The Philosophy of Television

In 1997, a segment of the evening soap opera Party of Five was shown to a group of five-year olds in a classroom in New Jersey. After the kids viewed the segment, they spontaneously began discussing the program, talking about how the events in the show related to their own lives. Some discussed how different family members dealt with problems, or the problems they had interacting with various family members. An adult philosopher in charge of the experiment gradually turned the discussion around to focus on the issue of whether a person can commit a crime if the consequences were for a noble purpose. Later in the same year, the same segment of the television show was played for a group of graduate students at New York University. Although the discussion following the viewing was more sophisticated and literate, the basic concepts were strikingly similar to those discussed by the five-year olds.

From studying the results of these two experiments, it is clear that television can and does often stimulate moral debate about issues encountered in everyday life. Because of this propensity, many people are beginning to suggest that the power of television should be harnessed to effectively engender such discussions. And often proponents of such ideas point out that a soap opera may be the best type of television show to get a debate started. After all, soap operas—particularly the nighttime dramas that come on every night of the week—are quite often home to a person’s "virtual family and friends," characters the viewer can identify with and come to feel as though they know personally. Characters are lifelike, the domestic settings are familiar, and the interactions between people are intended to mimic real relationships.

But the problem is that television shows are often so well crafted to be believable that they are sometimes seen as being too real, or too lifelike than life itself. Yet even the most cursory viewing of some shows makes it clear how unrealistic they are, with relationships developing out of thin air, and situations occurring to fit the timetable of other events. Love affairs, in particular, tend to start, develop, end, reshuffle, and then begin again. Even still, regular viewers feel related to the characters they watch each week, and the events those characters participate in become a constant topic of conversation among the millions of middle-class Americans who watch the shows. The truth of this is easily seen by the overwhelming popularity of shows such as Sex and the City, NYPD Blue, ER, and Desperate Housewives—and even character-driven comedies such as Everybody Loves Raymond, Friends, and Will and Grace.

Television shows present the development of relationships between the fictional characters; they explore dilemmas in the lives of the characters, and the choices they make. When real-life viewers later discuss the characters and how situations unfolded, they often use such discussions as a springboard for talking about their own lives and their own dilemmas. For that reason, an increasing number of educators and philosophers are studying the use of television programs as a testing ground for viewers to discover how fictional characters make choices that affect their ethical and moral attitudes. And using television shows as a starting point for debate offers viewers the opportunity to develop and refine their own attitudes about real life.