Doctor Who and the Problem of Moral Cowardice

The moral case for knowing people will let you down.

Author’s Note: There’s an irony to publishing this today.

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Sooner or later, people will let you down.

No matter how much you might want to believe otherwise, it's going to happen. When given the opportunity between saving themselves and saving other people, they will tend to choose themselves. Even if they could do both or just one, they will often choose themselves. This is particularly a concern when it's your life on the line people are choosing between. Whether to stand up against people who want to hurt or do bad things to you or to join in with the crowd and feel good that other people like the decision they made. As a result, you have every reason to believe that you're better off focusing on yourself rather than worrying about what might go wrong for others. It destroys your faith in humanity and its ability to make progress.

The more times this happens and the older you get, the more cynical and angry you can become. You come to expect people to be selfish and mean. Planning for the bad behaviour of people can have its benefits though. You're not surprised when they do the terrible things they're likely to do. You can integrate those types of plans into your own plans. Even if you're the kind of person who actually does care and will stand up for others, you can make that part of the plan. That way they won't get in the way of your desire to help and will help accidentally. If you do it often enough, you might actually be able to inspire people to try a little harder the next time they have a chance to do the right thing. You don't necessarily know for sure, but it's at least a possibility.

At the very least, you might be capable of inspiring a single person to try harder and become the kind of person who has actual courage in the face of cynicism and anger. That by itself might give you hope that the rest of the world could be made better. Of course, this person too runs the risk of facing the fact that others around them will be cowards. The more they see it the worse you feel and the higher chance they will end up becoming a moral coward in the process.

Doctor Who's Twelfth Doctor is very much all about trying in the face of moral cowardice. Played by Peter Capaldi, he has been around long enough to see the way human beings can let him down. Time after time, he has tried to inspire people to have courage in the face of terrible situations like alien invasions or humans looking to exploit the power of aliens for their benefit. No matter how many times he tries, they will find a way to let him down in the end. They will do the selfish thing. Maybe one or two people will become hopeful and have courage, but these people are few and far between. They can't be relied on in any serious situation. Yet he does his best to continue despite it all.

It's a powerful thing to watch and worthy of your time.

Do yourself a favour and explore the problem of moral cowardice by checking out Doctor Who as soon as you can.

You can watch Doctor Who on Amazon as well as Disney Plus.

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