Why Faramir's Decision to Release the Hobbits Saved Middle Earth

Assessment of the Morality of Faramir’s Actions in The Lord of the Rings

One of the lesser known but vitally important characters in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy is a noble captain, Faramir, younger brother of Boromir and son of Denethor, the Steward of Gondor. Although this character only plays a minor role in the entire storyline, his fateful actions in trusting Frodo and Sam and releasing them against royal orders to continue their journey to Mordor make it clear that Faramir was a moral man whose natural character shown through despite the exigencies of the battlefield and the implications of his decision. To learn more about this action, the purpose of this paper is to provide an examination of Faramir’s actions through the lens of Kant’s categorical imperative and utilitarianism’s “greatest happiness principle” to determine the extent to which Faramir’s decision can be regarded as moral. Although fictional, the moral dilemma faced by Faramir is all-too-familiar to many people today who are confronted with a steady stream of moral dilemmas of their own.

Overview of the Fictional Moral Dilemma and Response

In Book IV of The Two Towers, after capturing the hobbits, Frodo and Sam in Ithilien, Faramir brings them to Henneth Annûn where he learns through his hasty conversations with Frodo of the importance of the quest and resists the temptation of taking the Ring of Power for himself. Further, Faramir even provides them two companions with provisions and allows them to depart and continue their journey into Mordor to fulfill their mission of destroying Sauron’s Ring in the fires of Mount Doom. This action was especially noteworthy given the dangerous circumstances in which the rushed decision was made, the standing royal orders to detain any trespassers in the realm and the overwhelming lure of the Ring of Power to mere mortal men. Taken together, it is reasonable to suggest that Faramir’s actions in this situation were driven by his overarching desire to save Middle Earth as discussed further below.

Assessment of Faramir’s Action in Terms of Utilitarianism and Kant’s Moral Theory

The categorical imperative was a deontological ethical theory developed by Immanuel Kant that judges the morality of an action based on the nature of the action itself and the principle behind it, rather than the consequences that result from taking it in the first place. In sum, the categorical imperative holds that people should act only according to rules that could hold as universal laws of nature, and treat humanity as an end in itself, never merely as a means. For instance, according to Kant, “The categorical imperative can be put like this: Act on maxims that can at the same time have themselves as universal laws of nature as their object. That gives us the formula for an absolutely good will” (p. 35).

By sharp contrast, utilitarianism’s so-called “greatest happiness principle” is a consequentialist theory that argues that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its outcome; in other words, the ethical choice is the one that produces the greatest good or happiness for the greatest number of people. In this regard, one authority reports that, “The ‘greatest happiness principle’ holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness” (What utilitarianism is, n.d., p. 7).

Unlike Kant’s focus on moral rules and duties, utilitarianism emphasizes the quantifiable results that maximize overall utility or well-being. This means that an application of utilitarianism to Faramir’s moral dilemma would involve calculating how many orcs, goblins, trolls and evil men from the East were involved and the extent to which his decision to detain Frodo and Sam would benefit and delight them. Although the trilogy does not provide precise, quantifiable statistics concerning the numbers of foes arrayed against each other, the author does make it clear that the “good guys” (e.g., rare wizards, hobbits, ents, elves, dwarves and “good” men) were confronted with overwhelming odds and Faramir could have easily relied upon the “greatest happiness principle” to help the “bad guys” win Middle Earth by rationalizing that far more beings would be happy as a result. Indeed, it would have been easier for Faramir to take the hobbits prisoners per his standing orders or even claim the Ring of Power as his own instead of making the decision to release them.

In other words, the application of the greatest happiness principle by Faramir to the above-described moral dilemma would have resulted in far more entities, albeit evil ones, being happy, but like an alien attack on Earth, when it comes to choosing between the good guys and the bad guys, I’m choosing the latter and so will most of humankind. Because it was impossible for Faramir to predict the outcome of his decision to release the hobbits and even help them on their way to Mordor, it is reasonable to characterize his action as conforming to Kant’s categorical imperative.