Jessica Jones: How does Kilgrave's ability work?

Warning: Spoilers below

My girlfriend and I have been watching and enjoying the first season of Jessica Jones.  Jessica Jones is cut from the crime drama, suspense-thriller cloth.  The protagonist of the is Jessica Jones, a private investigator who suffers from PTSD as a result of being enthralled by the primary antagonist of the show, simply known as "Kilgrave." 

The show takes its source material from the comic book heroine of the same name.  It's produced by Marvel Studios, and major characters in the show have superpowers.  What's interesting in this show is that it's not so superhero-y.  Jessica tends to downplay her extraordinary abilities, and the use of such abilities is sporadic.

However, this isn't the case with Kilgrave, and this is what I want to focus on in this post.  Kilgrave has the power to make people do whatever he tells them to do, and he uses this ability quite frequently throughout the show.  I've thought a bit about how this power is supposed to work and I suppose writing it out will me make sense of it.  A small disclaimer before I proceed.  I'm ten episodes into a thirteen episode season, so it is possible that some things are revealed in episodes eleven through thirteen that might answer some of the questions I have below.

As I just mentioned, Kilgrave's power is that he can make people do whatever he tells them to do.  Let's unpack this a little more.   What happens is that Kilgrave utters a sentence in the imperative mood, and the individual to whom the sentence is directed at is irresistibly compelled to perform the action commanded by the imperative sentence.  This raises questions, some of which are answered in the series, others left unresolved.

Several constraints on Kilgrave's power are made explicit during the series.  First, Kilgrave's power apparently doesn't work if his voice is transmitted via some medium.  So, for instance, Kilgrave can't order someone to do something over the phone, or over some PA system.  I'm guessing that he can't use a bullhorn either, or two cans attached to a string.  (There's apparently a "scientific" explanation to this, but it comes across as very bullshitty, akin to the whole midi-chlorian nonsense that you get in the Star Wars prequels.)  So, Kilgrave has to be within earshot of the individual that he wants to control.

A second constraint on Kilgrave's power  is that its effects wear off over time.  I believe the time frame is roughly twelve hours, after which an individual feels no longer compelled to do what Kilgrave commanded them to do.

Let's grant these constraints and set them aside.  There are other questions afoot as to how exactly this power is supposed to work. 

Kilgrave's power is delivered via spoken language, more specifically via sentences in the imperative mood.  All imperative sentences have a verb as its main predicate.  However, not all verbs are the same.  For instance, some commands are specific enough such that they can only be carried out in one way.  For example, the command "Sit down" is fairly specific, and we usually have in mind one action that satisfies that command, i.e. the action of immediately sitting down.  Other actions are more ambiguous, and can be carried out in a myriad of ways.  For instance, the command "entertain me" can be successfully carried out in more than one way.  We don't usually think that there is just one action that corresponds to that command.  Thus, there is also a distinction between specific and general commands.

Why does this matter?  Well, one recurring theme in the show is the notion of action and responsibility.  If Kilgrave commands you to do something, and you do it, are you morally responsible for that action?  Can you be blamed for doing it?  At different points in the show, different characters insist that you are not responsible for actions you commit while under Kilgrave's command.  However, it's not so simple.  This is where the notion of a general commands comes into play.

In the show, Will Simpson, a police officer, is commanded by Kilgrave to kill Trish Walker.  This is not a specific command.  Murder can be carried out by a variety of actions.  We don't see a scene where Kilgrave explicitly gives the order to Simpson, so we don't know the exact phrasing of the command.  Suppose the phrase was simple, i.e. "Kill Trish Walker."  We might agree that Simpson should not be held responsible for the attempted murder of Trish Walker, but what about the means by which he attempted murder?  In the show, Simpson tries to deceive Walker into letting him into her apartment so that he can carry out his unfortunate task.   Did Simpson freely choose this way of carrying out Kilgrave's command?  Was this his idea?  If so, should he be held responsible for deceiving Trish Walker?  This leads us to general questions about the scope of Kilgrave's power and the scope of moral responsibility.  How much control does Kilgrave have over an individual?  Is their free will completely overridden?  The extent to which their free will compromised seems to vary positively with the extent to which we would hold them morally responsible.

There are other interesting questions to ask about Kilgrave's power.  We can ask about the extent to which Kilgrave can order people around.  For instance, Kilgrave order someone to do something that they are not capable of doing?  It's probably true that Kilgrave can command an individual to do something they are not physically capable.  They'll probably try and try for twelve hours to do it, but fail to carry out the action.  Kilgrave could order me to slam dunk a basketball on regulation height basket.  I'll pathetically try to do this for twelve hours, but will fail to succeed.  Okay, so commands involving actions that an individual is physically incapable of performing seem fairly straightforward.  However, there are other sorts of commands to consider.  Another category would be commands related to mental states.  Can Kilgrave order someone to feel or believe something that they don't currently feel or believe?  Most would agree that these sorts of mental states are not under our control.  If I don't believe that there is life on Mars, then I can't make myself come to believe that claim.  I can pretend to believe it, but there is a difference between pretending to believe and actually believing.  The same goes for emotions and other sorts of mental phenomena.   I can't directly will myself to be angry if I am not currently angry, nor can I directly will myself to feel pain.  Furthermore, I have no direct control over my preferences or desires.  If I don't like the taste of anchovies (which I don't), then I can't will myself to like them.  If I have no desire to go outside and job, I can't create that desire out of thin air.

