“Welcome to my world”: a dialogue on choices

Clara: I just hope I can keep them alive.
Doctor: Ah, welcome to my world.

And welcome, one and all, to a debate which drifted across several episodes and at least two episode forums. For the ease and edification of those who were trying to follow it, and with the agreement of the main participants, I’ve now compiled it in one blog.

Have fun. And remember: always consult The Doctor before ingesting hemlock. 😉

Jimbo McMaster
Just like to say that I’m happy that this episode (and this series) has dealt with the whole sometimes-you-have-to-do-bad-things-for-the-greater-good issue, which I think is ignored in earlier eras of the show. The kind of life the Doctor leads would require him to sometimes make these sorts of choices a lot more often than, say, the Russell T Davies era ever made him do (I don’t think there are any examples at all in Nine or Ten’s adventures, although admittedly the destroying-all-the-Time-Lords-thing is a good example of that sort of decision-making, albeit off-screen).

I don’t think it should have required there to be a more pragmatic Doctor for him to have to sometimes make these pragmatic decisions (eg even if the Tenth Doctor found himself in the situation with Ross and the anti-bodies in ‘Into the Dalek’, surely the right thing to do would still be the same as with the Twelfth?), but this is better than nothing! I enjoy the three-dimensionalness of this attitude.

ScaryB
The Doctor’s always had difficult decisions – from preventing Barbara trying to rewrite Aztec traditions (no sacrifices) to not saving anyone from St Bartholomew’s Eve Massacre to “have I the right…” in Genesis to Ten at Pompeii and in Waters of Mars. I agree – if it was 11 in Into the Dalek it would have been the same reaction but he might have got his PR agent on to the presentation of it! 12 is just as much of a good man at heart(s) as all the other incarnations. Maybe I find it easier since I started with Hartnell. And Scottish (12′s banter sounds pretty normal to me!)

JimboMcMaster
Yeah it’s true that the Doctor was more morally complex in Hartnell’s day, but I think most of the examples you give (though I’ve not seen the St Bartholomew’s Eve Massacre one) are about allowing Time to follow its proper/pre-ordained course, particularly in the Tenth Doctor examples. So you’re right in that these are morally difficult decisions, but I feel that these are different somehow, like the Doctor is absolved of the guilt in the audiences’ mind as if it is history’s fault these bad things happened and not his. Notice the only time he goes against ‘history’ is the one that’s not real-world history – the Waters of Mars.

What I’ve been looking for is for the show to challenge us the audience to watch the Doctor commit an essentially terrible act (even a relatively ‘minor’ one like causing the death of one person) but to agree with him that it was the right decision. This we got in Into the Dalek! But I felt we had never had it so overtly before. Previously, I feel the circumstances would have been set up (by the writers/directors) in such a way as to present the Doctor in a more positive light. But now the show is embracing its idea of a more pragmatic Doctor by deliberately showing him in a more unflattering light in these scenarios, which I find exhilarating (and is what I’ve been hoping for!). To me, this makes the character a more realistic and fascinating one.

But I also wonder what it would be like if we were to see Doctors 10 or 11, for example, in the same scenarios without the writers conspiring to present them in such a flattering way. There is, of course, a difference between the broad spectrum of what the Doctor is capable of, and the relatively limited aspect of that spectrum that the writers want/allow us to see. (I think in some ways this is what you aptly refer to as the Eleventh Doctor’s PR agent!)

But yes, I agree that the Twelfth Doctor is as equally a good man as his previous incarnations. What I respect about him is that, on top of that caring aspect, there’s another part of him (that exists either because he’s an alien or because of his raw experience) that simply accepts that the best way to do things is sometimes still gonna be messy and regrettable. But its better than the alternative.

ScaryB
I’m not actually disagreeing with you – I like this darker take, with lots of shadowy greys, and I agree it’s being played up more by Capaldi. But he’s always done the difficult choices. Ten would have let history take its course in Pompeii if it hadn’t been for Donna; Eleven in the Beast Below was making the “wrong” choice till pulled up by Amy. And the whole message of Day of the Doctor is that there’s always a better choice than killing children.

The difference is that Twelve doesn’t dress it up. When someone’s already dead or beyond his ability to help (eg Ross, the astronaut last week, those who have seen the mummy in this week’s) he doesn’t pretend he can. eg it doesn’t matter if Maisie stays in the carriage with Clara, or if she goes to where the Doctor is, if it’s her turn to see it, it will find her.

JimboMcMaster
I appreciate you’re not disagreeing with me re the new darker shade of Doctor. Also, your point about The Beast Below is a good example of what I was looking for actually, and one I’d forgotten, so thanks for that. I respect the Doctor (and more importantly the show itself) because in that one he was willing to commit a terrible act, killing the Space Whale, for the greater good (although he was being a bit short-sighted in that case, as Amy proves).

Still, I feel that these examples are of times when in the end he didn’t actually commit (and didn’t have to commit) those terrible acts- as you say, Donna and Amy showed him another way. In other words, the show itself gives him a way out. (The only exception is his destroying of the Time Lords.)

To be clear about what it is that I felt the show had been lacking (and has now finally gained): I wanted the show itself (ie the writers/producers) to accept that sometimes in the Doctor’s adventures he would have to commit these terrible acts for the greater good. Just occasionally, these instances would surely arise, and the Doctor would (as he says in this week’s episode) only be able to choose from bad choices, eg kill one person, or let five die, for example. In other words I wanted the writers/producers (let’s say Russell T Davies) to put him in a position where he would have no choice but to kill that one person for the sake of five others. The Doctor is an intelligent, brave and moral man, and would appreciate that he had to take that action, and not let the five die, regardless of what face he was wearing at the time.

I’m glad we’ve had that happen now (in Into the Dalek, and acknowledged this week), it adds a realistic facet to the kind of life the Doctor leads, whereas I feel that perhaps previously the show had been that bit more idealistic (and kinder to the Doctor’s reputation), and that it would have been really interesting to see Tennant or Smith, for example, react to having to commit these ‘little’ evils. I appreciate that the Doctor’s destruction of the Time Lords is actually a very good example of this, although much more personal, but I feel that in reality the Doctor would find himself cornered into these kinds of positions more often that the show, up til now, has allowed for.

Anyway, I’m just saying that I’m glad we’ve had (what I consider to be) this extra facet of ‘realism’ this year (not that I hold it against the previous seasons or Doctors – it was only minor quibble of mine.) The amount I’ve written on this isn’t really proportionate to how much I care about this one feature, I just wanted to explain my thoughts. I thought they would be straightforward to explain but it has taken several paragraphs in the end! Oh well, Doctor Who deserves my time.

Bluesqueakpip
Why?

Who benefits?

Who benefits from teaching kids a moral viewpoint that says ‘yeah, sorry about the wedding, and the people who weren’t involved, and the ten year old, just like you. Oh, and the kid just like your little brother, who was clutching their teddy the way he does. But we got the person who would have murdered thousands, so it was all okay. You can go to sleep at night knowing it was for the greater good.’

[Okay, I’m being nasty. But really – who benefits from teaching kids crap like this?]

The ‘greater good’ can be used to justify almost any action. It has been used to justify the murder of millions. It isn’t the same as ‘there are no good choices’, because it’s almost always used to justify a bad choice on the grounds that something good may result from it in the future. It’s often justified as ‘realistic’, ignoring the point that ethics is generally all about stopping us doing realistic things (like punching my annoying neighbour).

It’s a quite different choice from ‘all I can do is drag one person/family from the wreckage.’ Or ‘I can’t stop someone being murdered.’ Which was what the Doctor had to do this week, and in Into The Dalek – admit that he couldn’t stop someone being killed, but he could use their death.

The Doctor does indeed do the ‘greater good’, but generally the show will portray this as a mistake. Donna agreed that stopping Vesuvius would be worse, but insisted that he could still save someone.

Someone who had the face that the current Doctor is using…

JimboMcMaster
Why? Firstly, because I think it would make good drama. I think a television show should try to explore as many facets of its premise as possible. I’m not saying I want this thing to happen all the time – just one episode would do (and i feel we’ve sort of had that now, at least to some extent). I think it would make good drama because seeing a character taking an action that is consistent with one important aspect of their character, but that also goes against many other aspects of their character, can make for powerful drama. Think of the end of ‘Of Mice and Men’.

Who benefits? I think the audience in general would appreciate the drama of it, but as you mention kids in particular: I think the lesson kids would learn, if this was handled well, would be that you can’t judge a person or what they do simply on the direct results of their actions – the indirect results should be considered too: maybe they were intentional. It also conveys that sometimes we have to be brave and do things, or condone things, we really don’t want to (I think Mummy on the Orient Express covers this well). Obviously, it has to be handled carefully for the show’s family audience. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be about choosing a certain number of lives over another number, or about death at all – it could be something much more mundane than that.

Regarding ‘the greater good’ – I agree this idea is often misused, and perhaps has negative connotations, but in a scenario where there are no good choices (which is the sort of scenario I am referring to), you have to take the option that you think will achieve the least terrible result. Admittedly, that is something which different people would have different ideas about, but in the sort of situation I’m proposing it would be the Doctor deciding – (and even though he’s not perfect) who better to let choose?

