SAM: How do you do it? How does Dad do it?
DEAN: Well for one, them. I figure our family’s so screwed to Hell maybe we can help some others. Makes things a little bit more bearable. I’ll tell you what else helps. Killing as many evil sons of bitches as I possibly can.
In this exchange between Sam and Dean from the Season 1 episode “Wendigo,” Dean establishes the attitude that the brothers will take toward the things they hunt. Monsters are evil and harmful to others, so the brothers are completely justified in eliminating the various creatures they encounter. The viewer finds herself pulling for Sam and Dean to succeed, to safely avert the Apocalypse, to put the vengeful spirit to rest, to exorcise the demon, and, in many cases, to kill the monster, but monsters often present a formidable challenge for our view of the brothers’ moral character. Not only do we care about the safety and well-being of the protagonists, but we also care about the morality of their actions. We want the good guys to win, but we also want them to be good guys.
In this sense, Supernatural presents us with a difficult puzzle. We find ourselves holding contradictory attitudes about Sam and Dean. We want them to save those who are in danger, but we have a difficult time squaring this desire with our concern that they act morally. What if that monster doesn’t deserve to be killed? What if the monster is not responsible for his or her actions? What if the monster’s actions are justified, or, at the very least, excusable? In short, what if that monster is really a lot like you and me, a genuine member of the moral community?
Moral philosophy is concerned with matters of right and wrong, and with answering questions about how we should live. Moral philosophy aims to tell us how to think about particular moral dilemmas; it aims to give us principles by which we can make moral decisions; and it aims to give us insight into how those moral principles are grounded. In doing all of this, moral philosophy should also help us to determine precisely whom, or what, we should consider when making moral decisions. In other words, moral philosophy should be able to tell us which creatures deserve moral consideration, which beings we must take into account when deciding which actions are right and which actions are wrong.
By telling us these things, moral philosophy sets boundaries on what philosophers refer to as the “moral community.” In essence, to be a member of the moral community is to be the type of being that deserves moral consideration from others. For example, most people believe that it is wrong to kill another human being just for the fun of it. The reason we feel this way is because humans are members of the moral community. The fact that you are a member of the moral community means that you can’t be killed for the fun of it. In any moral decision that we make, we must take into account the effects that it might have for members of the moral community.
So how do we know who or what belongs to the moral community? One way that philosophers have gone about defining the boundaries of the moral community is by paying special attention to the notion of moral responsibility. In other words, they have attempted to define the moral community as the group of individuals who are capable of being held responsible for their actions.
In his essay, “Freedom and Resentment,” P.F. Strawson argues that we ought to understand moral responsibility as being tied to the “reactive attitudes.”1 Reactive attitudes are emotions that we experience in response to another’s actions toward us; some of these emotions—such as resentment or indignation—are of an overtly moral nature. Therefore, it is best to understand moral responsibility as applying only to those beings that are the appropriate target of these moral emotions. For example, when a toddler uses a living room wall as a canvas for her finger-paint masterpiece, it might be appropriate to feel frustration toward her, but surely, it would not be appropriate to resent the child for her actions. We would say that the person who is morally outraged at the toddler’s behavior is overreacting. Children are different from fully developed adults who should know better. Thus, the appropriateness or inappropriateness of a moralized attitude ought to give us insight into the moral status of the creature toward which we hold the attitude.
For Strawson, there are two factors that might render a moral emotion inappropriate: how much control you have of your actions and the type of thing you are. For example, in “Asylum,” Sam shoots Dean in the chest with a shotgun full of rock salt while under the control of the spirit of Dr. Ellicott. Since Sam’s actions aren’t under his control, Dean shouldn’t be angry with him. After all, it wasn’t really Sam’s fault. It was Dr. Ellicott’s spirit. Sometimes, however, a creature can be perfectly in control of its actions, and yet, because of the type of thing it is, we cannot appropriately feel moral emotions toward it. Consider Sam’s character navigating life without the benefit of having a soul throughout most of Season 6. Assuming a popular understanding of the soul, which says a soul is necessary to act morally, we ought to consider Sam in a much different light as far as moral responsibility is concerned. In Season 6, Sam is simply not the type of creature toward which it is appropriate to hold the moral attitudes. Being angry with Sam in this situation is like being angry with a robot. We ought to consider him with what Strawson calls an “objectivity of attitude.” He is a being whom we must manage or control; such beings are unable to enter into normal moral relationships wherein the moral emotions have a place. As a result, we must treat them objectively, as if they were an “object of social policy.”
