How I Met Your Mother and Philosophy (20 page)

A likely to-do list for Hume's evolutionary approach to norms is the same as for any other evolutionary theory: to explain the emergence of norms (how they appear), their relative stability over time (why they don't change daily) and their variability over longer periods (why our current morality is not exactly the same as, say, the one in the Broman Empire).

We'll skip the details about how Hume and his followers today take up this challenge. The key notion, however, has to be mentioned. It's reciprocity. Here is how norms come about, in Hume's own words describing the mechanism for a specific case, the rules of property:

I observe, that it will be for my interest to leave another in the possession of his goods,
provided
he will act in the same manner with regard to me. He is sensible of a like interest in the regulation of his conduct. When this common sense of interest is mutually expressed, and is known to both, it produces a suitable resolution and behaviour. And this may properly enough be called a convention or agreement betwixt us, though without the interposition of a promise. (
Treatise
, 3.2.2.10)

But, again, the results are not random. The process selects norms based on something similar to what contemporary biologists would call “evolutionary fitness” (their capacity to reproduce, forming patterns of behavior). Norms do compete, warns Hume. The winners are the ones that best match human nature (a combination of self-love and limited generosity) with the circumstances of the external world (most importantly, scarcity of resources).

To wrap-up: in Hume's approach, moral norms are just context-dependent problem-solving devices for human interactions, that evolve over time. Now it's time to see how Barney applies and enriches this morsel of wisdom.

An Enquiry concerning the Bro Code

Philosophers tend to imagine a whole lot of wacky things. For example, Thomas Nagel invites us to imagine, if we can, what
it's like to be a bat. Not that a personal in-built radar wouldn't come in handy at times, but let's face it, being a bat is not anybody's dream.

Let's start this time from a more pleasant scenario: you're in a bar, having some beers with your bro, when, suddenly, a hot chick appears. Moreover, at a first glance, judging through the lenses of the Hot/Crazy scale, she appears to be, unlike Vicky Mendoza, hot enough to be only a little bit crazy. If you were Barney Stinson, for example, your first thought would be how to come up with a scheme, maybe from your
Playbook
, which would allow you to. . . . Unfortunately, your bro stops you short and tells you: “She's my sister, bro!”. Well, so what, you might reply? Is there some rule against having a legendary night with her?

If you're really a bro, you know there is! And if you didn't, maybe we should stage a trademark
How I Met Your Mother
intervention for you. It's in the
Bro Code
! References to this great human achievement are scattered throughout the show, but where could we find a full version? Fortunately, Barney and his bro Matt Kuhn published it with a preamble that gives very useful insights into the nature and function of the Code. Writes Barney: “Whether we know it or not, each of us lives a life governed by an internalized code of conduct. Some call it morality. Others call it religion. I call it the Bro Code.”
²
And it wasn't passed on to humanity in stone tablets by the Supreme Bro, or even discovered by other philosophical devices such as Reason. It's actually the result of repeated interactions between bros all throughout history.

Why did Cain kill Abel and commit the first broicide or why did the Trojan War over Helen take place between a bro from Sparta and a bro from Troy? Simply because the Bro Code, as a piece of Humean morality, didn't exist in the beginning of time. It was invented to solve these kinds of problems in interactions between bros. And it survives and develops because it fully respects Hume's criterion: it best matches bros' human nature (we all know what's there!) with the circumstances of the external world, namely the scarcity of good things (be it beer, hot ladies, or Superbowl games).

Historically, as shown in the episode “The Goat,” it was Barnabus Stinson, one of the lesser known delegates to the Continental Congress, who drafted the first version of a bundle of moral rules from past interactions between Bros. Carefully observing the bickering between Benjamin Franklin and George Washington over “codpiece blocking” a bro who “called dibs first on some wench,” he proceeds to “inscribe” this set of rules on the backside of the Constitution, in order to save paper and impress a young damsel next to him. And all this happened in 1776, the year David Hume died, exactly twenty-five years after he published his
Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
. You
must
see the connection here! Still not convinced? Let us tell you then that David Hume and Ben Franklin were bros, with Hume actually introducing Franklin to French intellectual high-life. True story.

