6 ms·

Is Dune (as a series) really an endorsement of consequentialism? Frank Herbert wrote a lot of books, and it was a long time ago that I read them. I don’t remem

by ahepp 3y ago

Is Dune (as a series) really an endorsement of consequentialism? Frank Herbert wrote a lot of books, and it was a long time ago that I read them. I don’t remember the consequences ever being particularly great for anyone.

jkoudys 3y ago
Everyone gets murdered, commits suicide, transformed into crazy magic people or giant sandworms, or repeatedly dies then comes back in different forms over centuries. LotR had them do a bunch of hero shit, then everyone either went home to hang out at the pub for a while, or took a boat out west.
smt88 3y ago
The entire Dune series is an examination of consequentialism. There are good consequences for all of humanity. Whether Herbert endorses consequentialism in the real world is not something you could guess just from the books. The cost of the good consequences is unfathomably high.
- lapcat 3y ago
  If you can find a copy, "The Maker of Dune" gives some nice insights into Herbert's thinking. The book looks to be pretty hard to find now, though. I used to have a copy, but I must have sold it at some point when I was poorer. [Edit:] The internet archive has it: https://archive.org/details/the-maker-of-dune-insights-of-a-master-of-science-fiction-by-frank-herbert-tim-o-reilly https://archive.org/details/the-maker-of-dune-insights-of-a-...
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > The entire Dune series is an examination of consequentialism. There are good consequences for all of humanity. Mighty big asterisk on the “all” there.
  - smt88 3y ago
    > Mighty big asterisk on the “all” there. As long as [unacceptable sacrifice] is objectively smaller than [benefit], it works as an analogy for real-world consequentialism like the develoment/use of the atom bomb. The book went to some lengths to tell you with certainty that the sacrifice was smaller than the benefit.
    - ahepp 3y ago
      I think their point is that a straightforward reading of the statement “this had good consequences for all of humanity” would need to be evaluated by examining the finite equivalent “there does not exist a member of humanity for whom this had bad consequences”. Hence they propose an asterisk next to “all”, because “all of humanity” means something more like “humanity as a whole (decided by someone?)” or “humanity (the ones who aren’t dead?)”
antisthenes 3y ago
> I don’t remember the consequences ever being particularly great for anyone. The point of Dune books, to some extent, is that the path laid out for humanity was terrible, but still the best possible outcome of all possible ones. Of course we cannot verify it as a reader, but the trilogy alludes that genocide and despotic power consolidation and religious dogmatism were somehow necessary to prevent an otherwise even more terrible fate for humanity. Whether that's actually true is left as an exercise for the thinking reader to ponder about.
- ahepp 3y ago
  Trilogy? There are six Frank Herbert books in the series. > Of course we cannot verify it as a reader, but the trilogy alludes that genocide and despotic power consolidation and religious dogmatism were somehow necessary to prevent an otherwise even more terrible fate for humanity. I agree that certain characters in the books believe this. I think it would be a massive oversimplification to suggest the series wants us to accept that uncritically.
dragonwriter 3y ago
> Is Dune (as a series) really an endorsement of consequentialism? God Emperor of Dune consists largely of a lengthy and emphatic in-universe endorsement of a kind of consequentialism by the eponymous character. While I think that it is a naive view to do so, its pretty easy to see how a reader might take it as an endorsement of that view by the author. (OTOH, I think prescience, as featured in the series, really also challenges the idea of deontology and consequentialism as even being different in substance rather than different framings of the same considerations; the idea of a polar divide is, even without it, pretty clearly somewhat artificial – real deontological frameworks tend to incorporate context including known, intended, and reasonably foreseeable consequences in their understanding of what is part of the nature of the act itself, while any real consequentialist framework most adopt some rules as to which a priori outcomes that are viewed as positive or negative, and so the two somewhat blend; when all, or nearly all, outcomes become foreseeable…)

by ahepp 3y ago

jkoudys 3y ago

Everyone gets murdered, commits suicide, transformed into crazy magic people or giant sandworms, or repeatedly dies then comes back in different forms over centuries. LotR had them do a bunch of hero shit, then everyone either went home to hang out at the pub for a while, or took a boat out west.

smt88 3y ago

The entire Dune series is an examination of consequentialism. There are good consequences for all of humanity. Whether Herbert endorses consequentialism in the real world is not something you could guess just from the books. The cost of the good consequences is unfathomably high.

lapcat 3y ago
If you can find a copy, "The Maker of Dune" gives some nice insights into Herbert's thinking. The book looks to be pretty hard to find now, though. I used to have a copy, but I must have sold it at some point when I was poorer. [Edit:] The internet archive has it: https://archive.org/details/the-maker-of-dune-insights-of-a-master-of-science-fiction-by-frank-herbert-tim-o-reilly https://archive.org/details/the-maker-of-dune-insights-of-a-...
dragonwriter 3y ago
> The entire Dune series is an examination of consequentialism. There are good consequences for all of humanity. Mighty big asterisk on the “all” there.
- smt88 3y ago
  > Mighty big asterisk on the “all” there. As long as [unacceptable sacrifice] is objectively smaller than [benefit], it works as an analogy for real-world consequentialism like the develoment/use of the atom bomb. The book went to some lengths to tell you with certainty that the sacrifice was smaller than the benefit.
  - ahepp 3y ago
    I think their point is that a straightforward reading of the statement “this had good consequences for all of humanity” would need to be evaluated by examining the finite equivalent “there does not exist a member of humanity for whom this had bad consequences”. Hence they propose an asterisk next to “all”, because “all of humanity” means something more like “humanity as a whole (decided by someone?)” or “humanity (the ones who aren’t dead?)”

antisthenes 3y ago

> I don’t remember the consequences ever being particularly great for anyone. The point of Dune books, to some extent, is that the path laid out for humanity was terrible, but still the best possible outcome of all possible ones. Of course we cannot verify it as a reader, but the trilogy alludes that genocide and despotic power consolidation and religious dogmatism were somehow necessary to prevent an otherwise even more terrible fate for humanity. Whether that's actually true is left as an exercise for the thinking reader to ponder about.

ahepp 3y ago
Trilogy? There are six Frank Herbert books in the series. > Of course we cannot verify it as a reader, but the trilogy alludes that genocide and despotic power consolidation and religious dogmatism were somehow necessary to prevent an otherwise even more terrible fate for humanity. I agree that certain characters in the books believe this. I think it would be a massive oversimplification to suggest the series wants us to accept that uncritically.

dragonwriter 3y ago

> Is Dune (as a series) really an endorsement of consequentialism? God Emperor of Dune consists largely of a lengthy and emphatic in-universe endorsement of a kind of consequentialism by the eponymous character. While I think that it is a naive view to do so, its pretty easy to see how a reader might take it as an endorsement of that view by the author. (OTOH, I think prescience, as featured in the series, really also challenges the idea of deontology and consequentialism as even being different in substance rather than different framings of the same considerations; the idea of a polar divide is, even without it, pretty clearly somewhat artificial – real deontological frameworks tend to incorporate context including known, intended, and reasonably foreseeable consequences in their understanding of what is part of the nature of the act itself, while any real consequentialist framework most adopt some rules as to which a priori outcomes that are viewed as positive or negative, and so the two somewhat blend; when all, or nearly all, outcomes become foreseeable…)