Is Eli a Person?

[lombano]

A soldier may indeed murder, rape, pillage and may avoid punishment for doing that (though see below). However, he is almost never compelled to to this under the punishment of death. He almost never faces Eli's dilemma. Even the Nazis did not, as a rule, execute their own soldiers or officers who refused to commit atrocities. (I can give examples of this related to me personally). Eli does not rape and it is not clear if she does not pillage but she will die if she does not kill someone.

I would go further and say that a soldier of his own accord committing attrocities with impunity is basically the opposite of Eli's situation. Eli is already outside society and thus could commit attrocities with impunity, but limits herself to the minimal to ensure her survival.
I can think of a better analogy for Eli's situation, that I've hesitated to mention before. There was a story in the Mexican press not too long ago about a particular gunman for one of the country's drug cartels. Now, they have recruited substantially among teenagers, but this particular gunman was unusally young, a twelve-year-old. By his own admission, he had carried out a number of executions. He claimed that, had he refused, he would have been executed himself. Now, I have no way of judging whether he was telling the truth in this last part (it is certainly possible, but also he has every incentive to lie), but if he was telling the truth, then you have a situation much more like Eli's, save that his victims were probably less innocent than Eli's.

[DMt.]

I might be very tempted to write him in.

[lombano]

I might be very tempted to write him in.

?

[sauvin]

A soldier may indeed murder, rape, pillage and may avoid punishment for doing that (though see below). However, he is almost never compelled to to this under the punishment of death. He almost never faces Eli's dilemma. Even the Nazis did not, as a rule, execute their own soldiers or officers who refused to commit atrocities. (I can give examples of this related to me personally). Eli does not rape and it is not clear if she does not pillage but she will die if she does not kill someone.

I would go further and say that a soldier of his won accord committing attrocities with impunity is basically the opposite of Eli's situation. Eli is already outside society and thus could commit attrocities with impunity, but limits herself to the minimal to ensure her survival.
I can think of a better analogy for Eli's situation, that I've hesitated to mention before. There was a story in the Mexican press not too long ago about a particular gunman for one of the country's drug cartels. Now, they have recruited substantially among teenagers, but this particular gunman was unusally young, a twelve-year-old. By his own admission, he had carried out a number of executions. He claimed that, had he refused, he would have been executed himself. Now, I have no way of judging whether he was telling the truth in this last part (it is certainly possible, but also he has every incentive to lie), but if he was telling the truth, then you have a situation much more like Eli's, save that his victims were probably less innocent than Eli's.

I'll interpret this twelve year old executioner as a conscripted soldier, assuming he's not misrepresenting his situation. A drug cartel is a kind of government, too, even if we refuse to recognise it as such.

I have an alternative proposal to make, one that will probably not be well received since a substantial chunk of the forum's membership does not "buy into" horror.

It's no secret that there's been an ongoing war between Good and Evil probably since long before written language. Psychologists, philologists and heads of religious state will express and describe this war in different terms, according to their respective fields of endeavour, but it's the same war. It, too, pits one mass of soldiers against another, but these soldiers don't distinguish themselves one from another by wearing green clothes or grey. More often, it'll pit aprons against fur and blueberry muffins against fangs.

I've said somewhere else in this forum maybe a couple years ago that it sometimes seems to me that $deity is an ancient avatar created - maybe partially by design, and maybe partially by common tacit assent - to externalise authority. Briefly, if the highest authority in the land can himself be said merely to be the servant and messenger for an unseen and unheard Almighty, believers can lay their grievances at the feet of some cast or graven image rather than at the doorsteps of a mere man. This would serve to simplify things for quite a few people (Americans sometimes react to particularly bossy people by retorting "Who died and made YOU God!?").

Before the face of modern science was nipped, tucked and Botoxed into its present form, I believe natural philosophy tended to go quite a bit more afield than is presently allowed by the "scientific method". It could be conjectured that ancient forms of inquiry into the nature of morality, monstrosity and so on were similarly symbolised by angels and demons.

Within the realm of true horror (and not the popcorn hour slasher flick), the ongoing war between Good and Evil continues to rage unfettered, and I view it as a durable extension of the aspects of natural philosophy that attempts to investigate human nature, dualism, morality, mental and physical illness and the fabric of society itself.

Since we're talking about a vampire - that is, a creature that usually looks, walks and talks like a human but has decidedly antihuman (antisocial) dietary requirements - we're necessarily generally discussing an important element in horror fiction. What contortion of evolutionary pressures is going to produce a true Eliform (or archetypal) vampire within the realm of reality I'm preparing to face as I head out the door to earn another day's pay?

