Anna's moral dilemma in Frozen

What would you do with the trolley problem? If you can't decide, then what would you do if you were Anna in the Disney movie Frozen? If you were told you are going to be saved by a kiss, are you going to give up the kiss to block a blade coming down on another human being, Elsa? In this case, you are choosing to save yourself and saving another human being. If Anna and Elsa were “mushrooms” suddenly mature in a world without prior human connections, in a Hobbesian “sate of nature”, then Anna would definitely save herself. There is, however, never a time in our lives where we are disconnected to other human beings like mushrooms. Then what is the use of the "state of nature" dreams but to misguide us to think that justice in substitutionalist universalism is the only mature moral option?

In “The Generalized and the Concrete Other: The Kohlberg-Gilligan Controversy and Moral Theory”, Seyla Benhabib articulates what she calls an “anticipatory-utopian critique of the universalistic moral theories”. The problem that resides in the old white men’s moral political theory is that they took the experience of that particular group of old white men to be the experience of everybody else (which is the meaning of “substitutionalist” they can substitute anybody with the persons in their thought experiments). How is it that you can imagine what it is like to be a woman, or more specifically the women sitting next to you this morning on the bus, if you have been a man all your life? This leads to Benhabib’s first criticism: disembodiment and disembededness are not accurate descriptions of the conditions of social actors.

Feminist critiques assume that the gender-sex is an axis of oppression against women. Even our language is implicitly patriarchal. Whatever that is feminine are symbolically passive and bad; whatever that is masculine are always active and good. I believe this is an accurate assumption of our society. Feminists like Benhabib criticize that the old white men’s substitutionalist universalism for marginalizing the experience of people associated with femininity: A Kantian universalisable rule is masculine, a consideration to the uniqueness of each person is therefore feminine. Masculinity is maturity and femininity is immaturity. Therefore justice is the only measurement of moral maturity. It is obvious there’s problem with this criteria for maturity. It assumes that women, who are forced to have the biology that signifies femininity, to be feminine and thereby immature morally. Psychological studies that show more women than men adopting the care model of moral theory therefore confirms the claim that men are more mature morally than women. It makes the mistake of putting care and justice on two ends of a maturity ladder. Care and justice should be considered equally as moral options that both lead to moral maturity.

Let’s think about Anna again. Would we say Anna’s action is moral? Most audience would agree. Even the little kids. This is because who Anna is saving is not just another mushroom, but her sister friend that she loves deeply. Maybe moral dilemmas are really a convention of the patriarchal culture. What do you think? Dr.J said it’s better to think about moral dilemmas before they happen. The thing is, they are never going to happen! They help us figure out what we value sometimes but purely thinking that there are universal moral laws that govern everyone is not helpful. It only reinforces the idea that there is only one kind of right and there’s only one kind of people with similar experiences.

Benhabib, Seyla. "The Generalized and the Concrete Other: The Kohlberg-Gillgan Controversy and Moral Theory." The Feminist Philosophy Reader. By Alison Bailey. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2008. N. pag. Print.