ScaryB
Re the Doctor having to choose between 2 bad options, and having to choose for the “greater good” –

He’s already done that, at the start of AG Who, when it was established that he had pressed the button to destroy Gallifrey. The choice was to kill everyone, including all the children, on Gallifrey by pressing the button or let them suffer in the continuing Time War.

He resolved it in Day of the Doctor by finding a third option, at Clara’s insistence. For the Doctor “the lesser of 2 evils” isn’t enough. There HAS to be a better way. He suffered for nearly 10 years (our time) because of making himself choose a bad option.

JimboMcMaster
Yes, I concede he has at least chosen the lesser of two evils off camera during the Time War. And I really enjoy that it is explored further in The Day of the Doctor, and similar ideas this season.

Maybe I’m cynical but I think these sorts of impossible choice would face the Doctor more often, given the life he leads. The real ones, that is, where there really is no better, third way. But, equally, I think I’m idealistic in some ways, and think that he’s got the guts to go through with the less terrible choice, rather than stand aside completely and let the worst happen. Which is in itself a kind of heroism – perhaps that’s why I like the idea.

Bluesqueakpip
Jimbo – good points, all. Obviously, I disagree. 😀

Firstly, because I think it would make good drama.I think a television show should try to explore as many facets of its premise as possible.

But the aspect of its premise that applies to Doctor Who has already been explored on-screen – in The Fires of Pompeii and The Waters of Mars (note that the titles makes it obvious that they’re exploring the same thing). The ‘impossible decision’ between bad and worse is the show’s premise of ‘fixed points’. You can’t change certain historical moments.

Those are both from the Russell T Davies era, and RTD’s opinion appears to veer strongly towards ‘all you can do is drag one or two people from the wreckage. However, you should drag one or two people from the wreckage.’
If something isn’t a fixed point, then the Doctor can never have an ‘impossible decision’ because he can change stuff. In fact, if something is a fixed point he can go back and change stuff – and that leads me to the Steven Moffat Era.

I think it would make good drama because seeing a character taking an action that is consistent with one important aspect of their character, but that also goes against many other aspects of their character, can make for powerful drama.

It can also make for very easy, unearned drama. Unless you are very, very careful, the drama is imposed on the character – and this is especially a danger in continuing dramas like Doctor Who.

The action you are proposing will change the character.

Fires of Pompeii is really about Donna; her realisation of the human cost of these fixed points (read ‘any ginormous disaster’) and her realisation of the limited scale of what she can accomplish. Having to choose between ‘bad’ and ‘worse’, she chooses ‘bad’ and then manages to turn ‘bad’ into ‘less bad’ by saving Caecelius and his family. Donna’s a companion – her character is allowed, nay encouraged to progress. And then that progression gets horribly taken away, but let’s not go there. 😈

[Who frowned him that face? Is this Doctor wearing the face of the man he saved? Or the man he couldn’t, because he refused to act?]

Waters of Mars – now, David Tennant is on record as saying that they couldn’t have done ‘Waters of Mars’ until just before regeneration – because it’s a character changing moment. The Tennant Doctor refuses to make the impossible choice, and leave Adelaide to die. Instead, she has to make that impossible choice for him.

Now then – it’s a great, character driven moment, but it does rather depend on another little bit of characterisation. Namely, the Doctor’s gone more than a bit bonkers, ‘Time Lord Victorious’ and so forth, and decides to change time instead of circumventing it.

And this is another problem with ‘the impossible decision’ in Doctor Who. There aren’t actually that many of them. Even in Waters of Mars, all the Doctor had to do was take Adelaide and her two surviving crew to another place and time – so that the historical record was unchanged. This gets pointed out in The Wedding of River Song and in Hide – a ‘fixed point’ seems to be fixed because of its effects. You can change it – providing what everyone thinks happened doesn’t change. Hila can be rescued in Hide, providing the Doctor is careful to not take her back to her own time. (Presumably a pioneer time traveller wouldn’t be too distraught at being permanently stuck in the past).

In the Steven Moffat era we get to see how very few impossible decisions there really are when you’re The ‘I’ve got a time machine and I’m quite prepared to use it’ Doctor. 😉 The major ‘impossible decision’ moment was the one that happened off screen in the Interregnum. The destruction of Gallifrey. And he can change it – once he realises that he CAN change it.

I think the lesson kids would learn, if this was handled well, would be that you can’t judge a person or what they do simply on the direct results of their actions – the indirect results should be considered too: maybe they were intentional.

Okay. Judging from that, you’re ethically a consequentialist. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, there’s a handy Wikipedia entry. I’m very much not a consequentialist, nor do I think it’s a terrific ethical system to teach children, so we’re definitely not going to agree on that one.

Which is in itself a kind of heroism – perhaps that’s why I like the idea.

I can only quote Clara and the Doctor on this:

Clara: We’ve got enough warriors. Any old idiot can be a hero.
The Doctor: Then what do I do?
Clara: What you’ve always done. Be a doctor.

JimboMcMaster

If something isn’t a fixed point, then the Doctor can never have an ‘impossible decision’ because he can change stuff.

I’m not certain that fixed points are actually the only time an ‘impossible choice’ can occur in Doctor Who; there surely are other times when he can’t change Time. My two main ‘impossible choice’ examples, which we’ve had this season, concern Ross’ death in ‘Into the Dalek’ and the Doctor’s use of the Mummy’s victims’ last 66 seconds in ‘Mummy on the Orient Express’. These are not fixed points in Time (they’re definitely not presented as if they are). But these are still instances of ‘impossible choices’, where there are only bad choices and worse choices to be made, and Time can’t (deliberately) be rewritten.
Ross’ death:

  • Bad: cause Ross’ death.
  • Worse: cause, by inaction, the deaths of the other people around you.

The Mummy’s victims:

  • Bad: assuring the victims that they are about to die, that that fact is not important and that they can use this time to save others from death.
  • Worse: Through inaction, allowing the victims to die without using their brief, unique position to observe the Mummy and help save the lives of other future victims.

In these examples, there really are only bad and worse choices; just like with fixed points, the Doctor cannot deliberately go back in time and change things that have already happened. Here is why I think this:

My general understanding of this sort of thing in Doctor Who is that time-travellers can’t ‘contradict’ things they already know, in other words they can’t cause something to happen/not happen that they know in fact doesn’t happen/happens, like killing Hitler in 1937 despite having learnt in school that he died in 1945. I think of this as ‘The Time-Traveller’s Rule of Thumb’.

For example, after the Doctor finds out what to say to the Mummy to ‘disable’ it (‘we surrender!’), he cannot then go back in time to before the mummy kills the old lady in the first scene of the episode, and say ‘we surrender!’ to it, thereby saving the lives of the five people who he had previously heard had died (including at least two he’d seen die). This episode, as far as was mentioned, had nothing to do with fixed points, and neither do most episodes, but it seems to be the consensus among writers and fans that the Doctor isn’t allowed to simply play with Time in this way at all: he can’t just figure out how to stop the monsters and then go back in time to a moment before the monsters killed anyone and stop their plans using his newfound method for defeating them. Once he’s found out that somebody died, he can’t save them (presumably because of some law of Time).

(In the example of Caecilius et al, the Doctor had presumably not heard that Caecilius et al had died in the eruption (they’re not historical figures), and therefore is not technically contradicting his knowledge in saving them – saving the whole of Pompeii would be different, of course). If my ‘Time Traveller’s Rule of Thumb’ isn’t valid, then the Doctor would be able to go back and save everyone all the time – this would make for bad television, so I think we as viewers have to accept that he just can’t do it.

Hopefully, all this demonstrates that fixed points need not be the only example of ‘impossible choices’ in Doctor Who. Once the Doctor finds himself in a situation where he has to choose between a Bad and Worse choice, he can’t then use time travel to stop this problem arising before it starts: he’d be contradicting his own knowledge of the timeline, and thus be breaking some law of time. If this behaviour didn’t break a natural law, he’d be doing it all the time.

So I dispute your claim that the only ‘impossible choices’ are fixed points – there is scope within the premise of the show to have stories featuring these non-fixed-point impossible-choices, eg ‘Into the Dalek’ and ‘Mummy on the Orient Express’. Also, I think fixed points are a different sort of choice, because they involve thinking about temporal physics/that sort of thing, not only morality.

I think it would make good drama because seeing a character taking an action that is consistent with one important aspect of their character, but that also goes against many other aspects of their character, can make for powerful drama.

It can also make for very easy, unearned drama. Unless you are very, very careful, the drama is imposed on the character – and this is especially a danger in continuing dramas like Doctor Who.

I agree it can be a bit risky, but as you say if the writer is careful it can work. What I am saying is that I think that we can have the Doctor perform this sort of action without it appearing ‘imposed’ on him by the writer, as you put it – for example, ‘Into the Dalek’, as I’ve said before, handles this reasonably well with the death of Ross (although admittedly doesn’t use it to generate much ‘drama’ of the angsty did-I-do-the-right-thing variety, probably because it’s Twelve, not Ten or Eleven, doing it). It can still generate interesting scenes though, like the one on the beach at the end of ‘Mummy on the Orient Express’.