How can we tell when a creature is the sort of thing that is the appropriate target for moral emotions? One promising approach makes an individual the appropriate target of moral emotions only if the being has the ability to understand and be motivated by moral reasons. In other words, the being must be able to understand when a situation presents her with a duty to act in a certain way, and the recognition of this fact must motivate her to fulfill that duty.
Sam and Dean have a veritable trophy case of monster hunts. They have killed everything from your run-of-the-mill werewolves, vampires, and shapeshifters to more exotic creatures such as shtrigas, wraiths, and djinn. Thus, it will be helpful to begin placing these creatures into different categories based on our intuitions about their status as members of the moral community. Doing this allows us to distinguish those monsters that are firmly outside the boundaries of the moral community, thereby highlighting the hard cases, wherein moral status is more difficult to determine.
In “Heart” Dean sums up our first group, low-functioning monsters, saying, “What about a human by day, freak, animal, killing-machine by moonlight don’t you understand?” These monsters obviously fall outside of the moral community. They kill humans out of a basic instinct. Their mental abilities are no more advanced than a wild animal, and, thus, they show no ability to understand or be motivated by moral reasons. For this reason, it would be absurd to criticize them for acting immorally. For example, if my dog rummages through the garbage at night making a huge mess in the house, it would make sense for me to be angry and say, “Bad dog!” It wouldn’t, however, make sense for me to feel offended and say, “How dare you treat my home with such disrespect!”
One excellent example of a low-functioning monster comes to us in the second episode of Season 1, “Wendigo.” A wendigo is a creature that hunts humans for food. They actually begin life as human beings and become monsters when they turn to cannibalism for survival after being stranded in the wilderness. If enough human flesh is consumed, “over years, [the cannibal] becomes this less than human thing … always hungry.” The wendigo, then, is an example of an animal-like monster. It is a skilled hunter, but its skill is a product of its instincts. It does not have the normal human emotional capacities. Instead, it is driven by self-preservation and its need to feed.
Another enlightening example of a low-functioning monster is the werewolf. In the episode “Heart,” Sam and Dean encounter a woman named Madison, who turns out to be a werewolf. As noted before, Dean describes them as “freak, animal, killing-machines.” While in their werewolf state, these monsters are driven by base, animal instincts. Later in the episode, Sam exhorts Dean to refrain from killing Madison, saying, “Maybe she really doesn’t know she’s changing, you know? Maybe when the creature takes over she blacks out … What if some animal part of her brain saw both of those guys [the murder victims] as threats?” Sam is pointing out how werewolves pose an interesting moral question for us, which we will come back to. For now it seems clear that while they are in their wolf-state, these creatures are not members of the moral community.
In addition to the Group 1 monsters, there is another set of creatures that falls clearly outside of the boundaries of the moral community. These are the “antisocial monsters.” Such creatures share distinct similarities with individuals who are diagnosed with various forms of antisocial personality disorder, which is typically characterized by an inability to feel empathy and regard for the rights of others, appearing manipulative and lacking in conscience. Monsters from this category fall outside of the moral community as well, albeit in a very different way.
Demons provide a good illustration of antisocial monsters. Throughout the series, demons are portrayed as purely evil, wantonly killing human beings and engaging in torture for fun. Unlike the Group 1 monsters, however, they have highly developed mental abilities. They rely on reasoning to plan and achieve their goals and, by all accounts, they appear to be equal to human beings in terms of mental prowess.
Similarly, leviathans are prototypical antisocial monsters. They lack any regard for the human race and implement a plan to turn us into a factory-farm-style food supply. Leviathans show a high degree of intelligence, and they are clearly able to conceive of and execute elaborate plans for the sake of achieving a rational goal, which is ultimately what precludes them from being classified among the Group 1 monsters.
Why shouldn’t we consider Group 2 monsters full members of the moral community, and simply hold them morally responsible for their actions? The answer, I think, lies in their inability to recognize moral reasons. Demons, for example, are purely evil and simply cannot understand a moral demand made by a human. Suppose that instead of making plans to kill Lilith in order to avert the Apocalypse, Sam and Dean decided that they should explain to her that she has a moral obligation to avoid destroying humanity. Obviously, we could expect Lilith to make short work of the brothers and continue on her quest to destroy humanity. But why is this so obvious?
The reason seems to be that she is incapable of understanding a moral reason with respect to humans. She may very well be aware that human beings live according to a moral code, but she certainly wouldn’t care in the least about it. It simply wouldn’t motivate her, and this motivational component is part of what it means to be a member of the moral community. The same explanation could be given with respect to the leviathans. They simply aren’t moved by moral reasons, thus precluding them from being members of the moral community and thereby excluding them as appropriate targets of the moral emotions.
