god makes a monster like the Imp, or a halfwit like Lady Tanda’s daughter? If there are gods, they made sheep so wolves could eat mutton, and they made the weak for the strong to play with.”

“True knights protect the weak.”

He snorted. “There are no true knights, no more than there are gods. If you can’t protect yourself, die and get out of the way of those who can. Sharp steel and strong arms rule this world, don’t ever believe any different.”

Sansa backed away from him. “You’re awful.”

“I’m honest. It’s the world that’s awful. Now fly away, little bird. I’m sick of you peeping at me.”
2

But What Is Evil?

In order to deal with the problem of evil, we must first be clear on what counts as evil. There appear to be two very distinct types of evil in the world:
moral
evil and
natural
evil. Moral evil is the kind of evil that humankind causes by its free decisions. Ordering the beheading of Eddard Stark, or the Hound’s murder of Mycah, the butcher’s boy, would be examples of this type of evil. Natural evil, on the other hand, refers to pain and suffering caused by the occurrences of nature and not by human beings; shipwrecks in a storm would be an example here.

Unfortunately, not everyone believes the same things to be morally good or evil. The Dothraki Horse God, for instance, appears to have no moral issue with raping and killing. And according to Theon Greyjoy, describing the Drowned God of the Ironmen living on the Iron Islands: “The Drowned God had made them to reave and rape, to carve out kingdoms and write their names in fire and blood and song.”
3
Thus, what some might count as evil, others might count as normal or even appropriate behavior. If morality is relative, then objective evil doesn’t exist. And if there’s no objective evil—if nothing is
really
evil—then the logical contradiction alluded to earlier might be avoided.

This then is the first solution that we will encounter: the problem of evil doesn’t appear to affect those who believe that there is no real evil in the world, only subjective judgments on our part. On second glance, however, it seems that most of the inhabitants of the Seven Kingdoms and beyond do believe many things to be really evil, and not just subjectively so. Even someone like Theon Greyjoy would agree that injustice has been done to him when he is taken as a hostage by Eddard Stark. Thus, although one possible solution is to refuse to believe that there actually exists any evil, this appears to be a very weak position. Even in a relativist view, why the gods allow what the inhabitants consider to be evil must still be addressed.

Augustine and Catelyn Defend the Faith of the Seven

The most widespread faith in the Seven Kingdoms is the so-called Faith of the Seven, which has similarities to Roman Catholicism. These include the sudden and fast conversion of Westeros to the Faith, and the hierarchical structure of the religion, with the High Septon as head of the church. Most important, the Faith has only one god, which has seven faces. This is similar to the Christian dogma of the Trinity: one God but three persons. It appears that this god of the Faith has the necessary attributes that give rise to the problem of evil: it is a potent (perhaps even omnipotent) and just god. Thus the god of the Faith should be able and willing to prevent evil from happening. Yet, as we know, there is evil in Westeros.

The philosopher and church father Augustine of Hippo (354–430) presented two important arguments for why God is not responsible for the existence of evil. First, Augustine submits that evil is not something that exists of its own right. Evil is merely the
deprivation
of goodness. This is similar to blindness being the deprivation of eyesight. Blindness is not a positive or definite entity. It is simply the lack of a definite entity, sight. We call someone blind when his eyes are not working. Similarly, according to Augustine, evil is what we call something that is not good. Therefore, God has never
created
evil, for evil is not something that can be created at all.
4

Augustine’s second argument concerns the cause of evil, namely our own
free will
: our ability to choose our own actions. God has deemed it a moral virtue that man has free will and is not simply a puppet that acts only by means of preprogrammed instincts. Thus, although God has created a world that is good and just, human beings can choose to ignore the rules set out by God, and that, according to Augustine, is the cause of evil. Put these two arguments together, and it becomes clear, says Augustine, that God is not the cause of evil; nor can God prevent this type of evil, for preventing evil would mean that individuals would have no free will.
5

This is called the
free will defense
. So in Westeros, the cause of evil does not lie with the seven-faced god, but with people who act according to their own free will. Remember that Jaime Lannister asked Catelyn Stark: “If the gods are real and they are just, then why is the world so full of injustice?” To this question, Catelyn replied: “Because of men like you.” Even when Jaime told her to “blame those precious gods of yours, who brought the boy to our window and gave him a glimpse of something he was never meant to see,” Catelyn simply answered: “Blame the
gods
?” she said, incredulous. “Yours was the hand that threw him. You meant for him to die.”
6

It appears that Catelyn has a point. It was indeed because of the actions of men like Jaime and his nephew Joffrey that her husband was murdered.