I’m not sure if I’d describe myself as a consequentialist based on that Wikipedia entry, as I personally believe that the basis for judging the rightness or wrongness of an action is more about the intended consequences of the action, rather than the actual consequences. But perhaps this comes under consequentialism too?

I’m very much not a consequentialist … so we’re definitely not going to agree on that one.

Fair enough. So the really interesting question is: Do you think the Doctor is a consequentialist, when it comes to the sorts of choices we are discussing? Because that would have a strong bearing on the sort of situation I was initially describing.

I can only quote Clara and the Doctor on this:

Clara: We’ve got enough warriors. Any old idiot can be a hero.
The Doctor: Then what do I do?
Clara: What you’ve always done. Be a doctor.

The Doctor is often in the privileged position of being more knowledgable, more clever, more resourceful, more experienced than everyone else in his situation, because he’s from a very advanced race and has much more advanced technology (the Tardis, the sonic screwdriver, the psychic paper). This means that when he finds himself in a problematic situation, he very often has the option to solve that problem in different ways to what others would be in a position to do (compare him to UNIT or Torchwood). Hence he can be a doctor when others have to be heroes. But surely sometimes (and this is sort of my whole point) the universe wouldn’t let him off so lightly.

Bluesqueakpip
The Doctor didn’t cause Ross’s death. Ross accidentally caused his own death, by trying to damage the Dalek and setting off the ‘anti-bodies’. The decision is to not use his death (thus killing others) or use his death (thus saving others).

Likewise, if you want to look at the best outcome in Mummy, see the death of the Captain – who gets his self-respect back in those last 66 seconds.

I appreciate that you’re saying that a fixed point isn’t the only ‘impossible choice’ for the Doctor, and generally he does choose to regard his own past time line as a ‘fixed point’. Except when he doesn’t. See The Day of The Doctor for details.

Basically, never tell the Doctor that he has to follow the rules. Okay? That’s a paraphrase from The Time of the Doctor. 😀

In answer to your question about whether the Doctor is a consequentialist – go watch Flatline, because in fact, it discusses a lot of the things we’ve been talking about. You can also watch The Day of The Doctor, because the ethics of bad vs worse gets acted out there, as well.

Did the Doctor act according to consequentialist ethics/greatest good of greatest number when he destroyed Gallifrey? Yes.

Did he think it was the right/good/ethical thing to do? No. It nearly destroyed him.

But surely sometimes (and this is sort of my whole point) the universe wouldn’t let him off so lightly.

Go watch Flatline. And consider the following points: You cannot answer the question of asking ‘Do the ends justify the means’ without asking ‘Which ends? Which means?’

If you constantly save the universe at the cost of continually deciding between a ‘lesser bad’ and a ‘greater good’ – are you a good man?

Jimbo McMaster
On rewatching Into the Dalek, I agree that the Doctor doesn’t exactly cause Ross’ death. But, as you say, you understand my overall point about fixed points not being the only ‘impossible choices’, and the example of Ross was only really to explain that, so I suppose my mistake there has little bearing either way now.

(I will say this: With the Mummy, I agree it’s nice for the Captain to regain his self-respect, but really it’s the information the Captain’s vision of the Mummy can reveal to the other scientists (eg that the Mummy can teleport) that makes his last 66 seconds an example of the Bad rather than the Worse, as it’s that information that will save lives (the quicker they get more information, the sooner they can stop the Mummy, the less deaths that occur – surely this is more important than him regaining his self-respect). A killing that does not contribute to the scientists’ knowledge is Worse than one that does).

The fact that the Doctor very rarely goes back to change his past should tell us that he doesn’t have the option to do that, and that his occasional being-able-to-change-his-past is exceptional. He would be changing the past all the time otherwise, and he would spend a reasonable amount of his time engineering the universe so the bad things he witnesses never happen. He never makes a regular thing of doing this in the show, so we can assume that, almost always, he can’t do that. You say to never tell the Doctor he has to follow the rules, but clearly he does, almost always, have to follow them.

But regarding your exception to the rule: My understanding of the Day of the Doctor is that he is only able to change his past because, as a result of the Moment’s interference, it is also his present (ie it’s happening ‘right now’ for Ten and Eleven). I’m under the impression (correct me if I’m wrong) that the Doctor can’t choose to meet his past selves, but that it can be arranged by an outside agency (eg the Moment in the Day of the Doctor, the Time Lords in the Three Doctors (I think I’m right in saying), and a temporal engineering-related accident in Time Crash). In those circumstances, he might be able to ‘rewrite’ his past, but he can’t choose to find himself in those circumstances, therefore he can’t simply choose to rewrite his past when he likes. Therefore, he really can find himself facing a genuine ‘impossible choice’ that he can’t use time-travel to get himself out of.

Did the Doctor act according to consequentialist ethics/greatest good of greatest number when he destroyed Gallifrey? Yes.

Did he think it was the right/good/ethical thing to do? No. It nearly destroyed him.

I agree with the answer to your first question. I think your second answer is up for debate.

The Doctor (pre Day of the Doctor, let’s say the Ninth Doctor) is clearly deeply bothered by what he did at the end of the Time War. Being the one responsible for the deaths of your entire species would be massively depressing, especially as it probably included his family (even Susan?). But being depressed about an act you committed is not the same as thinking you did the wrong thing. Depression can often be caused by feeling that the world is against you, even making you do things you don’t want to. The Doctor obviously does not want to destroy the Time Lords, but I get the impression that he felt he didn’t have a choice.

So, consider: did we the audience hate the Doctor from 2005-2013? Did we believe he had committed a terrible, cruel, unforgivable act? I never got the impression any of us did. I definitely did not get the impression Russell T Davies intended for us to do so, despite being the one who effectively made the character do it. So did he/we-the-audience think the Doctor was in the wrong?

More importantly, does the Doctor believe that what he did was wrong? You say he did, but I get the impression he just feels terrible for being the one that did it. Anyone would feel terrible doing what the Doctor did, but that’s not to say that he believes it was not the best option available. At the very least, look at it this way: after the War, there would probably be a tiny part of him that says: ‘Am I absolutely sure that was the best thing to do? Can I ever be 100% certain that the Time Lords and Daleks wouldn’t have just reached a stalemate, and that the High Councils plans (The End of Time) would have failed, and that my inaction would only have led to a few thousand more deaths before both sides agree to conserve resources and stop fighting, saving the children of Gallifrey? What if that was going to happen instead? What if the action I took (destroying them) did not yield the best potential results?’ These thoughts would be pestering him constantly, causing the misery we see in Nine, and sometimes Ten, these thoughts would, as you say, nearly destroy him. But that does not mean that what he did didn’t leave the universe in a better state than it would have been in otherwise – it would, in fact, be a massive risk hoping that this other better chain of events came to pass, considering the way (we gather) the Time War was going – the Doctor seems to believe it would be irresponsible for him to ‘hope for the best’ and not do anything. The Time War, so we gather, was at risk of damaging the universe far more terribly than the Moment did.

So the way I saw it was that the Doctor did what he thought was in and of itself a Bad Thing To Do , but something which he saw was the Best choice to make after he weighed up all the probabilities. He felt terrible as a result of being the one to do this thing, but that does not mean that he thought it was a mistake to do it.

The thing that makes the Day of the Doctor so glorious is not that the Doctor realises that there was always another option he could have taken (because of course he would have considered going back on his own timeline, and using multiple Doctors/Tardises, if it had been an option – you could never convince me otherwise) but that, out of the blue, another option which he never even conceived would or could be available suddenly is available – at last he can save the children of Gallifrey, not because he realises (at last) that it’s the right thing to do, but because, like lighting out of a clear sky, he is now in a position to be able to do it.

(You’re probably thinking ‘what about Clara’s part in all this?’ From my memory of the Day of the Doctor, Clara’s role in that is to shake the Doctor out of the fatalism he starts to suffer as the War Doctor, and which continues throughout his life until the Eleventh Doctor experiences the Day of the Doctor, that there is/was no other way to end the War. The reassessment of the situation Clara prompts then enables the Eleventh Doctor to think again, and realise that, this time, a better option has presented itself (the fact that, with multiple Doctors/Tardises, they are able to save Gallifrey).)

Go watch Flatline

I think Flatline is an example of the universe not letting him (or Clara) ‘off lightly’. He has to choose between saving the innocent people (the humans), or helping the Boneless, who so clearly want to get through but aren’t behaving very nicely about it. He has to choose a Bad option, turning the Boneless back to 2D, in order to save people who maybe don’t even deserve it, because the Boneless have made the option of helping them to become 3D a Worse option by killing people to do it. I think that’s the way I saw it; hopefully that answers your questions about that, but I’m not sure cos I’m very tired.

P.S. Apologies for asking you to read so many acres of text, but I find explaining my ideas with clarity requires many words to do it in!

ScaryB
It’s an interesting discussion! A thorny problem!

I do think that Day of the Doctor showed that choosing the bad option (as opposed to the worse option) isn’t good enough for the Doctor. He has to find a third way that doesn’t involve killing all the children. The option he found isn’t necessarily a great one either – depends where Gallifrey ends up, but it’s presented as definitely better – it’s an option of hope. But I do think that the “impossible choice” situation has been dealt with. And there isn’t a worse possible choice scenario that the Doctor could face.

