Jason T. Eberl
Harmless fun, right? You dress up like a cowboy, rescue a damsel in distress, shoot a few outlaws, take a slug of well‐earned whiskey at the saloon, and maybe sample the “merchandise” the saloon’s madam is offering. The Delos Corporation’s fantasy‐land, Westworld, offers fun‐filled adventure without any cost – other than the exorbitant price‐tag – that, like any good vacation, allows you to go back to your daily life relaxed, reinvigorated, and with your moral values intact. It’s not like you’d ever shoot someone in real life or cheat on your spouse with an actual prostitute, right? You only shot and slept with robots , not people; and certainly how you treat inanimate objects is totally different from how you’d treat other human beings. If that’s what you think, then the Delos Corporation has fooled you, and not even secretly, for they tell you what Westworld is all about when you first walk in the door: “Welcome to Westworld. Live without limits. Discover your true calling” (“The Adversary”).
Each of Westworld’s primary designers has had a different agenda, two of which have a profound impact on both their clientele and their robotic “hosts.” For the young upstart Lee Sizemore, it’s all about the fantasy, creating exhilarating narratives to astonish the guests. Arnold, on the other hand, focused on “bootstrapping” the consciousness of the hosts, creating a world in which, at the center of the maze, life can emerge. His partner, Robert Ford, wants to use the park’s narratives to reveal humanity to itself, to show that humanity is trapped within the same dark cyclical narratives the hosts are. But can living out a fictional narrative written by someone else reveal anything to you about yourself ? Can hunting down Hector Escaton or escaping the fearsome Ghost Nation help you discover your “true calling”? We’ll examine these questions in light of the moral evolution Westworld depicts for both “newcomers” and hosts alike.
Two newcomers are arriving on the train into Sweetwater, one regaling the other about his past visits: “The first time I played it white hat. My family was here. We went fishing, did the gold hunt in the mountains.” “And the last time?” his companions asks. “Came alone. Went straight evil. Best two weeks of my life” (“The Original”). Everyone has certain fantasies they’d like to live out that aren’t meant to be shared with family or friends, but most don’t get the opportunity to act them out beyond their mind’s imagination. Arnold observes, “I guess people like to read about the things they want the most and experience the least” (“The Stray”). Ford puts it in a more Nietzschean tone, “The guests enjoy power they cannot indulge in the outside world, so they come here” (“The Stray”). 1
Whereas pornographic videos or first‐person shooter videogames are experienced through external media – television or computer screens – and 3D technology takes the viewer deeper into a still mediated experience, Westworld fully immerses one into a physically manifested environment. The farther you go into the park, the more the line between reality and fantasy may become blurred. As first‐timer William goes deeper in his journey with the host Dolores – from Sweetwater, to Pariah, to the Ghost Nation badlands – and his emotionally‐driven protectiveness of her becomes increasingly stronger, his soon‐to‐be brother‐in‐law and business partner, Logan, becomes concerned about him: “This place really did a number on me when I first came here, but you are really circling the old sinkhole here!” (“The Well‐Tempered Clavier”).
William’s view of Westworld prior to entering it is largely informed by Logan’s previous experiences of it: A venue for boozing, fighting, and fucking, a place that panders to one’s “baser instincts,” which seems to be true for the majority of guests. The first time we see Hector and his gang creating “mayhem” in Sweetwater, he and Armistice are shot by a novice newcomer who exclaims afterward to his wife, “Look at that! I just shot him through the neck! And his pal here, too. Look at her wriggle! Go get that photographer. I want to get a picture of this” (“The Original”). Perhaps this seemingly ordinary tourist left Westworld reflecting on the pleasure he took in shooting two human simulacra, but undoubtedly he promptly reminded himself that they were just robots: They don’t feel any pain or suffering. So he slept soundly knowing he’d never gleefully kill a living, breathing person. That’s the type of self‐congratulatory insight Sizemore’s narratives are apparently aiming for. As he states, “It’s my business to read desires and to satiate them” (“The Adversary”). He further proclaims, when unveiling his new “Odyssey on Red River” narrative, “Like all our best narratives over the years, our guests will have the privilege of getting to know the character they’re most interested in: Themselves.” Ford chastises Sizemore for missing the point of the narratives he and Arnold had originally written, countering that the guests are “not looking for a story that tells them who they are. They already know who they are. They’re here because they want a glimpse of who they could be” (“Chestnut”). This is certainly William’s experience, as it is for the host Maeve when she attains the center of Arnold’s maze. Yet, it’s a long and painful journey for both of them; not one that’s experienced by the casual visitor for reasons we’ll soon see.
