This paper analyzes the ethical dimensions of the Walrus and Carpenter episode from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland through the philosophical frameworks of Aristotle and Immanuel Kant. The paper argues that despite their actions satisfying natural hunger, the Walrus and Carpenter's deliberate deception of the oysters constitutes an ethical violation. Using Aristotle's virtue ethics and emphasis on human beings as social creatures, the paper demonstrates how the protagonists fail to act as proper team players or consider the good of the broader community. The analysis then applies Kantian ethics to show how their treatment of the oysters as mere means to an end, rather than as rational beings deserving respect, violates fundamental moral law. The paper concludes that wrongdoing represents a failure of reason, and that a moral framework based on imagination rather than rational principle would undermine ethics entirely.
What is ethics? What constitutes ethical behavior? These are questions that philosophers have been pondering for millennia. Philosophers have long wanted to know what gives us our moral code as a society. Are ethics sound universal principles that cannot be changed by human will, being embedded in our physical and mental makeup from birth? Are ethics something that humans create for themselves, and if so, which humans create them and why? Are ethics created by the strongest or by the majority? What makes something right or wrong morally?
Though much thinking, writing, and research have been done on these questions throughout human history, no definitive answer has yet been arrived at. This, however, does not stop people from trying to determine an answer. We have moral standards in our society—things that are generally considered as definitely right or wrong. We naturally want to know why we have these morals and where they came from. This paper explores these issues using the scene between the Walrus and the Carpenter in Alice in Wonderland as an example.
Most people are familiar with the story of Alice in Wonderland. The tale of the Walrus and the Carpenter is told by Tweedledee and Tweedledum to Alice in the form of a poem. The Walrus and the Carpenter are walking along the beach together and decide that there is too much sand, so they determine to sweep it all away, working on this project for half a year.
Once they have swept away all the sand that they realistically can, they call out to the oysters in the water to come up on shore and talk with them, telling them that they have treats for them—but only enough for four oysters. The eldest oyster chooses not to leave the oyster bed. However, many young oysters are lured up onto the beach by the promise of a treat. As it turns out, far more than four oysters come up on shore. The Walrus and the Carpenter lead the young oysters on a run along the beach, then sit down to rest and to talk.
The Carpenter asks for bread so that they can eat, at which point the oysters become nervous that they are on the menu. The Walrus and the Carpenter do not say anything to assuage their concerns, but the Walrus tries to distract them with other talk while the Carpenter complains about the bread and the butter. The Walrus feels it is a dirty trick to lure the oysters out and then eat them, but the Carpenter seems not to care. Weeping for the fate of the oysters, the Walrus arranges them by size, and he and the Carpenter eat them all.
This story brings up some interesting ethical questions. First, it was obviously deceitful for the Walrus and the Carpenter to lure the oysters out of their oyster bed through false pretenses. They clearly had in mind to eat the oysters from the start, but like strangers offering candy to children, they were able to lure the oysters out with the promise of a treat. The eldest oyster was obviously too wise for such a thing, making the younger oysters into metaphorical children. This makes the actions of the Walrus and the Carpenter even more insidious, as what they have done is to metaphorically murder a bunch of young children.
In our society, murder is considered to be wrong—it is a moral violation. Murder of children, however, is even worse and is seen to be one of the most morally corrupt crimes a person can commit, especially when it is done in cold blood to satisfy some particular desire of the murderer. What the Walrus and the Carpenter have done is to commit the moral violation of lying in order to mislead someone to get what they want from them under false pretenses, and have then compounded this violation by murdering the ones that they lied to. The violation is made even worse due to the fact that the murders are committed upon children. There is no moral justification for what they have done.
Of course, it can be argued that the Walrus and the Carpenter were hungry and that oysters were common food to them. This reasoning would make what they did seem more justifiable. However, the manner in which they went about obtaining the oysters was cold-blooded. If the Walrus and the Carpenter had simply gone out and hunted the oysters, cultivating them outright for the purpose of consumption, that would have been one thing and would have seemed more defensible and less cruel. However, the Walrus and the Carpenter engaged in a planned deception of the oysters, deciding to lure them out by playing on their desires, making them think that they would be getting something that they wanted by coming out of the oyster bed. This act turns the Walrus and the Carpenter from natural predators looking for a meal into cruel, cold-blooded killers. This change in their method of attaining their meal has moved their actions from the realm of being ethical into the realm of being unethical. If the Walrus and the Carpenter had acted in a natural way and followed their natural activities, what they did would not have seemed nearly so horrible. It is the unnaturalness of what they did that makes them seem like monsters.