While it was a good idea when RTD brought the show back, as time went on it became more difficult for the writers to deal with. That kind of guilt – genocide of your own people – can’t just be shrugged off/written out without trivialising it. But after several series it becomes limiting for the writers that this is the defining trait of the lead character.

You’re right Jimbo, that he can’t go back on his own timeline without outside (Timelord) agency. I’m sure that’s been spelt out in various episodes, inc the ones you mention. In Day of the Doctor we were shown the very end of the Time War – Hurt Doctor is exhausted from years of being a warrior. The emergency committee state that all their weapons have been used, except for the Moment (which is presented as the weapon of absolutely last resort). The Daleks have broken through their defences and are rampaging round Gallifrey itself. This is definitely the end game. There’s nothing left, except for the Moment.

It’s maybe worth noting that the TV Movie, with McGann, actually did have the Doctor go back on his own timeline to undo the deaths of 2 characters. And it was a shit move dramatically (in my opinion)! To have him undo death puts him back in the god-like position that Moffat has so carefully unpicked over the last 3 series, so that we once again have a Doctor who isn’t all-knowing, all-powerful. Consequently deaths of characters have a dramatic impact on the Doctor as well as the audience. It’s not so much it’s the rules, as just not possible. (Where on earth would he stop? How would he choose? You can’t stop everyone dying!)

As opposed to “fixed points” which are fixed in order that the most desirable outcome (from the POV of whoever decides it’s fixed) continues to happen. eg there are probably consequences to humans spreading throughout the universe (following Adelaide’s space-bootsteps (in Waters of Mars)) that presumably timelords think are desirable/what happened.

In his defence, in Mummy, there’s nothing he can do until he knows what he’s dealing with – he can’t see it, sense it or feel it. When the Captain indicates where the Mummy is, the Doctor immediately tries to stand in its way. It walks straight through him (loved that effect!!). And although he knows he’s about to die, as @Bluesqueakpip says, the Captain feels better about himself than he has for years, has found himself again in many ways. I found it very moving. (It reminded me a bit of Octavian in Flesh and Stone). If you bring him back to life you devalue that scene and rob it of its emotional power.

JimboMcMaster
I agree that for the Doctor choosing Bad over Worse isn’t good enough, and I think that’s something that’s true for all of us. None of us would ever want to choose Bad – that’s sort of what makes it ‘Bad’ – and I think a lot of us would put off making that decision for so long that, sometimes, the Worse would sadly come to pass. And I think that’s one of the things that bothers the War Doctor so much – he doesn’t want to not-act for too long, in case it gets too late. But I agree he desperately desires a third option – and so he should: if there is a Better option, then it’s undoubtedly one to strive for.

I also agree that the ‘impossible choice’ situation has been dealt with to some extent with the Time War, particularly in the Day of the Doctor. As I said in my initial statement way back when, I feel appeased by this season’s acknowledgement that ‘sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones’.

Hi @Barnable Thanks. Yes I think @Bluesqueakpip and I have different interpretations of some of the more complex aspects of our favourite show! Nevertheless, I am enjoying the discussion.

I think that the Doctor doesn’t ever have the option to change his past, but that sometimes very occasionally he’s put in a situation, by an outside agency, where he can make a change – eg the Day of the Doctor. I think there may be other times where he could change his past by accident, not realising he’s doing it, which can happen because time is in flux. But as you say if he was doing it deliberately it would create a paradox. In other words, he almost always can’t change his past – but I think he definitely always can’t change it deliberately.

On Flatline
ScaryB
Lots to process, not least that so much of our recent discussions in here have bubbled up to the surface.

Clara’s lying is definitely a “thing”. And not a good thing. And it’s different from the Doctor’s thing when he lies!

You were an exceptional Doctor Clara, goodness had nothing to do with it
That line gave me chills! Anyone else think of Rusty’s comment to the Doctor in Into the Dalek – “You would make a very good dalek”? The compliment with a very sharp double edge. (as well as channeling Mae west as @mudlark pointed out)

The Doctor’s role as “hero” (@jimboMcMaster, @Bluesqueakpip ) and whether it’s enough to make a choice for the good of the many at the expense of the few – he is the one who repeatedly points out to Clara that a lot of people have died, with the implication that that result is just not good enough.

Were the Boneless(?) draining power from the TARDIS? Were they accessing it through the Clara/Doctor “phone” link? The first victim we saw, and the policewoman were both on the phone when the attacks started.

(Oh, and yes I liked it a lot! Listen and Mummy are still my faves from this series tho)

Bluesqueakpip
There’s a load of stuff in this episode that we’ve been discussing. The ethics of ‘no good choices’ and ‘yeah, but we saved the world’.

Clara’s lies do indeed make Danny sound like a controlling and potentially abusive boyfriend. Is that an accident? She’s lying, after all. Or are her lies coming up with something that she’s noticed?

Welcome back to my bonkers theory that Clara is the Doctor! How I’ve missed you! 😉 Okay, it turns out that ‘Clara is the Doctor’ in a somewhat more metaphorical sort of way, but still…

I agree that there seems to be a common link of ‘on the phone’.

A lot of people do seem to be missing the significance of the ‘Sonic Screwdriver Moment’, which is pretty clearly the ‘becoming the Doctor’ moment. After nine episodes, this incarnation of the Doctor has finally grown back into his role of ‘The Doctor’. It IS a role, but one that he’s recognising he has to play.

It. Is. Defended! (Tennant Doctor)
Hello, I’m the Doctor. Basically, run. (Smith Doctor)
This plane is protected. I. Am. The Doctor! (Capaldi Doctor)

So Clara passes the baton; from Smith to Capaldi. He takes the Sonic, and he defeats the monsters.

bluesqueakpip
In reply to your 1,399 word essay… 😉

but really it’s the information the Captain’s vision of the Mummy can reveal to the other scientists (eg that the Mummy can teleport) that makes his last 66 seconds an example of the Bad rather than the Worse, as it’s that information that will save lives … A killing that does not contribute to the scientists’ knowledge is Worse than one that does.

Here, I think you’re imposing your moral values on Steven Moffat’s moral values. Obviously, there’s a large dose of ‘whatever they are’, but in this case he writes a fairly consistent view. Being killed is not the Worst thing that can happen to you. You are, after all, going to die anyway – as River says, everybody knows that everybody dies. You can still beat the monster even as it kills you.

In the case of Prof. Moorhouse, the Doctor gives him an opportunity to die as a scientist. In the case of the Captain, he dies as a soldier – and like a good soldier, he knows how important it is to keep relaying vital strategic information up to the moment of his death.

Maisie’s non-death actually gives no information to the scientists; the Doctor wants her to try and feel her trauma so he can transfer it to trap the Mummy. He wants her to be able to use it, not be used by it. And, as I’ve said before, he takes a few seconds out to tell her that she was right; it wasn’t all in her mind.

So information isn’t the common denominator; the common denominator is not letting whatever-it-is defeat you. Even if it kills you…

The fact that the Doctor very rarely goes back to change his past should tell us that he doesn’t have the option to do that,

Okay, this is devastating logic time. Logically, the fact that the Doctor very rarely goes back to change his past should tell us that he DOES have the option to do that. It is, however, normally the Worst option. As @ScaryB pointed out, he did do it all by himself in The Movie That We Do Not Mention. This was probably due to regeneration trauma, a.k.a. a really bad script.

I have done a blog post on this very thing. While someone dying before their time is Bad, it pales in comparison with Churchill on a Mammoth.

If, on the other hand, someone dying before their time is taking place in a general atmosphere of the whole universe ceasing to exist, the Doctor will put on a fez, grab a mop, go back on his own timeline and hand Rory the Sonic. Of course, by that point he knows that he has gone back on his own time line, but he’s still going back to create the Moffat loop.

The Doctor never has to follow the rules. He simply decides when he’s going to. As you say – mostly, he does. But he chooses when to follow them and when to break them.

he is only able to change his past because, as a result of the Moment’s interference

You’re right in that one, very specific case. That’s probably because the events concerned are Time Locked. Note that the Tennant Doctor is shocked that the Hurt Doctor can be there; but while the Davison Doctor was a bit puzzled at meeting a future incarnation (in Time Crash), he wasn’t shocked. Later, the Tennant Doctor comments that they shouldn’t be able to go to Gallifrey at the moment of The Moment. So, given that the Doctor does change past events in many other cases, the Moment was needed for that particular problem.

Can he just decide to go on a visit to his past self? Dunno. I suspect the reason that it’s normally arranged by Time Lords is because of the potential paradoxes; it’s probably considered both dangerous and a bit embarrassing. I mean, would you really want to go back and have a chat with your younger self? Especially if those younger selves are already living in your head…

But being depressed about an act you committed is not the same as thinking you did the wrong thing.

But that’s what the Doctor says. In The Day of The The Doctor:
Tennant Doctor: Because what I did that day was wrong. Just wrong.

So he fairly obviously does think he did the wrong thing.