She is an engineered and designed creature, both because JAL crafted her in our reality and because she's so keenly adept at serving superficially against human interests in the realm of horror. The anti-horror soldiers in fiction don't always wear green clothes and sport grenades and rifles; they'll more often wear aprons and chuck freshly baked blueberry muffins at random innocent people. Eli and other antihuman creatures don't always wear grey clothes and sport grenades and rifles, but they'll use their fangs and claws to bring fear, grief and despair to whatever community they've invaded.

By these badly presented lights, then (I am a bit pressed for time), an argument could be made that Eli's moral perspectives are indeed very much in question, but not because she murders people. Her allegiance to the forces of Evil (tm) is called into question because she dares to give aid and comfort to a potential enemy soldier.

By some strict definitions, there are no noncombattants in this war: "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem". Under such premises, we could claim that Eli bears no personal moral responsibility for her "crimes", since anything she does that brings pain to people is in service to the interests (the agents of evil) that conscripted her into service.

As for the notion of "free will", well... Lombano does bring up the ugly spectre of "dereliction of duty", where "duty" might be clearly spelled out and "defined" in some book on the shelf in the homeside offices of a government thousands of miles from the front line, but can be very hard to remember and even harder to interpret "properly" in the heat of pitched battle or under the psychological weight of siege.

Does likening Eli to a soldier smack of iconoclasm?

[DMt.]

I might be very tempted to write him in.

?

I mean by this that an encounter by your E&O with such a person might be an interesting and fruitful one, in a philosophical sense. In some way I fear that it is a rather predatory thing, to use this child's hideous experiences in a work of fiction; that's why I used

Sauvin, you're making my head explode; I hope I can respond more appropriately at some point soon.

[lombano]

I'll interpret this twelve year old executioner as a conscripted soldier, assuming he's not misrepresenting his situation. A drug cartel is a kind of government, too, even if we refuse to recognise it as such.

Yes, but the point is not that being a soldier in wartime precludes all possibility of being in a situation analogous to Eli's, but that only in very particular circumstances is the soldier's situation analogous. This gunman's situation, if he's telling the truth, is more similar.

I mean by this that an encounter by your E&O with such a person might be an interesting and fruitful one, in a philosophical sense. In some way I fear that it is a rather predatory thing, to use this child's hideous experiences in a work of fiction; that's why I used

The logistics are problematic, as my story is set in the mid-90's, when this sort of things was far less likely.

[Lacenaire]

A soldier may indeed murder, rape, pillage and may avoid punishment for doing that (though see below). However, he is almost never compelled to to this under the punishment of death. He almost never faces Eli's dilemma. Even the Nazis did not, as a rule, execute their own soldiers or officers who refused to commit atrocities. (I can give examples of this related to me personally). Eli does not rape and it is not clear if she does not pillage but she will die if she does not kill someone.

I would go further and say that a soldier of his won accord committing attrocities with impunity is basically the opposite of Eli's situation. Eli is already outside society and thus could commit attrocities with impunity, but limits herself to the minimal to ensure her survival.
I can think of a better analogy for Eli's situation, that I've hesitated to mention before. There was a story in the Mexican press not too long ago about a particular gunman for one of the country's drug cartels. Now, they have recruited substantially among teenagers, but this particular gunman was unusally young, a twelve-year-old. By his own admission, he had carried out a number of executions. He claimed that, had he refused, he would have been executed himself. Now, I have no way of judging whether he was telling the truth in this last part (it is certainly possible, but also he has every incentive to lie), but if he was telling the truth, then you have a situation much more like Eli's, save that his victims were probably less innocent than Eli's.

Even if what this boy says is perfectly true his situation is neither analogous to any soldier's and not even to Eli's. The comparison with a "soldier" (of course not made by Lombano) is absurd - even if analogous examples could be found in history (they might be) they would constitute a very slight proportion of all cases. It would be idiotic of any authority to treat its soldiers the way one treats slaves or gladiators, unless of course they were slaves. Slaves do not make good soldiers normally (unless they are very special kind of slaves like Mamlukes in Egypt who, although nominally slaves actually wielded unlimited power).
Even the Nazis, as I have repeated several times already, did not compel their soldiers to murder civilians, even Jews. The German guards in the death camps were all volunteers.

When in 1942 the Germans entered the Jewish town in Ukraine where my father was born the German officer in charge ordered the Jews to be treated humanly. For several days he did not allow the SS to enter the village, thus making it possible for some of the inhabitants to escape. After several days he was dismissed from his command and sent to the front. He was not even demoted. The idea that soldiers had to "obey orders" and involved what was regarded as murder even by German (even Nazi) laws or they would have been executed sometimes appears as a convenient excuse but is actually (in most cases) a lie.

I have to say, that I find this comparison of Eli or this boy assassin with a conscript soldier rather revolting (and in fact unfair to both).

The boy's situation is not really analogous to Eli's either. Even if his story was true, he was told to kill concrete people, Eli has to kill anyone. This makes a significant difference, and in a sense his burden was much lesser than that of Eli who actually has to decide herself who is to live and who is to die.