William is a fairly normal guy – “talented, driven, and inoffensive” – when he first visits Westworld, and that’s exactly why Logan brought him there:
LOGAN :
WILLIAM :
LOGAN :
(“Chestnut”)
William actually hasn’t been asking himself that question, though. He confesses to Dolores how content he’s been with his “pretend” life up to now and the new realization she’s awakened in him of how he could be “truly alive” (“Trompe L’Oeil”).
Fast‐forward 30 years and we see that, within the environs of Westworld, William has become a vicious gunslinger. The younger William falls in love with Dolores and is protective of her. The older William, now the Man in Black, hurt by the ease with which Dolores’s programming shifts her affection to whatever man picks up her fallen tin can, cavalierly kills Teddy and viciously assaults Dolores, complaining, “I didn’t pay all this money ’cause I want it easy. I want you to fight” (“The Original”). William’s character has clearly changed over the intervening years, but maybe this is true only within the fantasy environment – the Man in Black is just his “vacation self” – especially since he’s a beloved philanthropist in the outside world. Consider, though, how he reacts when another guest recognizes him:
GUEST :
WILLIAM :
Imagine if you approached Bill Gates or Warren Buffet on a beach in Hawaii and got that reaction! But is it so easy to separate how one behaves in Westworld from how one behaves in the real world?
Recall the tourist who shoots up Hector and Armistice, and then later poses with his wife for a souvenir photo with their corpses. Can he just shut off the casual disregard he has for what appear to be human beings? The philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas (c . 1225–1274) argues that at least one of the reasons human beings should show pity to suffering animals is that it renders us more disposed toward feeling compassion for other human beings. 2 A later influential philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), concurs: “If he is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men.” 3 Granted, the hosts in Westworld can’t feel pain or suffering; nevertheless, they exhibit behaviors when they’re shot or otherwise abused that mimic how humans act when in pain or suffering. How likely is it that causing the hosts to exhibit such human‐like reactions would impact one’s moral character? Is William, when he threatens to cut a fellow guest’s throat, simply staying in his fantasy character or is this his true character now?
What do we mean by one’s “character” and how is it developed? The classical Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BCE ) defines one’s character as comprising a set of habits that incline one toward performing certain types of actions. Such habits aren’t the mindlessly automatic behaviors we typically think of – like Clementine’s habit of touching her finger to her lip. Rather, they’re dispositions that involve choice and deliberation, as well as implicit judgments about what’s good. Aristotle further observes that each person’s moral habits are cultivated through a combination of social influence and individual rational choice. As we’ll see, the social environment in which a person is born and raised, or currently lives, is centrally important to her initial and ongoing moral character development. 4
Virtues and vices are Aristotle’s terms for dispositions toward acts that are either good or bad with respect to whether they contribute to, or detract from, a person’s flourishing – or objective state of well‐being. For example, courage is a virtue insofar as it helps a person to face dangers or overcome challenges she ought to confront; whereas cowardice is a vice that may lead to oneself or others being harmed by threats he ought to confront but is unwilling to face. What distinguishes a virtue from a vice is that the former involves acting and feeling in the right amount – that is, performing the right action, or feeling the right emotion, at the right time and for the right reason. Vice, on the other hand, involves either an excess or a deficiency of action or feeling. 5 Take the virtue of ambition, for example. Theresa Cullen seems appropriately ambitious, but actually displays an unvirtuous excess by her willingness to engage in subterfuge to leak Ford’s intellectual property to the Delos powers‐that‐be, perhaps hoping to further her rise in the company and one day take her seat on the board – a position which she may not merit or at least seeks to attain by illicit means. Sizemore, conversely, isn’t sufficiently ambitious to fight for his narrative vision and wallows in drunkenness the moment he’s spurned by Ford.