For any creature to be a member of the moral community it must care about and be motivated by moral reasons. Moral reasons don’t register as important decision-making factors for either Group 1 or Group 2 monsters. But there are some monsters that do seem to take moral reasons into consideration when they make decisions, and because of this, we should include them in the moral community. These are the Group 3 monsters, and they pose a particularly interesting challenge to the moral character of Sam and Dean.
In “Bloodlust,” Sam and Dean are hunting vampires in Montana. Unlike other vampires the brothers have encountered, these ones do not feed on human blood. Instead, they have learned to survive by consuming the blood of cows. Their reasons for not killing humans are to spare humans from suffering and to help their vampire species survive undetected.
These vampires give us reason to believe that vampires are indeed members of the moral community. The fact that these vampires refrain from killing humans signifies that they are motivated by moral reasons. It would, therefore, be entirely appropriate for the brothers to hold the various reactive attitudes toward them. This is a running theme in the vampire-based episodes of Supernatural. In “Dead Man’s Blood,” the vampire Luther pleads with John Winchester, “Why can’t you leave us alone? We have as much right to live as you do.” Again, in “Fresh Blood,” we encounter a vampire who claims that “hunters slaughtered my entire nest like they were having a party, murdered my daughter.” The notion of having a right to live and the concept of murder (defined as wrongful killing) both have moral elements to them, and the fact that these monsters understand this suggests a sensitivity to moral reasoning.
This realization is very important for how we view Sam and Dean. When Sam tells Dean that the vampires are not killing people, Dean responds by saying, “What part of ‘vampires’ don’t you understand, Sam? If it’s supernatural, we kill it, end of story. That’s our job … They’re all the same, Sam. They’re not human, okay? We have to exterminate every last one of them.” Here Dean sounds extraordinarily bigoted and close-minded. But by the end of the episode, Dean’s attitude has changed. He tells Sam, “I wish we never took this job. It just jacked everything up … What if we killed things that didn’t deserve killing?” Dean seems to be coming to the conclusion that monsters are not categorically evil, that some might actually deserve moral consideration. This realization by Dean—for better or worse—makes a huge difference in our opinion of his character. After all, it’s hard to root for a bigoted jack-ass.
Unfortunately, in “The Girl Next Door,” we are introduced to another Group 3 monster that Dean handles differently. Sam begins investigating a string of murders involving unsavory individuals. The case is similar to one that the family had when Sam was a child, in which he unknowingly befriended a kitsune, named Amy. Kitsune are creatures that require human pituitary glands in order to survive. Amy and her son have been surviving on the glands of dead people she obtains through her job as a mortician. Gross to be sure, but it isn’t like she’s killing anyone. Only recently has she begun killing a few not-so-great people to save her sick child. Sam exhorts Dean, once again, to spare the life of this monster. And though Dean at first listens to his brother, he later kills Amy anyway without Sam knowing.
Amy, the kitsune, is clearly a member of the moral community, and it is for this very reason that we feel anger or outrage at Dean for killing her. He has reverted to his old understanding of what it is to be a monster. He tells Amy before killing her, “[People] are who they are. No matter how hard you try, you are who you are. You will kill again.” Rather than using the lesson learned from Lenore and other vampires, Dean once again takes up the if-it’s-supernatural-kill-it attitude, and the viewer finds this objectionable precisely because Amy is an example of a moral monster, a card-carrying member of the moral community.
Being a member of the moral community means being capable of understanding and caring about moral obligations, but there is another side of the coin. It also means that all members of the moral community have moral obligations to one another. That is not to say that members of the moral community may never be killed. Self-defense, for example, can be a justifiable reason to kill another member of the moral community. Sam and Dean act morally when they kill moral monsters in self-defense or to protect the lives of others.
Sam and Dean are admirable for their consistent dedication to helping save the lives of other people, but this seems inconsistent with their apparent disregard for the lives of the moral monsters they hunt, which should leave us questioning whether or not Sam and Dean are really good.
Suppose I must kill someone to save your life, because they are threatening to kill you. If after taking the person’s life I popped open a cooler, leaned up against my ’67 Chevy, and took a long swig of beer as the sun set, then you might think I’m cold and callous. After all, I’ve just killed another member of the moral community as though it were just any other job. I suppose that would make sense if I was an executioner, but it would be sociopathic of me to think I was just a hunter, doing what we do. At the end of the day, killing a member of the moral community ought to weigh heavily on us, and we ought to expect the brothers to feel the gravity of this after they kill a monster. Believing this isn’t some sort of naïve sympathy for the devil. When Sam and Dean kill with no remorse, our good guys aren’t really as good as we think.
1. P.F. Strawson, “Freedom and Resentment,” in Gary Watson ed., Free Will, 2nd edn (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 72–93.