Did we believe he had committed a terrible, cruel, unforgivable act? I never got the impression any of us did.
::ahem::
Well, in another of my blogs …
That means the hero of the show is someone who’s done something only God could forgive; and he doesn’t even believe in God

I agree that RTD didn’t think so. RTD’s moral view (caveat: whatever they are) seems to come across as utilitarian ‘greatest good of greatest number’. Destroying Gallifrey would be forgiveable if the alternative was destroying the universe. In fact, your view is probably very close to RTD’s view.

Steven Moffat’s view appears to be that the killing of a three year old kid who’s clutching his teddy bear (multiplied by 2.7 billion) is and always will be wrong. Just wrong.

that does not mean that he thought it was a mistake to do it.

Oh, he didn’t think it was a mistake. He just thought it was wrong.

out of the blue, another option which he never even conceived would or could be available suddenly is available

Out of The Moment, actually. She worked really hard to get him to see the alternative.
You’re probably thinking ‘what about Clara’s part in all this?

Actually, I have a fair idea what Clara’s point is in all this, because it’s spelled out in The Day of the Daleks (note similarity in titles, but I won’t go into details in case you haven’t seen it) and helpfully given an annotation in Time of The Doctor.

Tennant Doctor: You’re not actually suggesting that we change our own personal history?
Smith Doctor: We change history all the time.

He has to choose a Bad option, turning the Boneless back to 2D,

No. HE didn’t choose the Bad option. The Boneless chose the bad option. They are the moral actors in this; had they chosen a good option the Doctor would have helped them. They chose to be monsters. They are the ones who made a moral choice – to kill and to keep killing – from that point on, the only good choice available to a moral actor is stopping them killing more people.

The choice, which the Doctor spells out, is that if you choose to become a monster, the Doctor will choose to become the man who stops the monsters.

in order to save people who maybe don’t even deserve it,

I hate to point this out, but last time I looked being a graffiti artist – or even a nasty minded bully – was not something that deserved the death penalty. None of those people deserved to die; it’s just that some who survived were less deserving than those who died.

If the Doctor got to choose who survived, he’d probably have chosen a different set – but maybe it’s a good thing for his remaining sanity that he can’t play God like that. 😉

Jimbo McMaster
On General Time Travel Stuff
When I say the Doctor doesn’t have the option to change his past, I don’t mean he literally can’t do it, but that if he did do it he’d end up creating more problems than he’d solve (paradoxes and suchlike – what I think you refer to as Churchill on a Mammoth) – thus making it not an option ever worth choosing.

It’s like somebody might say ‘you can’t divorce her, you’d lose all your money. That’s not an option.’ That doesn’t mean that the person couldn’t apply for divorce, just that the consequences effectively forbid it. Similarly, it’s not that Rose literally can’t save her dad in Father’s Day – but it’s clearly not a viable option. So perhaps I should have been a bit clearer about what I meant there, but I think essentially we agree on that.

In the quote of mine:
‘The fact that the Doctor very rarely goes back to change his past should tell us that he doesn’t have the option to do that’

‘very rarely’ refers to the fact that outside agencies can effectively make the Doctor change his past (regardless of whether he wants to or not) by making him meet himself. But those very rare occasions are not evidence of him having an option to change his past, as they do not involve him choosing the option ‘Change My Past’ – he is given the ‘opportunity’ to do it (without creating Churchill-on-a-Mammoth scenarios) against his will.

Your interpretation of my sentence rests on the assumption that the Doctor changing his past entails the Doctor choosing to change his past – when actually there are occasions where he doesn’t choose it (eg the very act of meeting himself in, say, the Three Doctors).

What I’m trying to point out in that quote is that if the Doctor had the option to change his past (ie without causing Churchill-on-a-Mammoth) when he wanted, he would change his past a lot more often than just those rare occasions when somebody (eg the Time Lords) makes him do it. For instance, he often tries to save lives, but then fails, much to his disappointment. A memorable example is when Kylie Minogue’s character dies. If he could save her without turning the universe inside-out, then he would.

On The Day of the Doctor and the Doctor’s Morals
Me: that does not mean that he thought it was a mistake to do it.
Bluesqueakpip: Oh, he didn’t think it was a mistake. He just thought it was wrong.

What do you mean by ‘mistake’ here? When I said ‘a mistake’, I meant ‘the wrong choice’, as opposed to, for example, ‘an accident’. So a rewording of my sentence would be: ‘He felt terrible as a result of being the one to do this thing, but that does not mean that he thought he made the wrong choice’.

Tennant Doctor: Because what I did that day was wrong. Just wrong.

So he fairly obviously does think he did the wrong thing.
He says that. But here’s why I’m not convinced by the conclusion you draw from it:

  • Not long after he speaks those words he joins the War Doctor at the button that will destroy the Time Lords, puts his hand on it, as does the Eleventh Doctor, and together they prepare to push. If you saw your past self about to make a choice that you think is the wrong one to make, surely you wouldn’t show your solidarity with your past self by helping them do it, even if you thought you couldn’t do anything to stop them doing it?
  • At this point, the Tenth Doctor says: ‘What we do today is not out of fear or hatred. It is done because there is no other way’. This suggests he doesn’t think it is the wrong choice to make, even if he thinks the act is in and of itself immoral. If you watch that scene, it is clear they are sad about it, but they are still very consciously (and ‘not out of fear and hatred’) choosing to do it – they all think it is the right choice to make.
  • In The End of Time, when the Doctor is telling the Master about the final days of the Time War, and the fact the High Council of the Time Lords were planning to destroy Time and become beings of consciousness, the Doctor says ‘I had to stop them!’ This suggests that the Tenth Doctor doesn’t think it’s the wrong choice to press the Button (to the extent that he didn’t even consider himself to have a choice in the matter).
  • Also in the End of Time, the Doctor actually sends Gallifrey (and all its children!) back into the Time Lock, effectively to await their destruction by the War Doctor. The escape of Gallifrey from the Time Lock would have been a great chance for the Doctor to rewrite his past ‘wrong’ of destroying the Time Lords, as you claim he sees it. He could have enacted a different solution to the problem posed by the High Council, and perhaps another solution to end the universal destruction being caused by the Time War.
  • But no, he once again makes the judgement that it is better for the Time Lords (including the Time Tots), and the Daleks, to die than for the rest of the entire universe to suffer from their war. This act is essentially the Doctor confirming that he thinks he made the right choice by pressing the Button.

So there appears to be an inconsistency in the evidence we have, which is particularly stark in the latter half of the Day of the Doctor. What makes most sense, I think, is to interpret the quote ‘Because what I did that day was wrong. Just wrong,’ as part of a persuasive technique on the Doctor’s part to convince Kate Stewart not to enact her plan. He wasn’t satisfied that there wasn’t a better way to solve the problem (it’s extremely rare that he is).

As it is, I believe that, in the first timeline (where the War Doctor destroys Gallifrey) the Doctor thought that it was the right choice to press the Button. Or rather, he didn’t think he had a choice. As the Tenth Doctor says: ‘there is no other way’. Of course, once Ten and Eleven have joined the War Doctor, the Moment does a wonderfully subtle job of making him second guess himself, causing him to realise the new possibilities that now exist with there being three of him.

This is getting long (apologies), so I won’t deal with the other points you bring up. Although I think you’re probably right in what you say about Flatline.

Bluesqueakpip
thus making it not an option ever worth choosing

Well, it obviously is an option sometimes worth choosing, because he’s chosen to do it. Shall we agree that sometimes he decides it’s not worth it and sometimes he decides that it is?

He can choose to do it without meeting himself. I realise that most people heartily loathe The-Movie-We-Do-Not-Mention, but he changed the past there to save lives. He also changes the past (to save lives) in The Big Bang. And in Waters of Mars. And in minor ways at places like Pompeii … as he says in The Day of The Doctor, he does it all the time.

But not always.

At this point, the Tenth Doctor says: ‘What we do today is not out of fear or hatred. It is done because there is no other way’. This suggests he doesn’t think it is the wrong choice to make

Yes, he does think it’s the wrong choice to make. But the alternative choice is even more wrong. I don’t quite understand why you have a problem with this, since you were the person who wanted the Doctor to have a ‘no right choices’ dilemma. This is it. This is your story about the Doctor facing the impossible dilemma. There were no right choices – he thought. Just a slightly less wrong one.

2.7 billion children versus billions of billions dying over and over again. There is no right choice; just two wrong ones. Whichever one he chooses, he’ll be a murderer.

Until the Moment, and Clara, intervene.

In the real world, Steven Moffat decided (correctly, I think) that it’s far better for us all to understand that a hero is someone who always struggles to find that ‘third way’ – rather than accepting that life will sometimes hand you a choice between two bad options.

Yes, sometimes life does hand you a choice between bad and worse. But a hero is someone who never accepts that, never gives in to that, will continue searching for the third way even if they are continually having to make ‘bad vs worse’ choices with the limited time and materials at their disposal.

What makes most sense, I think, is to interpret the quote ‘Because what I did that day was wrong. Just wrong,’ as part of a persuasive technique on the Doctor’s part to convince Kate Stewart not to enact her plan.

