Learning Ethics from Les Miserables

Posted August 20, 2009

Filed under: Ethics, Virtue | Tags: deontological, Javert, Jean Valjean, Les Miserables, utilitarian, Virtue |

Everydaythomist is going to take a small break from discussing scripture and metaphysics in todays post. But dont
worrywe will come back to some of the same topics we have been discussing on Thomas Aquinas use of metaphysical
speculation to understand God as revealed in scripture.

Today, however, we are going to look at a well-known story, popularized by the musical, of Victor Hugos Les Miserables.
I watched and discussed the Dreamcast version of the musical last night with my church small group. We arent going to
rehash the whole story here. If you dont know it, go out and get the DVD immediately, and then be sure to read the
book as soon as you can. In this post, we are going to look at the various ethical theories which different characters
represent, and what the story overall can tell us about ethics.

One of the ethical theories the movie portrays is what is called a deontological, or rule-based theory, most clearly
represented by the police inspector Javert. Deontological ethical theories say that the moral thing to do in any given
situation is to follow the rules, to obey the law, to do your duty. Deontological theories tend to downplay the relevance
of consequences. This means that if there is a rule not to lie, it is immoral to lie, even if lying will help a lot of people.

A famous hypothetical scenario to illustrate what deontological theories look like if taken to an extreme is the Nazi at
the door scenario. It goes as follows: say you are hiding Jews in your basement to protect them from being sent to a
concentration camp. A Nazi comes to the door and asks if you have any Jews in your house. You know that lying is
wrong, but you also know that if you do you obey your duty to tell the truth, the Jews in your basement will probably
die. A deontological theorist would say that even in this scenario, lying is immoral.

In contrast, a utilitarian approach to ethics looks at the consequences of actions to judge their morality. Utilitarianism is
a form of consequentialism and tends to say that what is moral in any given situation is to maximize the good effects. So
a utilitarian would say that more good can be done by lying to the Nazi officer and saving the Jews than can be done by
telling the truth.

Javert is a deontological thinker par excellence. In his first stage encounter with Jean Valjean who is just getting released
from prison, Javert tells Valjean that he is thief who has been justly punished for his offense. Valjean explains that he
stole a loaf of bread to save his starving niece who was close to death. Valjean is using utilitarian reasoning herehe
broke the law because doing so could potentially bring about more good (saving his niece) than obeying the law could.
He appeals to Javert for compassion, We were starving . . . but Javert gives a deontological response:

You will starve again, unless you learn the meaning of the law!

Obeying the law comprises the totality of morality for Javert. His solo Stars illustrates how important the law is for
him. The law maintains order. Without the law, there would be chaos, and so Javert insists that the law must be upheld
regardless of the consequences, and if the law is broken, justice demands punishment. Even when he encounters
Fantine who is clearly on the brink of death and requests only a little time to make sure her daughter is safe does not
sway his commitment to the law:

I have heard such protestations
Every day for twenty years
Lets have no more explanations
Save your breath and save your tears
Honest work, just reward,
Thats the way to please the Lord.

Javert is not just being high and mighty in his role as police commissioner. We learn that he also comes from a poor
background to criminal parents, but chose to escape his background by strictly following the rules no matter what the
consequences:

Dare you talk to me of crime
And the price you had to pay
Every man is born in sin
Every man must choose his way
You know nothing of Javert
I was born inside a jail
I was born with scum like you
I am from the gutter too!

While Valjean occasionally uses utilitarian reasoning in his approach to ethics, he is more representative of a third
approach to ethics, a virtue-based approach. If a deontological approach to ethics first asks what does the law say?
and a utilitarian approach first asks how can I do the most good? a virtue-based approach asks what does this action
say about the kind of person I am, and what are the implications of this action for becoming the person I want to
become?

Alasdair MacIntyre, a famous philosophical advocate of virtue ethics, says that virtue ethics can be summed up in three
questions:

Who am I?
Who do I want to become?
How do I get there?

Virtue ethics is unique because it sees ethics as concerned not so much about discrete actions (should I do X or not), but
how every action fits into a total life narrative. Virtue ethics acknowledges that people change over timethey become
better or worse people depending on what they do.