To paraphrase German philosopher Heidegger though, why is there a Bro Code, rather than nothing? To put it simply, if we properly understand the Bro Code as a bunch of socially evolved norms, then we could see it as the social glue holding us together as Bros. Norms such as “Bros before hoes,” “No sex with your Bro's ex (unless granted permission),” or “Bros cannot make eye contact during a devil's threeway” have a specific function in our life: that of better co-ordinating our actions and resolving co-ordination problems so as to avoid unpleasant outcomes (especially the one regarding the threesome). In the words of Robert Nozick, “the function of ethics, of ethical norms and ethical beliefs, is to co-ordinate our actions with those of others to mutual benefit. . . .”
³

For example, what's the function and justification of Article #150, which prohibits you, as a Bro, doing the hanky-panky with one of your bro's ex-girlfriends (unless he grants you permission, of course)? The answer is quite simple: just look at Barney's reaction after first having sex with Robin, Ted's ex, in Season Three. He desperately tries (even hires the unemployed Marshall as a lawyer) to find a loophole in the
Bro Code
. Why so desperate? Because he's aware of the fact he has done something wrong: he violated the principle of reciprocity between two bros. Furthermore, he also wants to escape from a possible
punishment from Ted, namely losing his bro and wingman status. Unfortunately though, as awesome as he may be, by the end of the episode Ted decides to penalize him even harder, by breaking up with him as a friend (and eventually revoking the punishment). Bluntly put, the function of a rule which prohibits any sex between a bro and a bro's ex is that of reducing the possibility of such co-ordination failures and increasing the chance that the two will remain bros. Before hoes.

Neighborly Love in Eight Easy Steps

To avoid any appearance of questioning anything said by the awesome Barney Stinson, let's just accept here that the Golden Rule actually is “Love thy neighbor.” Compare it with the Platinum Rule, Article 83 of the
Bro Code
: Never, ever, ever “love” thy neighbor! While the first would be the article of choice for all the painters of morality (remember Hume's metaphor!), it takes the clinical approach of the anatomist to fully understand and appreciate the merits of the latter.

The Platinum Rule was first mentioned in the show by Barney in Season Three, as an attempt to dissuade Ted from pursuing the catastrophic intention of taking his doctor (a tattoo remover and, eventually, a heart remover) out on a date. Remarkably, Barney proceeds in purely Humean fashion, not by inferring the rule from a higher abstract principle, but by presenting it as the result that emerged from countless repetitions of similar interactions.

A little difficulty appears here. If the moral thinker has to be a bit of an experimentalist, the number of available options is quite limited. We don't have access to other peoples' minds, so it's hard to know what they really think. Introspection is no good either. Empathy, in the sense of trying to place yourself in the situation of others wouldn't work because it would still be us in the imagined situation, with our own luggage of commitments and biases.

The only reality that we have experimental access to is the way people act. So, says Hume,

we must therefore glean up our experiments in this science from a cautious observation of human life, and take them as they appear in the common course of the world, by men's behavior in company, in
affairs, and in their pleasures. Where experiments of this kind are judiciously collected and compared, we may hope to establish on them a science, which will not be inferior in certainty, and will be much superior in utility to any other of human comprehension. (
Treatise
, Introduction, 10)

In making the case for the Platinum Rule, Barney is a textbook Humean gleaner of observations about peoples' behavior “in company, in affairs and in their pleasures.” Three particular case studies are invoked to point at the co-ordination disasters that result from failing to follow the Platinum Rule: his own mix-up with Wendy the Waitress, the couples version of dating that Marshall and Lily had with their neighbors across the hallway, Michael and Laura (involving brunches, dinners and charades, of course, don't go all Barney Stinson over it!) and Robin's romance with her co-worker and former hockey player Curt “The Ironman” Irons.