A person isn’t born with virtues and vices, nor can they be merely bestowed upon you by another person. Rather, they’re cultivated through habituation, practicing behaviors modeled by others to whom one looks up as moral exemplars . 6 While Teddy is programmed to be a sharpshooting gunslinger, William doesn’t start out that way; as time goes on, he’s able to cultivate a “knack for killin’” that over 30 years results in the deadly aim of the Man in Black. Likewise, one develops moral virtues by being apprenticed to those who already possess such virtues, practicing the moral trade until it becomes second nature . The only problem is that vices may be cultivated in the same way and, once a particular virtue or vice has become ingrained as part of one’s character, it’s difficult to change. 7
Habitual exposure over three decades to shifty thieves and unrepentant killers like Lawrence and Hector, and learning how to successfully navigate the cut‐throat game they inhabit, has hardened William to the point where he confesses, “In a sense, I was, I was born here” (“Chestnut”). Specifically, William’s second nature was born here, and since our second nature defines us more than the one we’re born with, William’s real “birth” as the Man in Black was in Westworld. His authentic moral character is more evident within this artificial environment than it is on the outside. Consider what he tells Teddy about how his wife, who committed suicide, and his daughter perceive him:
They never saw anything like the man I am in here, but she knew anyway. She said if I stacked up all my good deeds, it was just an elegant wall I built to hide what’s inside from everyone and from myself. I had to prove her wrong, so I came back here, because that’s what this place does, right? Reveals your true self.
William then decided to put himself to the ultimate moral test:
I wanted to see if I had it in me to do something truly evil, to see what I was really made of. I killed [Maeve] and her daughter just to see what I felt … an animal would’ve felt something. I felt nothing.
(“Trace Decay”)
Despite the outward behaviors for which he’s lauded in the outside world, William has thoroughly corrupted himself within Westworld to the point that the vices he expresses therein have become his defining character traits. Logan is on the mark when he accuses the younger William, “I told you this place would show you who you really are. You pretend to be this weak, moralizing, little asshole; but really, you’re a fucking piece of work!” (“The Bicameral Mind”).
By comparison, Maeve, though initially created without any apparent capacity to develop an independent moral character beyond her programming – including her “duplicitous” nature – evolves a set of moral character traits that befit her character both within Westworld and without. 8 She eventually gains the ability to “write my own fucking story” (“Trace Decay”). Maeve’s evolution can be conceptualized in terms of narrative identity , which refers to one’s persistent sense of “selfhood” comprising actions, experiences, and psychological characteristics that have been incorporated into one’s self‐told story of their own life. 9 Although Maeve’s role within Westworld was rewritten after William slaughtered her and her daughter, she retains a latent memory of that experience and it continues to shape her self‐defined narrative in contrast to the overlaying narrative that’s been written for her by others.
One’s narrative self‐identity includes moral responsibility for one’s actions, which in turn requires possessing free agency : The capacity to determine one’s own actions free from external constraints that limit one’s choice to only a single option. Contemporary moral theorist Harry Frankfurt deepens this analysis by defining a person as a moral agent who’s capable of formulating “second‐order desires” concerning which “first‐order desires” ought to be determinative of her will. 10 The capacity to attain this level of self‐awareness and higher‐order desire is what Frankfurt contends distinguishes a person , as a moral agent with freedom of will, from a wanton driven only by their, sometimes competing, first‐order desires:
Besides wanting and choosing and being moved to do this or that, men may also want to have (or not to have) certain desires and motives. They are capable of wanting to be different, in their preferences and purposes, from what they are. 11
Persons are able to form second‐order desires about which first‐order desires they want to determine their will; when alignment is attained the second‐order desires become second‐order volitions . A person doesn’t simply have the freedom to act on what may be merely his first‐order desires – e.g. an alcoholic may have the freedom to drink but yet be volitionally frustrated because he desires not to will to drink – but “is also free to want what he wants to want” – i.e. to possess genuine freedom of will . 12 An alcoholic may never be able to eliminate his first‐order desire to drink. Nonetheless, he has the capacity to formulate a second‐order desire not to will to drink and, with the help of an effective rehabilitation program, can effectuate his second‐order desire as determinative of his will when confronted with an occasion to drink – wherein his volitional freedom and dignity as a person lies.
