House and Consequentialism

A chief problem with the arts is that they have the ability to make anything, even that which is evil, seem beautiful. This is the problem with House, one of Fox' most enduringly popular TV shows, which I suspect is a good deal more philosophically profound than most people realize. (Spoilers ahead).

The titular House, a brilliant diagnostician, depressed curmudgeon and Vicodin addict, is the crisis of modernity given physical form. He is utterly self-absorbed and virtually never exhibits even the slightest regard even for his friends. He heaps scorn and abuse on friends and enemies, fellow doctors and patients, superiors and subordinates alike. He is also, unsurprisingly, an atheist (a poorly considered one, judging by the few times he's spoken on the topic) and a consequentialist, and nearly every episode revolves around some moral crisis produced by his willingness to disregard basic ethical considerations in order to achieve his desired end: solving whatever medical mystery is threatening his patient's life (saving the patient's life, on the other hand, is a secondary goal).

It's hard to see House as an endorsement of consequentialism. It's quite clear, for one thing, that House himself is a miserable bastard who'll die alone and in excruciating physical and mental pain. He destroys the lives of everyone near him: he wrecks an ex-girlfriend's marriage; corrupts a subordinate to the point that he murders a patient under his care (and thus destroys the doctor's marriage, as well); and at one point, after spitefully mistreating a police officer in the clinic, nearly ruins the lives of everyone in his department in the ensuing investigation. Perhaps his crowning recent achievement is the corruption of an ethically upright child prodigy turned medical doctor, who, after a season of her refusal to submit to House's questionable antics, finally induces a fake heart attack in a patient in order to con her parents into agreeing to a surgery the patient didn't want.

Despite the fact that House is a thoroughly unlikeable, hatchet-faced prick in thrall to an ideology responsible for the deaths of millions, it's unfortunately obvious that we're supposed to regard him as heroic, or at least lovable. His subordinates, for the most part, stick up for him, partly out of irrational deference, partly out of terror for his monstrous rages (which occasionally culminate in physical assault). His boss, also a rank consequentialist, routinely covers up for his excesses, including committing perjury to hide his theft of Vicodin from the pharmacy of the hospital she oversees. His best friend, an underfed beta male who's girlfriend he killed, continues to orbit him in some kind of weird, codependent brolationship we're all supposed to think is sweet. I wish I was making this stuff up.

It would take a sophisticated mind to tease out the subtle condemnation of House's toxic gestalt from its otherwise largely sympathetic portrayal of the character. Unfortunately, sophisticated minds are not what the West is presently in the business of producing, and most of the show's viewers are apt to walk away admiring the brilliant and tortured Romantic antihero who bravely defies those crusty, tired medical ethicists who've never saved anyone's life before. It doesn't help that some episodes are so ham-handedly bad that the agenda behind them is practically lit up with flashing neon bulbs, such as the episode in which a patient raped into pregnancy expresses hesitation about getting an abortion; House ridicules her religion (which she articulates terribly, sounding like an ill-read Protestant teenager) and, making use of appallingly bad reasoning to which the woman readily consents by acknowledging its supposed rationality, bullies her into getting the abortion, anyway.

I'm almost inclined to wonder if there's a Machiavellian element to the show, with the producers producing an apparently pro-consequentialist message for the ignorant masses beneath which simmers an esoterically anti-consequentialist message for those with the intellectual heft to recognize it. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it. But I think it's worthwhile that House is widely seen as one of the best shows on television, and is pretty much the only one out there right now about which a post like this could be written.

Comments

[Bill]

This is a great post, and House is an important TV show (though one shudders to write that phrase).

I'm inclined to doubt your diagnosis of House as a consequentialist, though. He seems consequentialist because he is willing to do unethical things in order to convince patients to let him diagnose and cure them. It seems he is willing to do wrong that good may come of it. But I think the show is pretty clear that House does not actually care about the patients he is treating (or does not care much). He does not want to diagnose and cure his patients because that will result in a better life for them, rather, he wants to diagnose and cure his patients because he wants to feel Godlike mastery over life and death (witness, as you say, that he is happy to condemn innocent babies to death), or, as the other characters put it, he likes to "solve puzzles." Solving puzzles sounds different than playing God, but he has not chosen to solve crossword puzzles, rather he has chosen to solve puzzles which grant him the power of life and death upon solution. When he articulates consequentialism explicitly, it is usually (always?) in the course of manipulating his staff to go along with him.

There are many other interesting themes in the show. House is the ubermench at which liberalism is aiming: the self-created, self-defining, self-actualizing, perfectly autonomous superman. For him, "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" really applies.

But see how this theme plays out. First, as you say, it does not make him happy. Second, look at how the entirety of the rest of the society of the show has to fold, spindle, and mutiliate itself to accommodate one ubermench. He positively spreads misery around himself. Third, observe how the House character casually accepts that everyone around him is bound by ties of duty, honor, obligation, and decency. Notice the insane rage which overcomes him when anyone else acts even a bit, even transiently, like he routinely does. These seem to me to be deep commentaries on the desirability and feasibility of the Modernist/liberal project.

House is also a reification of scientific materialism. He has power which derives from his mastery over knowledge about the physical world and from his personal rejection of society's "arbitrary rules." He unstintingly uses this power in the pursuit of his own ends. This is the principle project of rationalistic, secular, materialist science. And how does it work out for him and for those around him? Not so hot. He gets what he is aiming at: the transitory satisfaction of his fleshy urges, the satisfaction of his urges for control and for freedom, and the solution of his chosen puzzles. But he lives a life largely devoid of even natural happiness and certainly devoid of supernatural happiness.

And this is just concerning the House character. The Cuddy character is similarly depressing. She could have been written by Roissy.

Presumably it is by accident that House is a traditionalist show, but a traditionalist show it is.

[Proph]

Fascinating thoughts, Bill! Thanks for sharing. Makes me wonder if House's enduring popularity is just a function of its appeal to those who intuit that modernity is Hell. If so, perhaps there's hope for the world yet.

[Cowardly anonymous poster]

I think the first poster is onto something. I never saw House as a "Pro-House" show, if anything, it is a sustained critique of everything about House. The show admires his brilliance sure, who can't respect House's impressive intellect, and who can't acknowledge the technological superiority of the Modern World?

All of this being said, House's behavior isn't lauded in the least. If the show were "Pro-House" than House wouldn't be an obvious sad, miserable, and sick human being. He would be happy, altruistic, emotionally stable, not drug addicted etc. If the show liked House, he wouldn't be an accessory to the death of his friend's lover. If the show liked House, he wouldn't be committing ethics violations left and right to keep up a drug habit.

Occasionally the show seems to give House some credit. He's a smart guy who can run circles around righteous people with less rhetorical acumen, and because of the way the show is structured, he can't be wrong in such a way as to get himself fired. However, the overall appearance of House is that of a broken man, and the show continues to focus on whether House can "fix" himself, or allow himself to be fixed by the flawed, but ultimately good-hearted people around him.

While I imagine you have already seen it, I recommend the Season 4 finale as a good example of how the show ultimately hates House but wants him to recover.