Final Fantasy and Philosophy: The Ultimate Walkthrough by William Irwin, Michel S. Beaulieu Read Free Book Online Page B

out these feelings is to pay attention to whether we have some reason to explain a feeling—a reason that is founded in the work. If we don’t have a reason founded in the work (or at least more than tangentially related to it), then the feeling may have simply arisen from some bias that we have. As Hume made clear, a focus on reasons helps us to stay vigilant against our errant emotions.
    Our assessments should be focused on what makes the art good or bad and should not involve incidental, ancillary, or accidental elements. These elements need to be ruled out and accounted for in our final judgment. This is not to say, however, that we should approach art with a cold and calculating detachment. Doing so would be a failure to truly appreciate the art, because we would be preventing ourselves from feeling the emotions that the artist was expressing or that we get as a result of experiencing the art. That is, we should not be playing video games like Final Fantasy as merely the progression of some pixels on a screen; we should experience the game, and this includes relating to the characters and empathizing with their situation.
    Hume made two other important points about human dispositions. The first is about the relationship between art and morality. According to Hume, if a work does not appropriately deal with an immoral act, then it is permissible for a judge to dismiss it out of hand. Consider, for instance, if Cecil, the hero of Final Fantasy IV , ended the world instead of saving it or committed gratuitously evil acts along the way. Events like these in a story would be enough to dismiss the game completely and nullify its artistic value. Although we wouldn’t endorse Cecil’s actions, it would be rash to immediately dismiss Final Fantasy IV solely on that basis. The rest of the game is otherwise excellent and deserves a fair assessment, despite the moral failings of our imaginary Cecil. Thus, Hume may have been a bit too quick on this point.
    The second point about human dispositions that Hume addressed concerns religion. We should not judge a work based on its religious point of view. This follows Hume’s discussion of the importance of adopting the perspective of the audience for which the artwork is intended. For instance, if Chris the Christian plays any Final Fantasy game and objects to it because its characters are not Christian and the game contains a world where multiple gods exist, then Chris has violated one of the rules of a good judge. He is not adopting an unbiased perspective from which to judge the game. There is a caveat, however. If the use of religion in the work promotes something immoral, then we can dismiss the work summarily.
    Is Hume’s Airship Flying in Circles?
    Unfortunately, there are two problems with Hume’s theory that we can’t so easily forgive. Both deal with the confusion about how works that have stood the test of time, such as masterpieces, are related to good judges. The first problem is a worry about which of these is the real standard: masterpieces or good judges? The second problem is one of circularity: if good judges train with masterpieces to become good judges, and what counts as a masterpiece is determined by good judges, then there’s a vicious circularity in Hume’s theory. His airship isn’t taking us anywhere. The relationship between good judges and masterpieces is unclear, but it’s not fatal to Hume’s theory.
    To answer the first problem, it seems fairly clear that Hume meant for good judges to be the standard of taste, even while he assigned an important role to masterpieces. Hume focused on good judges and said that the joint verdict of critics is the standard of taste. 6 Also, masterpieces, by themselves, can’t inform us on how to evaluate art, because simply comparing a work to a masterpiece would only give us the ability to see how alike the two pieces are. But we don’t want new works to just be like masterpieces. New artworks should be original