Problems with the Solutions

Do Augustine’s arguments succeed in explaining why moral evil exists? Well, it seems that things are a bit more complicated than Augustine realized. Take, for instance, his definition of evil as the deprivation of good. This would be a proper definition of evil only if good and evil were
polar concepts
. Polar concepts are things that are defined in terms of one another. For instance, there can be no
mountain
unless there is also a
valley
. Just try to imagine a world with only mountains and no valleys. That would be a logical contradiction, for mountains require valleys to count as mountains, just like there can be tall men only if there are also short men, and there can be counterfeit coins only if there are also genuine coins.
7

Can the same be said about good and evil? Are good and evil like mountains and valleys? Well, I am perfectly able to imagine a world with only goodness (such as an endless summer), or a world with only evil happening (one long, nightmarish winter with the Others coming from everywhere). Thus they do not appear to be polar concepts. And that casts doubt on Augustine’s assertion that evil is the deprivation of good. Moreover, the evil acts that men do—rapes, murders, and the like—seem better characterized as actual occurrences, rather than deprivations. But even if we consider these acts to be deprivations, we can still ask why God allows them: why would he allow there to be “less good” when he could bring about more?

The free will defense is also subject to counterarguments. Some philosophers and neuroscientists question whether we actually have free will.
8
But even supposing that we do, there is one very important assumption underlying the free will defense: namely that having free will is, overall, so very important that it
justifies
the occurrence of all the evil in the world. In other words, it must be the case that having free will and the possibility of evil is somehow
better
than to have no free will and no evil.
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It is very hard to defend this assumption, however, due to the sheer amount of evil in the world. Although Eddard Stark’s death was tragic, at least he was a grown man who had a full life behind him. But think of all those poor innocent children killed during wars. Even unborn children are not spared; think of Daenerys Targaryen’s baby. Is free will such a valuable good that it somehow
makes up
for all these, often very horrible, deaths? And further, it seems reasonable to assume that one should try to stop or prevent an evil that someone had freely chosen to bring about, even if doing so would interfere with that person’s free will. Why is it then not also reasonable to assume that God should likewise stop or prevent the evil that results from our free decisions? It’s not easy to answer these questions.

David Hume and the Impotence of the Old Gods

Having considered the Faith of the Seven, let us turn our analysis to the old gods, the nature spirits that were worshipped by the Children of the Forest and are still worshipped by the Northerners. They must have had at least
some
power, for why would anyone worship and pray to gods who have no power at all and hence exert no influence on the daily lives of human beings? Such gods would be
impotent
, in Hume’s sense of the word. But does it follow from the fact that they have
some
power, that they would have
enough
power to prevent all kinds of evil entirely? This seems very unlikely. Faith in the old gods meant faith in a polytheistic religion, a religion with multiple gods. And in such polytheistic religions, there is usually no omnipotent God.

Think of the Greek gods. Even Zeus, who was more powerful than the other Olympian gods, could not prevent evil from happening. Nor did he have power to control events in the domains of his brothers Hades (the underworld) and Poseidon (the sea).

Thus, if the old gods are anything like the Greek gods, then they cannot prevent all evil. They are, in one sense of the word, impotent. The old gods are also powerless in certain areas, especially those where the weirwoods have been cut down. Osha explains this to Bran when she tells him that his brother Robb should have taken an army north instead of south. And when Arya stayed in Harrenhal and tried to pray to the old gods, she wondered whether she perhaps should “pray aloud if she wanted the old gods to hear. Maybe she should pray longer. Sometimes her father had prayed a long time, she remembered. But the old gods had never helped him. Remembering that made her angry. ‘You should have saved him,’ she scolded the tree. ‘He prayed to you all the time. I don’t care if you help me or not. I don’t think you could even if you wanted to.’”
10

The old gods might even be a tiny bit malevolent; they are often unwilling to help those who request their help. As King Robert Baratheon told Eddard Stark: “The gods mock the prayers of kings and cowherds alike.”
11
So it seems that the problem of evil does not apply to the old gods; since they appear not to be powerful enough or willing enough to prevent evil from happening, you can’t wonder why they don’t do so.