Aristotle offers some insight into this matter. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle is looking for a sure ground on which to base the moral life. Aristotle stresses that the study of ethics rests in determining how all human beings ought to behave. The behavior of human beings and the rightness or wrongness of that behavior is the basis upon which the study of ethics is built. The study of ethics, according to Aristotle, also involves the study of what it means to be a human being. Since humans cannot live in isolation and are by nature social and political beings, the relationships of humans with each other are another key area of study in ethics. Ethical inquiry must take into consideration the social and political relationships that humans have with each other.
Basically, Aristotle sees human beings as team players. Because of this, in his view, being an ethical person means being an excellent team player. The conduct of individuals within the team is the basis of our ethical rules and foundations. There are, in Aristotle's opinion, some universal principles which make for good playing within the game of life. These universal principles can be best described as ethics. Even though different communities may have different attitudes and beliefs about what is acceptable behavior, an understanding of moral excellence may be arrived at in any community by simply looking at the universal principles that make someone an excellent team player.
Basically, Aristotle says that the basis for most human actions is to attain some good. The goodness of anything—including human beings—resides in its proper function. The proper functioning of human beings, and therefore their moral excellence, resides in the active life of the rational element. The good for human beings, then, according to Aristotle, is an activity of the soul that is in conformity with excellence or virtue. Such a life involves acting in accordance with reason. Therefore, reason plays a large role in living an ethical life.
Did the Walrus and the Carpenter act with reason? It seems as if they did, since they reasoned out that they wanted to eat the oysters and reasoned that a good way to lure the oysters to them was to deceive them. The ultimate aim of their activity was to satisfy their hunger, which they did. The satisfaction of their hunger could be said to be a goal with a good aim. The Walrus and the Carpenter were also functioning properly and acting together as a team whenever they lured out the oysters to eat them. They were acting in accordance with their natures. So, a cursory glance at Aristotle's works and at the story of the Walrus and the Carpenter would seem to point to the Walrus and the Carpenter acting in an ethical manner.
However, if one looks a little more deeply into the issue, one will begin to see problems with the actions of the Walrus and the Carpenter. First of all, Aristotle stresses that one must be a "team player" and act for the good of all when one is considering one's actions. The Walrus and the Carpenter certainly did not do this when they lured out the oysters to eat them. Of course, it can be argued that the oysters were not on the same "team" as the Walrus and the Carpenter since they were of different species; however, since the Walrus and the Carpenter are portrayed as more or less the same, and the oysters are treated by the Walrus and the Carpenter as if they were of the same species as them, then the oysters and the Walrus and the Carpenter can be reasonably put into the same "team" as each other. Looking at it in this light, the Walrus and the Carpenter acted in a way that did not have the good of the team in mind and actually meant to harm part of the team. The Walrus and the Carpenter did not act with reason because they acted in a way that intended harm toward their team. Therefore, the actions of the Walrus and the Carpenter cannot be considered ethical.
Kant also believes that ethics and moral behavior must be grounded in reason. Actions are moral, according to Kant, only if they are undertaken for the sake of morality alone and out of respect for moral law. The moral quality of an action is judged according to the motive that produced the action. The moral principles upon which people act are developed through reason, since moral principles must have absolute validity independent of all circumstances. Morals must be applicable to every person in every circumstance, since there is no room in determining morals for consideration of specific and particular individual circumstances. Basically, either something is moral or it is not, and when someone acts in a moral manner for moral reasons, he or she can be said to have acted morally.
Since morals come about through reason and because we are rational beings, we must not treat other rational beings as means to our own purposes. This would not be a moral action and would not be acting in accordance with reason, as people never think of themselves as means to an end, so they should not, in turn, think of others in this way either. Also, morality is based in freedom, and when we give in to some need or desire of ours—something that may lead us to treat others as a means to an end—we are not acting in freedom, for our will is then determined by something outside of ourselves. However, when we follow universal principles, then we are free, as we are then able to determine our own law for ourselves within these principles.
The Walrus and the Carpenter are obviously treating other rational beings as a means to an end. The oysters, to them, are nothing more than a means to satisfy their hunger. Also, since the Walrus and the Carpenter are acting out of the desire to satisfy a want of theirs, they are not acting in freedom, for their will is being determined by something outside of themselves—their hunger. Their hunger, then, leads the Walrus and the Carpenter to an immoral act. They are not acting with reason, which is the basis of all moral decisions, because they are allowing their actions to be determined by outside forces which keeps them from acting in freedom. The universal principle of not treating others as means to ends is being ignored by them, and they are letting their own particular circumstances take over their actions.
"Why subjective moral imagination undermines ethics and reason"
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