Yeah… that’s a bit of an alternative reading. Well, actually, it’s a lot of an alternative reading – because it ignores the point that the very reason the Moment has sent the War Doctor to this precise problem is so that he can see someone else getting it wrong.

Incidentally, as I recall the End of Time, the Doctor gets his arse handed to him throughout much of the story and ends up crashing through the ceiling armed only with an elderly service revolver – before his Mum sighs deeply and nods in a significant manner towards the link her idiot son has to destroy. I agree that he can’t think of a better option at that point. I can’t either.

However, the fact that I can’t think of a better option than shooting the lunatic who’s about to burn down the orphanage doesn’t make it the right choice. It is still wrong. Just wrong.

Jimbo McMaster
shall we agree that sometimes he decides it’s not worth it and sometimes he decides that it is?

Yes. I think it was just a slightly badly worded paragraph from me (sorry), but I was just trying to put right a misunderstanding between us that arose from my previous post. Yes I agree he does it from time to time.

I don’t quite understand why you have a problem with this, since you were the person who wanted the Doctor to have a ‘no right choices’ dilemma. This is it. This is your story about the Doctor facing the impossible dilemma.

My initial statement (which sparked the discussion with ScaryB that you eventually came in on) was that I was glad that Season 8 was dealing with themes along the ‘no right choices’ lines, and that I felt it was something the show had lacked, to my knowledge, up to that point. Although the Day of the Doctor is one of my very favourite stories, perhaps I didn’t feel my itch for an impossible dilemma had been scratched by it for the same reason it’s such a fantastic episode: that a third, Good, way becomes available to the Doctor. While the moment where the Doctors celebrate the fact that they are finally about to save Gallifrey is one of my favourite moments of Doctor Who, it most assuredly moves the end-of-the-Time-War dilemma outside of impossible dilemma territory.

However, I wouldn’t be surprised, given one of the themes of this season, if perhaps the Doctor is going to have to face another impossible dilemma in the finale. Although, I wonder what the Doctor would choose this time, given that he’s only recently escaped from the terrible weight of having killed the Few to save the Many? I won’t deny that, once it gets too late to continue searching for the third way, it’s possible that he may not be able to bring himself to become that man again. That would be understandable on an emotional level.

Me: What makes most sense, I think, is to interpret the quote ‘Because what I did that day was wrong. Just wrong,’ as part of a persuasive technique on the Doctor’s part to convince Kate Stewart not to enact her plan.

You: Yeah… that’s a bit of an alternative reading. Well, actually, it’s a lot of an alternative reading – because it ignores the point that the very reason the Moment has sent the War Doctor to this precise problem is so that he can see someone else getting it wrong.

But how do you explain the scene where the three Doctors put their hands on the Button, ready to push ‘because there is no other way’? This happens very soon after the Tenth Doctor says doing so was ‘just wrong’. To me, the barn scene says a lot more about what the Doctors (Ten and Eleven) think about their past decision than what Ten says to Kate Stewart.

I don’t think my interpretation of the Doctor’s words is at odds with the Moment’s plans. My understanding of the Moment’s role in the Day of the Doctor is:

1) She enables the Doctor to save Gallifrey.
2) She causes the Doctor to second-guess himself (or a-millionth-guess himself, as he clearly wouldn’t consider using the Moment without a heck of a lot of thinking) so that, by the time she makes the Gallifrey-saving solution available to him at the end of the episode, he stops and realises that it’s there (though you could wonder why she doesn’t just outright tell him).

And, I agree, part of this plan involves showing him the situation Kate Stewart puts herself in with the Zygons, and how Ten and Eleven deal with it. But I don’t think that that is at odds with my interpretation of the Tenth Doctor’s persuasive words as something he doesn’t fully believe. The Moment is showing the War Doctor that even in the future he always strives and strives against the odds for the Third Way, in this case (and most cases) successfully. Ten saying what he says is part of that striving, but that doesn’t mean that he’s definitely being honest. Whether he’s being honest or not, this general moment in time serves the Moment’s purpose. She is trying to give the War Doctor the extra hope that, if he just stops and thinks again, a third way might exist – because she is about to arrange one for him, in breaching the Time Lock.

Besides, if the Moment is suggesting Ten is being truthful when he says ‘What I did was wrong,’ it completely backfires when he effectively joins the War Doctor in destroying Gallifrey ten minutes later, because ‘there is no other way.’

I don’t see the Moment as the Absolute Morality of the Doctor Who Universe, the lens to the Truth that There is Always a Third Way. She is essentially providing the Doctor with a solution to the problem and manipulating him, in more ways than one, so that he stops and sees this solution. She doesn’t want to be responsible for the deaths of the Time Lords any more than he does.

Bluesqueakpip
But how do you explain the scene where the three Doctors put their hands on the Button, ready to push ‘because there is no other way’?

Quite easily, because I don’t have a problem conceiving of a situation where I can decide to do something ‘wrong’ because I can’t think of anything ‘right’. I can, for example, tell someone else that what they’re about to do is ‘wrong’ and what I did was ‘wrong’ even though I still can’t think of any alternative.

The fact that I can’t think of an alternative doesn’t magically transform something into the ‘right’, ‘moral’ thing to do.

The Doctor: And it is done in the name of many lives we are failing to save.

Which quote really doesn’t sound as if The Doctor is exactly saying ‘yay, this is the right decision.’ Sounds more like he thinks he’s failed. They’ve failed. They know, when they press the button, that they should have saved those lives – but they can’t work out how to.

he stops and realises that it’s there

Actually, Clara stops him. If you watch Day of the Daleks you’ll realise that Clara is probably the only person who CAN stop him. Not the Moment, not the later incarnations of the Doctor. I did suggest in a blog post on this that the Moment’s entire intervention is based around Clara being available.

it completely backfires when he effectively joins the War Doctor in destroying Gallifrey ten minutes later, because ‘there is no other way.’

If you believe that there is a situation where the Doctor has a choice between two ‘wrong’ options, why do you think he doesn’t realise that both options are ‘wrong’? There is NO inconsistency in his believing both that a) he has no choice but to destroy Gallifrey, because that’s the least worst option available and b) that option is, morally, utterly wrong.

It’s genocide. It’s murder. And if you want a real life equivalent, it’s the decision that you relive over and over in your head and can never find an alternative to – but which you know hurt people terribly. And yet, if you went back in time – you’d do the same thing again. Because the alternative is worse.

JimboMcMaster
Everything I’ve said so far is based on the idea that there’s a difference between performing an act and making a choice. Hopefully I can show you why:

Killing 2.7 billion children is wrong. Letting 270 trillion children die is wrong. As acts they are both wrong.

But, in the sense that I’m speaking, if you have to choose between one or the other, between two wrong acts, and there is no other choice, then the least wrong choice is by definition the best choice (because it’s better than the only other alternative) and is therefore the right choice. The two choices aren’t equally good choices; one is better than the other. There is no other choice to pick from. But you have to make a choice: action or inaction. You obviously aren’t going to choose the worst choice. So you obviously are going to choose the best choice. This is logical. The act that choice entails is morally wrong in and of itself. But, regardless, it’s still the right choice to make, because the other ‘act’, inaction, is morally even more wrong. Therefore in this case, a morally wrong act = morally right choice.

(I apologise if this seems obvious, but I really want to make this clear because it appears to be at the centre of our differing views. Actually, now I’m not sure if we have differing views or whether it’s simply our wording which is different.)

This is the sense in which I am speaking when I say that the Doctor thinks that destroying the Time Lords and the Daleks is the ‘right choice’. He’s obviously put a lot of thought into it. And he is choosing to press the button. Therefore he thinks it is the right choice. He clearly knows this means committing a morally wrong act. But he still thinks it’s the right choice.

You may be intending different meanings by these terms, but I just wanted to confirm what I mean when I use them.

I appreciate that, when the Doctor faces a choice between Bad and Worse, you think that he should, and normally would, always try to find the third, Good, way. I almost completely agree. My favourite aspect of the Doctor is that he always strives to solve problems with non-violent means, fighting bad with good, instead of more bad.

But there is a reason I initially expressed approval of the idea that the Doctor may find himself in situations where he has to do the Bad to prevent the Worse, and it’s the same reason I think he would consider doing the Bad as, very occasionally, the ‘right’ choice. The reason is that I think that sometimes a Third Way would not be available to the Doctor and I think the (very) occasional acknowledgment of this makes the show a deeper, more well-rounded thing. Because the unavailability of a third way is not just to do with the goodwill of the Doctor – it also is affected by the constraints he faces, particularly of time in which to find that Third Way and act it out.

So when I talk about the Doctor only being able to choose between Bad and Worse at the end of the Time War, it’s not that I think a good person wouldn’t search and search for that third Good way to stop the war, that they wouldn’t seek as much advice, and do as much research, and calculate as many probabilities, and perform as many experiments, as they possibly can to find a Third Way. What I think is that there could come a time when it is too late to do any of those things any more, and, knowing that, the Doctor cannot delay ending the War forever. If he does, there could well come a time when more people have died than he can ever save. By then, it would be too late. He would have failed. He can’t look for a third way forever because, by neither using a Good Way or the Bad Way soon enough, he will have allowed the Worst ‘Way’ to have occurred.