But what makes someone a neighbor in the Platinum Rule sense of the word? According to Marshall, neighbors are all the people you see on a regular basis and you can't avoid. So co-workers are, in this sense, neighbors. Your classmates in college are too. And, of course, actual neighbors are definitely Platinum Rule neighbors. But, as Lily emphatically points out, it actually gets worse when it's a neighbor that you also pay like, in Ted's case, his doctor Stella (though the same applies to the milkman, the newspaper guy, or the waitress in your favorite pub).

The Eight Stages

In all cases of “loving” one's neighbor, Barney was the first to notice the same succession of eight stages: attraction, bargaining, submission, perks, tipping point, purgatory, confrontation, and fallout (to which Ted adds one more in the end, but we'll come to that later).

Obviously, the attraction stage is necessary in order for the Platinum Rule to apply. There isn't, however, a universal recipe for attraction in neighborly situations. Robin, for example, feels irresistibly drawn towards Curt “the Ironman” Irons because he was a hockey player and she's Canadian. In Marshall's and Lilly's case, it's the sharing of the same favorite pastimes. And Barney, well, Wendy just looked interested. And, be it triggered
by a whim or by deeply shared interest, it's not the attraction alone that's the problem in case of the Platinum Rule, it's actually acting upon it in the context.

The next step is bargaining. Interestingly though, it's not a bargain between the attracted and the “atractee,” but between the attracted and his or her friends, who try to discourage initiating a relationship. The most interesting negotiation takes place in the first case, namely Barney's. The gang had only vague hunches about something being seriously wrong in this situation. They even expected that some rule should apply, which Barney, out of all people, should already be aware of and have a catchy name for. But Barney wasn't. Confronted with their amazement, he replies: “what rule is there that says I can't seduce the waitress in my favorite bar?” This is a typical situation which philosophers would call “anomic” (that is to say, not governed by any norms). Moreover, this would be exactly the kind of scenario in which Hume would expect a norm to emerge, or be invented, because the costs of failure would simply be too high. What would the gang do in a hostile bar?

But everybody thought it would be okay. And so the next stage develops: submission. As it turned out, they all succumbed to temptation: Barney found a creative use for soda, Lily and Marshall had the time of their lives throwing dinner and charades parties with the Gerards, while Robin enjoyed a hockey game without paying to much attention to what happened on the ice.

And why wouldn't they give into temptation? They seemed to have all the incentives in the world to do it. Let's face it, the perks can be awesome. Just look at Lily and Marshall: always searching for a couple to do couples stuff together. And when your best friends are always in the business of screwing up every relationship, that's not that easy to find. Then, the Gerards moved across the hall! Pretty convenient, huh? Or so it seems to the untrained eye.

Perks, however, come with costs. Even worse, the same things that make perks possible also produce costs which might become unbearable. Consider the opportunity costs (all the alternatives that you have to give up) in pursuing a course of action. Barney suddenly found his bar off-limits for picking up other girls. His own bar! Lily and Marshall quickly discovered that “dating” their neighbors across the hall made other
plans impossible. Robin, on the other hand, was dating a coworker, so in her case, considering her well-known fear of commitment, the tipping point came more swiftly and bitterly.

When becoming fully aware of the costs, the sixth stage begins: purgatory. The slogan for this phase, for all of them, becomes: “God, I'm such an idiot!” The realization of the mistake they made dawns on everybody. However there's a difference between Dante's Purgatory and the gang's: while the first one is filled with popes, kings, and poets, the latter is populated with loving neighbors. It's like the Universe is shrinking on them. As Barney explains, “What was once my jungle is now my Zoo. And I am forced to mate with the same old lioness again and again and again.” Why would he be “forced”? Break-ups are as old as relationships, so isn't there an exit option available? There might be, but not easily available. What makes the neighborly purgatory special, compared with things going bad in a “normal” affair, is the absence of a post break-up safe haven. This makes enduring a viable strategy, at least until it becomes really unbearable.