We see Valjean struggling between a utilitarian approach to ethics and a virtue-based approach to ethics in his son
Who am I? In this song, Valjean contemplates the utility of turning himself into Javert to save a man who has been
mistaken for Valjean and arrested. But if Valjean chooses to turn himself in to save one man, hundreds of others will
suffer since val Jean is the mayor of the town and the owner of the factory where most of the town works.

I am the master of hundreds of workers.
They all look to me.
How can I abandon them?
How would they live
If I am not free?
If I speak, I am condemned.
If I stay silent, I am damned!

Utilitarian reasoning falls apart for Valjean, and he has already recognized the limitations of Javerts deontological
approach. He understands that weighing the consequences will not tell him what is right in this complicated situation,
nor will trying to follow the rules lead him to the right choice. Instead, he turns to his own character and asks who am I
and who do I want to become?

Who am I?
Can I condemn this man to slavery
Pretend I do not feel his agony
This innocent who bears my face
Who goes to judgment in my place
Who am I?
Can I conceal myself for evermore?
Pretend Im not the man I was before?
And must my name until I die
Be no more than an alibi?
Must I lie?
How can I ever face my fellow men?
How can I ever face myself again?
My soul belongs to God, I know
I made that bargain long ago
He gave me hope when hope was gone
He gave me strength to journey on
Who am I? Who am I?
I am Jean Valjean!

But just because Valjean does not base his decisions primarily on either following the rules or maximizing the good
consequences, there are guiding principles that he brings to his deliberation. But they are not rule-based principles like
Javert (e.g. dont steal); rather, Valjeans guiding principles are the virtues, which are vaguer but which allow Valjean to
account for the complexity of each moral dilemma.

Virtues are certain aspects of a persons character that lead them to do good things. A person develops virtues through
actions. One develops justice, for example, by trying to be just and giving to others and oneself what they deserve. One
develops courage by facing fear, and by not avoiding good actions even when they are difficult or frightening.

There are lots of different virtues that people develop like temperance (moderation), prudence (right judgment about
things to be done), generosity, etc. The dominant virtue for Valjean is love. In each ethical dilemma he faces, Valjean
asks what is the loving thing to do? Javert asks what is the right or the legal thing to do? and as a result, ethical
dilemmas are much simpler for him. But for Valjean, things are more complicated. It is not always easy to be loving, and
he sometimes has to break the rules to do so, which is how he ended up in prison and an enemy of Javert in the first
place.

And this brings us to what I see is the entire point of the story. Ethics is messy. Ethics is complicated. There are so many
particular dimensions of each ethical dilemma that we face that we cannot possibly account for them all. And so if we
look at ethics as primarily concerned about discrete actions, about what is the right or wrong thing to do in any given
situation, we miss the point. Ethics is about becoming a good person. Ethics is primarily about the story of ones life with
all the successes and mistakes taken as a whole. It is about being able to die and say I lived the best I could, and I am
proud of the person that I am. Rules are important, as is attention to consequences, but both rules and consequence
are meant to facilitate the ultimate goal which is living well.

Acknowledging the complicated nature of ethics gives a person compassion for others in their own path to a good life.
We see this too with Valjean. He can sympathize with Fantine who has sold herself into prostitution to get enough
money for her daughter. He can sympathize with the prisoner who was caught stealing and mistaken for him. He can
sympathize with the student organizers and with Cosette and with Marius in his love for his daughter. Because his
approach to ethics gives val Jean sympathy, he has relationships that Javert, in all of his uprightness and stalwartness,
does not. Because it is so clear to Javert what the right thing to do is, he cannot understand when people do not do it. So
virtue ethics provides an approach to ethics that keeps us from judging too quickly.

On a final note, I would say that it is very difficult in any given situation to do the right thing. Even the most virtuous and
heroic characters fail in their attempt to do what is best. We see this with Valjean who allows the foreman to fire
Fantine because he needs to keep order in his shop. Valjean was not being malicious therehe simply could not account
for all the relevant particular factors in the situation. A rallying motto of the virtue ethicist, however, is this: It takes
more than one sparrow to make a spring. This means that we are not defined as a person by any one particular action.
Who we are as people depends on an entire lifetime of actions. So Valjean is not a thief simply because he stole. Nor is
he the hardened 24601 that he was in his time in prison. He is simply Jean Valjean, an identity which the audience of the
musical does not see in its fullness until Valjeans death.