Talk:Tolkien's moral dilemma

Tolkien's moral dilemma has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: February 19, 2023. (Reviewed version).

A fact from Tolkien's moral dilemma appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 22 March 2023 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Tolkien was not sure if Orcs were made of slime or were corrupted Elves?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2023/March. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Tolkien's sentience dilemma.

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Rampant misuse of "sentient" in place of sapient.[edit]

The general tone of the article is speciesist but Tolkien himself is responsible for most of that. Changing the title would be a good place to start. 82.129.89.42 (talk) 09:46, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. The article takes no sides on any of the issues raised, describing all of them neutrally. It notes that some sources have asserted that racism is implied. The terms used are those used by the scholars and other sources cited. For example Tally 2019 states "Whatever else orcs may be, they are most assuredly sentient"; Hartley 2014 discusses "problems of sentience". Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:59, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

However, the fact that the scholars have misused common terms doesn't mean that we have to do the same. I've retitled the article and adjusted the text. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:14, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A needlessly difficult to understand article[edit]

A few things about this article do not make any sense. It seems to be presupposing that (1) beings that can talk have souls; (2) beings that have souls ought not be slaughtered without good reason; (3) Orcs can talk, and therefore they have souls and ought not to be slaughtered without good reason. (The article states this nowhere so clearly, but that is my interpretation of the article. It would be nice to have this written plainly somewhere.)

You have it correct. It's summarized in the lead and in a table; and it's explained in the article body.

So, it begs several questions:

First, according to whom? According to Tolkien? If so, did he write this anywhere? Did he state this is how morality works in his universe anywhere? If not, is this a part of Catholic doctrine? There is a link to a page about Christianity in Tolkien, but it doesn’t provide any answers to this. If this is Catholic doctrine and that is being applied to Tolkien’s universe, then that too should be stated somewhere plainly.

Yes, Tolkien, as a devout Catholic, as the title, lead, and body all state.

Second, is this really a dilemma? In other words—are Orcs indeed slaughtered without good reason in Tolkien’s universe? If so, where and when? What portion of Tolkien’s writings implicate this dilemma? If it’s the entire war, that too should be stated. It otherwise seems like the Just War doctrine would justify killing orcs, and therefore orcs are not slaughtered without good reason.

Tolkien thought so. I've added links to the main Orc-slaughtering battles in the Context.

Or, is “the dilemma” whether or not orcs have souls to begin with? Does Tolkien say they do not? and that contradicts the morality scheme in place? If that’s the case that too could be fleshed out somewhere. It’s hard to tell what the dilemma actually is.

Tolkien hums, hahs, and havers continually on the matter, as the article illustrates and cites.

Lastly, there are two specific areas in the article that are confusing:

1. There is a quote supposedly about an Orc’s view of morality, but the quote itself is about a big guy, a small guy, and elf tricks. With no context it is difficult to discern how this is an orc’s view of morality.

Glossed the speaker as "an Orc".

2. There is a chart at the bottom that is indecipherable. Is that an X and Y axis? How does any of it relate, I am not sure and I can’t tell how it explains what the dilemma is.

The table? It's just a table of the issues and their consequences for, as its title says, "the Catholic Tolkien". The dilemma is that the conflicting choices (top) each have different moral implications (middle) and problematic results (bottom). Tolkien didn't like any of the options depicted but couldn't see any other options.

I don’t mean to criticize but I just get the sense that the author knows much more than they are writing. On a niche article such as this it’s okay to assume the reader knows some things about Tolkien and all that, but I think the article goes a little far in assuming what the reader knows. It is a difficult article to understand and, I think, needlessly so. The subject matter doesn’t seem that complex, there are just lots of unanswered questions which all feel like pretty major points that should be addressed. 107.77.223.31 (talk) 02:31, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Um thanks. I've added glosses to ensure that everything is attributed. On the dilemma, the scholars agree that Tolkien felt it acutely. There's already a fair bit of context; it's always a judgement how much basic stuff to give in an article - too much is boring, too little and it's unrooted. We can certainly revisit the ease of reading and such. The Just War aspect is interesting but we'd need to find a scholar who's written about it in this context to be able to include it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:17, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]