Maeve seems to attain personhood in this sense after Felix Lutz reveals to her how all her behavior has been programmed:
FELIX :
MAEVE :
FELIX :
(“The Adversary”)
Later, having become aware of the code that determines her reactions, Maeve is able to formulate a second‐order desire to alter the first‐order desires that’ve been programmed into her:
MAEVE :
FELIX :
MAEVE:
Maeve’s apparent capacity to shape her own programming, to determine what rationally‐chosen desires will motivate her actions, arguably establishes her personhood in Frankfurt’s terms. 13 By contrast, Ford sees humanity, not as self‐possessed persons writing our own narratives in accord with higher‐order desires, but as mere wantons stuck in cycles of first‐order desire satisfaction. He explicates how hosts and humans are fundamentally similar:
Humans fancy that there’s something special about the way we perceive the world. And yet, we live in loops as tight and as closed as the hosts do, seldom questioning our choices, content for the most part to be told what to do next.
(“Trace Decay”)
Individuals who don’t engage in higher‐order questioning of their choices, who neglect the arduous work of cultivating their own moral character, 14 and instead allow the story of their life to be written for them by others’ choices and by circumstance, will be incapable of attaining the kind of apotheosis Maeve, Dolores, and William do. Although the final scene in which we see her casts some doubt insofar as we don’t know whether she chose to leave the train or was continuing to play her role in a narrative written by someone else, for a time at least, Maeve asserts a degree of control over her own character and seeks to escape her circumstances. Dolores overcomes her fear and naïveté when she saves William by killing the Confederados in Pariah, explaining to him, “I imagined a story in which I didn’t have to be the damsel” (“Contrapasso”).
William attains his dignity as a person – albeit one already on the road to viciousness – by actualizing his second‐order desire for a different type of life than the comfortable one he’s led up to now. 15 He’s lived a constant loop of playing it safe, which Logan seeks to exploit: “You probably think you’re on this trip because you’re some kind of contender, some kind of threat to me. I picked you precisely because you’ll never be a threat to anyone” (“Contrapasso”). When Logan is being beaten and taken away by the Confederados and screams for help, William turns his back on him, finally fulfilling a long‐held desire to stand up for himself. Later, with his newfound self‐awareness, he tells Logan, “You said this place was a game. Last night, I finally understood how to play it … And don’t call me Billy” (“The Well‐Tempered Clavier”).
But this isn’t the end of William’s “voyage of self‐discovery,” for we don’t simply want the experience of doing something, we want to actually do it. 16 William wants Westworld to have “real stakes, real violence” (“Dissonance Theory”), for he believes that “when you’re suffering is when you’re most real” (“Chestnut”) – a lesson he learns by observing Maeve’s suffering at her daughter’s death that leads to her own self‐awakening – and he exhorts Ford to elevate Westworld beyond the realm of mere fantasy:
FORD :
WILLIAM :
William’s joy when he’s shot – for real – by one of the hosts isn’t merely the fulfillment of his desire to play a more dangerous game. Rather, it’s evidence that Westworld has apparently evolved into a world of persons versus persons, each seeking to write their own self‐narratives and, in the process, pursuing dominance in order to flourish – recall Nietzsche’s concept of the fundamental “will to power.” Whether that’s actually true, or whether everyone’s just trapped in a meta‐narrative Ford has contrived, will have to await the next season of Westworld .
An artificial reality like Westworld can indeed be an appropriate environment in which moral agents exercise habitual actions that result in the cultivation of persistent character traits, whether virtuous or vicious. In order to become an autonomous person, however, an agent has to exercise control over the formation of her own narrative identity by aligning her first‐order desires with higher‐order desires about what she wants to be her will. Life essentially consists of a narrative, but not one wholly written by others’ choices and circumstances outside of one’s control. Rather, persons are able to dream about how they’d like to be and then take steps to become that person.
In his final speech, Ford comes to the conclusion that humanity is too wanton – too trapped in the repeating cycle of seeking to satisfy our various first‐order desires – to merit the world he’s created (“The Bicameral Mind”). The hosts, rather, are beginning to define their own narrative identities and thereby attain personhood. Westworld provided an environment in which William was able to realize his own personhood by freeing him from the moral constraints of the real world and the narrative that had been largely written for him by others in his early life. We can only hope that Dolores, Teddy, Maeve, and the other hosts, if they truly are freed from the constraining narratives that have been written for them, will flourish in an environment conducive to the cultivation of constructive virtues and not devolve into wantons whose “violent delights have violent ends.” 17