A Philosophical Journey in Progress
Phil 111: Philosophy in Literature
 The Trask family (fictional):
 Cyrus and Alice:
 Adam and Charles + Cathy
 Cal and Aron
 The Hamilton family (non-fictional)
 Samuel and Liza
 Their children (among others: Will, Tom, Debbie,
Una, Olive)
 Olive and Ernest’s son: John Steinbeck
The C-A configuration:
Characters whose names begin with C (morally questionable/evil):
Cain from Genesis
Cyrus, Adam and Charles’s father
Charles, Adam’s brother
Cathy, Adam’s wife
Caleb (Cal), Adams’ and Cathy’s son
Characters whose names begin with A (morally decent/good):
Abel from Genesis
Alice, Charles’s mother
Adam, Cyrus’s son
Aron, Adam’s and Cathy’s son, and Cal’s brother
Abra, Aron’s girlfriend
THE SACRIFICE:
vegetable/non-animal vs animal
 Grain vs. lamb (Genesis)
 The knife vs. the puppy
 Farmer vs. raising animals
 Beans (and profit from beans) vs. “a good life”
FREE WILL VS. DETERMINISM
 Nature vs. Nurture (both deterministic theories)
(Adam worries it is “nature,” while Samuel thinks it is
“nurture”)
 Nature vs. Timshel
(Lee suggests that free will can override any determining
factors)
 The power of choice: Timshel, “thou mayest”
The good twin-evil twin trope
 Cain and Abel (brothers)
 Charles and Adam (brothers)
 Cal and Aron (twins)
For a parent to show preference for one child over
another
 God prefers Abel’s sacrifice over Cain’s
 Cyrus prefers Adam’s gift over Charles’
 Adam prefer Aron’s gift over Cal’s
The result:
The C character kills the A character out of jealousy
= death to the bloodline of the A characters
 The value of the individual Ch.13
 “There is no other story” Ch.34
 “The nature of evil” Ch.34
 Adam: deontology (doing his duty, or what he perceives to
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be his duty)
Samuel: utilitarian (spreading happiness)
Liza: deontologist (does her duty even if it is unpleasant)
Lee: virtue ethics (an unwaveringly virtuous character) +
existentialism (focuses on freedom of the will)
Cathy: psychological egoist (thinks everybody is selfish) +
ethical egoist (thinks is only makes sense to be selfish)
Charles: the same as Cathy
Will Hamilton: utilitarian (seeking profit for all)
Abra: virtue ethics, the female way (female traditional
virtues)
All patterns are broken:
 The C-A pattern
 The determinism assumption
 The good/evil assumption