He clearly knows the situation, he clearly knows what can happen, he clearly knows what’s at stake. In that situation he considers himself to have a responsibility to try to save as many lives as he can, even if it’s not a certain choice. That to me is what makes the Doctor a great man. He doesn’t stand to one side when lives are in danger and then, when they are lost, simply hold up his hands and say ‘Well, it wasn’t me.’ I’m sure, to some extent, you would agree with that.

So essentially what I’m saying is that I think we can refer to the Bad choice as the ‘right’ one if literally the only other alternative is the Worse choice. If there is a Third Way available: great. Then that is the right choice. Of course it’s the right choice if it’s available. But at the end of the Time War time is running out and it appears that a Third Way isn’t going to be available for the Doctor (until the Moment’s intervention). So which out of the available choices should the Doctor choose? As I’ve said, the correct answer to that question, by my definition, can be called the ‘right choice’. And I think that’s where, at least to some extent, a lot of this discussion has arisen from: we are simply using different definitions. It’s almost become a matter of semantics, not morality.

he stops and realises that it’s there

Actually, Clara stops him… I did suggest in a blog post on this that the Moment’s entire intervention is based around Clara being available.

My original sentence was:

She causes the Doctor to second-guess himself… so that… he stops and realises that [the solution]’s there.

So actually I think we agree on this. Part of the Moment’s plan involves getting Clara to the Doctor at the moment he’s about to press the button, just as part of it involves showing him Kate Stewart vs the Zygons. Both things (and possibly more) are in aid of causing the Doctor to stop and realise the other solution is there. And I agree that Clara is pivotal in this.

Bluesqueakpip
Sorry for the delay; you raise some rather complex ideas which can’t be tackled with the speed of ‘maybe minaturisation is a key theme!’ 😉

Okay, let’s do some of this formally. You have proposed the following.

  1. I have a choice between two wrong acts.
  2. I must make a choice between those acts.
  3. The best choice will be that act which is least wrong.

So far, so good (sorry!). I think we can both agree on those propositions.

However, you then continue:

  1. The least wrong choice is the right choice.
  2. A right choice is also a morally right choice
  3. Therefore the best (least wrong) choice of any set of options will be the morally right choice.

Now at this point, Socrates would start rubbing his hands together about your second premise, and would ask you ‘But, Jimbo, can we prove that a right choice is always a morally right choice?’ Meanwhile the Athenians will be muttering ‘Well, if the least wrong choice is the morally right choice, does anyone have some hemlock to hand?’

But that’s the crux of the disagreement between us. You believe that, in a choice between two morally wrong options, having to select the least wrong option will transform it into a ‘morally right choice’. I don’t agree. I go with ‘It’s always wrong,’ even if you sometimes have to do it.

I think he would consider doing the Bad as, very occasionally, the ‘right’ choice.

As was pointed out in Flatline, the Doctor frequently has to make these ‘no Third Way’ choices on a small scale. However, he doesn’t consider the Bad choice as a morally good choice. That’s why one of the questions this series is ‘Am I a good man?’. And, indeed, he twice separates Clara’s goodness from her excellent performance as ‘Doctor Clara’.

I think the (very) occasional acknowledgment of this makes the show a deeper, more well-rounded thing.

‘The Doctor’ is not the person who kills children (or Space Whales, for that matter). That seems to be the bottom line according to Steven Moffat. If he does that, he isn’t ‘The Doctor’. And since he did do that, then what then needs to be shown is a long, hard journey back. One of grief, reparation-through-deeds, of trying to forget who he was and what he did – until finally, he can be ‘The Doctor’ again.

What you don’t do is what Clara tried to do in Flatline; argue that because ‘we saved the world’ we can ignore the fact that ‘no good choices’ ended up with people dead. That is not deeper, or well-rounded. It’s simplistic, in fact.

If you kill me, it doesn’t matter that by doing so you saved the world. You didn’t save my world.

JimboMcMaster
3. Therefore the best (least wrong) choice of any set of options will be the morally right choice.

This isn’t quite what I’m saying. I’m not saying the best/least wrong/right choice of any set of options is always a morally right choice. For example, if someone asks you to guess what their job is, out of a set of options, guessing it right is not morally right any more than guessing it wrong is morally wrong.

What I’m saying is that, if all the available choices have some kind of moral value, and not an equal moral value, the best choice = the least wrong = the right choice.

So I’d like to rewrite your two sets of 1-2-3 like this (with additions/changes in bold) (also, remember one of the two possible ‘acts’ will of course be to not take action):
1. I have a choice between two wrong acts, of differing moral value

2. I must make a choice between those acts.
3. The best choice will be that act which is least morally wrong.

Then:

1+2. The least morally wrong act is therefore the morally right choice.

3. Therefore the best choice (the least morally wrong act) out of any set of morally wrong actions (of differing moral value) will be the morally right choice.

So in the sort of ‘impossible choice’, ‘act or do not act’ scenario we are dealing with, I believe that a person should choose whatever act entails the smallest amount of ‘badness’ happening overall – not just the act which entails the smallest amount of ‘badness’ occurring by their hand personally. This is something I believe you agree with. So if someone does what little they can to make the outcome of a situation as positive an outcome as is possible (even if it’s still a negative outcome) I don’t think that this should be considered reprehensible. I think that’s unfair on the person who has found themselves in that situation, having to make that choice.

I will say this though: In the sort of case we’re talking about, where even the Bad choice involves committing an act which is terrible in and of itself, choosing the Worse choice (or at least ‘failing’ to choose the Bad-But-Better choice) is of course not a horrendous thing to do. Killing a person takes a lot of guts, for want of a better phrase, (in fact I think I’m right in saying there are in-built inhibitions in the human brain against this), and pretty much anyone who happened to find themselves in this sort of situation would probably find it hard to come to terms with the fact that they are limited to choosing one of only those two choices. The thought of making either choice would be an emotional one. So, not choosing the Bad choice, even though it means choosing the Worse choice (and wrong choice, in my opinion), would be understandable and forgivable. However, I still believe the Bad choice in these ‘impossible choice’ scenarios is immensely more morally right. And as you say, I believe that out of two morally wrong acts the more morally right (aka least wrong) can be called, by definition, a ‘morally right’ choice.

But that’s the crux of the disagreement between us. You believe that, in a choice between two morally wrong options, having to select the least wrong option will transform it into a ‘morally right choice’. I don’t agree. I go with ‘It’s always wrong,’ even if you sometimes have to do it.

So basically I agree with your summary of the situation. But I’ll just deal with your later points too.

If you kill me, it doesn’t matter that by doing so you saved the world. You didn’t save my world.

I find this a surprising statement. I can only respond by saying: But I did save everyone else’s world, which I could not have done otherwise. That’s pretty good going as far as I’m concerned. I made the universe a better place than it would have been had I made the other choice. And, if I did it in full view of the facts of the situation, I consider that morally good.

What you don’t do is what Clara tried to do in Flatline; argue that because ‘we saved the world’ we can ignore the fact that ‘no good choices’ ended up with people dead. That is not deeper, or well-rounded. It’s simplistic, in fact.

It’s not ignoring that people died. It does take that fact into account, but it is also acknowledging another very important fact: that a greater number of people were saved that would not have been otherwise. Therefore, if someone chooses the Bad, to avoid the Worse, they shouldn’t be treated like a bad guy. They did what little they could to make the world a better place than it would have been otherwise (you and me both agree) and they shouldn’t feel bad for that or be punished for it.

It’s not simplistic to think that making an overall positive difference to the world is a morally good thing. It’s simplistic to judge the morality of an action without taking into account it’s context; why this action was taken, what it’s intended consequences were.

the Doctor frequently has to make these ‘no Third Way’ choices on a small scale. However, he doesn’t consider the Bad choice as a morally good choice.

I think, in this latest season, this is often true for the Doctor. But by the end of the series, he has returned to my way of thinking (and the one I proposed he held in the Day of the Doctor (all three of him), pre-regeneration into the more introspective Twelve). After his revelation about himself at the end of Death in Heaven, the Twelfth Doctor says: ‘I’m an idiot. With a box. And a screwdriver. Just passing through. Helping out.’ In other words, he just takes the opportunity to do what he can to make a positive difference to the universe around him, as Clara was doing in Flatline. And, happily, I think that’s something he’s proud of by the end of this season.

Bluesqueakpip

You’ve strayed into the fallacy of the undistributed middle, here.
1. I have a choice between two wrong acts, called A and B.
2. I must make a choice between those acts.
3. The best choice will be that act which is least morally wrong.

1+2. The least morally wrong act is therefore Z.
3. Therefore the best choice (A or B) out of any set of morally wrong actions (of differing moral value) will be Z.

Where Z is the morally right choice. Um, say what?

Undistributed middle: you’ve just turned the least morally wrong act into the morally right choice without confirming that the least morally wrong act IS always the morally right choice.

The least morally wrong act may be kicking the fat man off the bridge, because he can stop the train that’s about to crash into the crowd of people. Most people would, however, agree that that isn’t the morally right choice. It’s just the least wrong choice. Or possibly, they’d point out, you should sacrifice yourself instead of some blameless fat guy?