ALthough I have written this many time already, I will repeat it again. I do not think Eli can be judged morally at all. However you look at it she is "sui generis"; there is nothing in our experience that fits her situation. In fact, in the case of Eli of the film, we do not really know any clear reason why she must kill, or what would really happen if she did not, or whether she can kill herself or whatever.
We know of course that she is a vampire and those of us who know a lot about vampires (or have read the novel) can assume can assume deduce things but none of that is obligatory for a viewer.
Eli does say that she kills because she must, but we don't actually know any reason why that is so. This is one of many reasons why it is possible for me to think of her as a purely allegorical character and allegorical characters in general are not subject to moral judgement.

In the book we know a lot more about Eli but she still is a "sui generis" case, which does not correspond to any experience we have. In my opinion the character is actually incoherent - she is a child and not a child, she has no knowledge but has memory (I wonder how people square this fact that she supposedly "learn nothing" with the idea that she is like a veteran of a brutal war?) and so on. Judgement of any kind needs a combination of general principles and actual experience - in this case there are no principles that can be applied (because of the internal incoherence of the character) and certainly no experience or analogy can be brought to bear because nothing like that has ever existed.

[lombano]

The boy's situation is not really analogous to Eli's either. Even if his story was true, he was told to kill concrete people, Eli has to kill anyone. This makes a significant difference, and in a sense his burden was much lesser than that of Eli who actually has to decide herself who is to live and who is to die.

Yes, very likely he was told to kill very specific people, and no doubt this makes the psychological burden less than if one had to choose. I'm less convinced the moral burden is that different - or, more accurately, it would depend on who specifically he had to kill (though admittedly it would be unlikely to be a case as extreme as the killing of Jocke). Cartels, after all, have targeted some with plenty of blood on their own hands, but also people who are morally innocent (for not paying extorsions, for example) and even, entirely deliberately, random innocent unarmed civilians (in Morelia, a cartel threw grenades at a crowd of ordinary people at Independence Day celebrations).

[lombano]

"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem".

On a lighter note, I have reason to believe that if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

[a_contemplative_life]

Just to cause trouble, I thought I would post the Catholic Encyclopedia's definition of a "person." Interesting...I had no idea that Boethius had anything to say on the subject...

The classic definition is that given by Boethius in "De persona et duabus naturis", c. ii: Naturæ rationalis individua substantia (an individual substance of a rational nature).

Substantia -- "Substance" is used to exclude accidents: "We see that accidents cannot constitute person" (Boethius, op. cit.). Substantia is used in two senses: of the concrete substance as existing in the individual, called substantia prima, corresponding to Aristotle's ousia prote; and of abstractions, substance as existing in genus and species, called substantia secunda, Aristotle's ousia deutera. It is disputed which of the two the word taken by itself here signifies. It seems probable that of itself it prescinds from substantia prima and substantia secunda, and is restricted to the former signification only by the word individua.

Individua — Individua, i.e., indivisum in se, is that which, unlike the higher branches in the tree of Porphyry, genus and species, cannot be further subdivided. Boethius in giving his definition does not seem to attach any further signification to the word. It is merely synonymous with singularis.

Rationalis naturae -- Person is predicated only of intellectual beings. The generic word which includes all individual existing substances is suppositum. Thus person is a subdivision of suppositum which is applied equally to rational and irrational, living and non-living individuals. A person is therefore sometimes defined as suppositum naturae rationalis.

The definition of Boethius as it stands can hardly be considered a satisfactory one. The words taken literally can be applied to the rational soul of man, and also the human nature of Christ. That St. Thomas accepts it is presumably due to the fact that he found it in possession, and recognized as the traditional definition. He explains it in terms that practically constitute a new definition. Individua substantia signifies, he says, substantia, completa, per se subsistens, separata ab aliia, i.e., a substance, complete, subsisting per se, existing apart from others (III, Q. xvi, a. 12, ad 2um).

If to this be added rationalis naturae, we have a definition comprising the five notes that go to make up a person: (a) substantia-- this excludes accident; (b) completa-- it must form a complete nature; that which is a part, either actually or "aptitudinally" does not satisfy the definition; (c) per se subsistens--the person exists in himself and for himself; he is sui juris, the ultimate possessor of his nature and all its acts, the ultimate subject of predication of all his attributes; that which exists in another is not a person; (d) separata ab aliis--this excludes the universal, substantia secunda, which has no existence apart from the individual; (e) rationalis naturae--excludes all non-intellectual supposita.

To a person therefore belongs a threefold incommunicability, expressed in notes (b), (c), and (d).

Query: does Eli fail "(c)"? Stated differently, is he truly "the ultimate possessor of his nature and all its acts," or "the ultimate subject of predication of all his attributes"?