I don’t think that this should be considered reprehensible. I think that’s unfair on the person who has found themselves in that situation, having to make that choice.

It should be considered reprehensible by the person who had to do it. Is that unfair?

No. Because there’s a very important reason that guilt and repentance are built into our culture. It’s to try and stop us repeating the act.

Keeping firmly in the world of fiction, if the Doctor was allowed to believe that his murder of 2.7 billion children was not reprehensible, why shouldn’t he accept Missy’s Cyber-army? Okay, that’s 8 billion currently living humans dead – but think of all the people he can save with that army. By not accepting that army, he’s left those other, unknown people to die.

I made the universe a better place than it would have been had I made the other choice. And, if I did it in full view of the facts of the situation, I consider that morally good.

I don’t know how much history you know. But the history of the Twentieth Century is, in many ways, a history of people (many people, in many countries) who thought it was morally good to kill other people to make the world a better place.

Saying ‘it’s fine to kill one person to save the world’ is a bit of a slippery slope. What person? Why are you killing them? Have they done anything to deserve it, or are they the fat guy on the railway bridge?

It’s simplistic to judge the morality of an action without taking into account its context; why this action was taken, what its intended consequences were.

I had you burnt as a heretic, my action was taken because you were in danger of eternal damnation, its intended consequence was to save your soul. Many people were, I believe, saved from damnation because I condemned you to public execution.

Or:
I had you shot as part of reprisals for the murder of one of my soldiers. My action was taken because the murderers were not in uniform and I have no chance of catching them, its intended consequence was to prevent other soldiers being murdered. I have, I believe, saved far more lives than I killed.

I could go on. You can justify any number of deaths once you start playing the numbers game. Just pick the ‘right’ reasons and off you go.

he has returned to my way of thinking

Are you sure? He rejects the army. And he’s horrified at the thought of killing Danny. 😉

JimboMcMaster
Undistributed middle: you’ve just turned the least morally wrong act into the morally right choice without confirming that the least morally wrong act IS always the morally right choice.

If we are in a situation where the only available acts are immoral ones then the least morally wrong act IS always the morally right choice. I should point out that that is the whole point of my argument. That’s it. It’s not that I haven’t confirmed that the least morally wrong act is always the morally right choice in the ‘no Third Way’ scenarios – I’ve actually spent the entire discussion saying that it is. You may not agree. So we’ll have to agree to disagree.

It should be considered reprehensible by the person who had to do it. Is that unfair?

Yes, it is unfair. It is either reprehensible or it isn’t. There is another way (a more cerebral, less emotional, way) to stop someone repeating the act.

The person who committed the Bad act to avoid the Worse (or someone else, eg a therapist/counsellor) should remind themselves of why they did it, and remind themselves that almost always that act is a bad one to commit. They should tell themselves that just because they happened to find themselves in the unlikely scenario where committing that act happened to be the best thing to do, that it will never be the best thing to do in any future scenarios (or at least very rarely). That they are not any more entitled to commit that act now than they were before the incident. There are probably other ‘debriefing’ ‘statements’ like these ones they could use, but my point is that this sort of thing serves the same purpose as the guilt/moral condemnation you advocate (preventing that person getting carried away with themselves, effectively) while not deliberately making that person feel bad in the process.

So yes, it is a slippery slope, but you can avoid that slope through means other than saying that the person is immoral for what they did. You are right that someone coming out of a scenario of the sort we’re discussing could suffer from psychological ‘issues’ as a result (eg a shift in their judgment of when killing is ‘okay’, if ever), but surely someone’s psychological ‘issues’ should never be solved by them trying to make themselves feel bad.

I don’t doubt that the person may feel guilty within themselves about what they did, understandably, but that doesn’t mean that it is fair that they do (it just shows that they are still human!). Guilt is a feeling that is built into our brains to control us in a way that is generally beneficial to society (to stop us repeating immoral acts), but the human brain is not perfect when it comes to this sort of thing. For example, lust is built into our brains to encourage us to procreate, but that doesn’t mean lust is always a good thing, or that it always has good results.

Me: I made the universe a better place than it would have been had I made the other choice. And, if I did it in full view of the facts of the situation, I consider that morally good.

You: I don’t know how much history you know. But the history of the Twentieth Century is, in many ways, a history of people (many people, in many countries) who thought it was morally good to kill other people to make the world a better place.

And in those issues, I might very well disagree with those people about whether or not they were actually making the world a better place. In other words, in those instances I would likely disagree with them about which option counts as the ‘Bad’ and which is the ‘Worse’, or about whether it was a ‘No Third Way’ choice that they were actually facing to begin with (I suspect I would often think they weren’t). But that doesn’t mean that we would disagree about whether, in a ‘No Third Way’ choice, choosing the Bad to prevent the Worse should be considered morally right or morally wrong. Those would be two different debates.

One debate is the one you and I are having. The other debate, which you also bring up with your heretic-burning and murder-reprisals examples, is: ‘here are some examples, which of each of these pairs of choices are the Bad and the Worse choices?’ But that isn’t our debate. Our debate is: ‘If there was only two choices, a Bad and a Worse (in other words, we are assuming that we agree which one is ‘Bad’, which one is ‘Worse’), then what are the moral implications of choosing the Bad?’ These are two different debates, and of course we don’t want to stray into the wrong debate.

So, in my sentences that you quoted:

I made the universe a better place than it would have been had I made the other choice. And, if I did it in full view of the facts of the situation, I consider that morally good.

the thing we are debating is the second sentence: ‘I consider that morally good’ (whereas you don’t consider it so) and not the first sentence: ‘I made the universe a better place…’ (which would be the subject of another debate if we were talking about a specific example eg declarations of war against Germany). Remember that we both agree that we would/should choose the Bad-but-better choice, and that all we disagree on is whether the act which that entails can be considered morally right or morally wrong.

Re: your examples of contexts for killings:

The point of taking the context into account is not to then say ‘great, that’s that context taken into account, now I can declare that this person was justified no matter what’. It is so that we can make a judgment about whether they were justified, or not. Essentially we are asking ‘Do I agree with the killer about which choice was the Bad and which was the Worse? Do I even agree that it was a ‘No Third Way’ choice at all?’ Most importantly we should ask ‘Did the killer do enough to search for a Third Way?’ You seem to believe that the context is essentially irrelevant and that the person who has to choose the Bad choice in a No Third Way scenario has done wrong no matter what. So I think we’ll have to agree to disagree.

Me: he has returned to my way of thinking
You: Are you sure? He rejects the army. And he’s horrified at the thought of killing Danny.

Yes I am sure.

He rejects the army because he’s very good at stopping bad things without causing bad things to happen in the process. He doesn’t need an army to get the same results. This isn’t a ‘no Third Way’ choice – because the third choice is to reject the army and still save lives without killing.

Of course he’s horrified at the thought of killing Danny. Regardless of whether he holds your view or my view on the morality of killing Danny in that situation, he would still be horrified at the thought. Also, this was before his revelation about himself at the end of the episode, so isn’t actually entirely relevant.

Anyway, this will have to be my last post about this discussion, I’m afraid. I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree, otherwise this could go on forever! It’s been enlightening and enjoyable.

Bluesqueakpip
Yes, I agree we have to end it here. The one thing we both agree on is that this could go on forever!

I think the central disagreement is that you think ” the least morally wrong act IS always the morally right choice” and I don’t. I think you’d have to define ‘morally right’ by a standard external to ‘least morally wrong act’. Whereas, I think, you would define morally right as ‘least morally wrong’.

Similarly with context; you think it can change the morality of an act, I don’t. The two are connected – if I believe that ‘morally right is best defined by an external standard, I’m not going to think it can be changed by context. Context may make an act understandable, or even necessary. But, in my view, it can’t make an immoral act moral.

So, finishing here. Thanks for the debate – it’s been fun!


5 comments

  1. Thanks for posting @Bluesqueakpip. That is an epic piece of work!

    @Ichabod has just added this to Flatline discussion, but it’s relevant here, re how much of a perspective you have on the possible consequences influences how you act.

    My final (probably!) thoughts on the discussion mean that I end up agreeing with elements of both @Bluesqueakpip and @JimboMcmaster – yes, it makes for good drama if the Doctor has to make a “bad” choice (as opposed to the worst choice), but it doesn’t make for good Dr Who. The Doctor is always a figure of hope in the show. He’s fallible, he’s not a superhero and he can’t always save everyone. But when he turns up you know things are about to get better. That’s why he’s the Doctor. You can undermine that very occasionally for dramatic effect and that was dealt with  in Day of the Doctor  🙂

  2. As a general point further to this debate, there’s an interesting alternative view posited in the letters section of the latest Doctor Who Magazine (Feb 2015). It’s the ‘Star Letter’, and the author says that in a ‘no good choices’ situation it is impossible for the Doctor to make an immoral decision as he is not making a moral choice at all. They believe that, since it is a choice of either ‘bad’ or ‘bad’, morality does not come in to it.

    I’m not sure @Bluesqueakpip or myself would either of us agree with this position! It’s interesting how many different viewpoints can be had on such a specific kind of hypothetical situation. But I’m sure we’d all agree we don’t really want to find ourselves having to make this kind of choice in real life!

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