Of course we do have some control over all of these things, but the control is indirect.  If I want to believe that there is life on Mars, then I might go rooting around for other pieces of evidence, which may ending up convincing me that there is life on Mars, thus forming a belief.  I can't make myself angry, but I can certainly expose myself to stimuli that might elicit that emotion.  The same goes for pain.  Preferences and desires work in the same indirect way.  We're all familiar with the concept of acquired tastes.  I may not initially like anchovies, but maybe I can come to like them through repeated exposure.

Back to the question about Kilgrave's power.  Can Kilgrave order someone to directly acquire some mental state?  There's an interesting scene in the show that seems to suggest that the answer is yes.  In this scene, Kilgrave is at the local police station.  He's ordered everyone to point their weapons at everyone else.  As he leaves he gives the following paraphrased order: "Once we leave you will all put down your weapons and think that this was all a hilarious joke."  Sure enough, after he leaves they all put down their weapons and start laughing.  What this seems to suggest, then, is that KIlgrave's power is greater than what I had initially been led to believe.  Kilgrave has, in some significant sense, the ability to control minds.

This leads us to some more interesting questions about the individuals under Kilgrave's control.  When they are ordered to carry out some task, are they aware that they are carrying out that task?  The evidence from the show seems to suggest that the answer is yes.  What happens when the task conflicts with their own desires or values?  What's going in the person's mind then?  At one point Kilgrave orders Simpson to jump off the roof of a rather tall building, which would most likely result in his death.  What is Simpson thinking at that point?  He is not normally a suicidal individual, so the order has to conflict with his core desires and beliefs.  What does it feel like to be under Kilgrave's control?

All this leads me to form the following half baked theory.  Kilgrave's power is the ability to plant mental states into an individual's head that last for twelve hours.  Usually these mental states come in the form of desires.  In the literature on free will and moral psychology, there is a distinction made between first and second order desires.  First order desires are the cognitive mechanisms that drive your everyday behavior.  Second order desires are desires about your first order desires.  If your second order desires are incompatible with your first order desires, then you may experience internal conflict.  Take the familiar example of dieting.  I have a first order desire to eat foods like ramen, fast food, and ice cream.  This explains why I eat the way I do.  However, I also have a second order desire not to have this first order desire.  I realize that eating like this is unhealthy, so I really don't want to continue eating this way.  So, I eat a bunch of junk food, yet I don't really want to eat this kind of food, leading me to try to diet.  This is the kind of internal conflict explained by the distinction between first and second order desires.  If I didn't have this kind of conflict going on, then I wouldn't be dieting.  We find plenty of these kinds of examples when it comes to addiction.  Usually addicts know that their addiction, i.e. their first order desire for some substance, is bad.  They don't want to have that desire, yet they find themselves succumbing to that first order desire.

What Kilgrave's power basically does is to plant a very strong first order desire into your head.  It turns you into a kind of temporary addict (This theory is interesting given the Malcolm sub-plot.  Malcolm is a neighbor of Jessica's and also a drug addict.  He was also a delivery guy for Kilgrave.)  You feel a compulsion to carry out the command Kilgrave gives in a manner similar to the compulsion an addict feels to take a certain drug.  In many cases our second order desires are able to at least temporarily override our first order desires.  This is why we are at least temporarily successful at dieting.  However, it seems that the desires implanted via Kilgrave's power are so strong that they cannot be overridden by second order desires.

This might explain why Kilgrave's victims feel guilt after doing something that they thought was morally wrong.  Even though they were compelled to act in the way they did from an external source, to them it really did feel like they wanted to perform that act.  It really felt like their desire, and so it would be hard for them to distance themselves from the act, and from the emotional consequences of that action.

Freedom, Democracy, and Bad Faith

Most people in Western liberal societies think that democracy is a good thing, especially when compared to the alternatives.  People generally like to be self-determining, and democracy seems to be the governmental structure that is most conducive to these aims, as opposed to various forms of totalitarianism.

This is all well and good.  I'm a fan of democracy myself.  However, there seems to be a sense in which people take democracy for granted.  They just assume that it's a form of government that will run by itself and steer us toward the most optimal state of affairs.  It's similar to a laissez-faire perspective on the free market.

This attitude is mistaken.  Democracy is designed to execute the will of the people.  How well it achieves the best ends for society will depend on the moral and intellectual quality of the citizens participating in the system.

This is the part that many people take for granted.  They, either explicitly or implicitly, shirk their responsibilities as citizens.  Such responsibilities include more than just going out to vote and paying your taxes.  The responsibility of a good citizen also includes being the type of individual that is capable of making well informed and well reasoned judgments, and thus also includes the responsibility of training to become that type of individual.

Without this ability to think independently and to participate in rational discourse, democracy fails and becomes a more subtle form of totalitarianism.

In totalitarian forms of government, either one or a some group of individuals coerce the citizens to behave in some way.  Usually the level of coercion, and the extent of activities to which it is applied, is seen as way beyond acceptable.  People like to think that they have control over their own lives, and not being explicitly coerced into behaving a certain seems sufficient for having that control.

However, there are at least two ways for someone to not be in control of their lives.  There's the explicit, gun to your head type of coercion.  However, there is a sneakier to get someone to do what you want, and that's through various forms of psychological manipulation.

Someone who shirks their responsibility as a citizen and fails to think critically about political issues becomes more susceptible to various forms of psychological manipulation.  In being psychologically manipulated, they lose control over their lives and are no longer expressing their own will, but rather expressing the will of those doing the manipulating.

The sad thing is that those who being manipulated don't know that they are being manipulated.  They still believe that they are in complete control over their lives.  There's a term for this kind of phenomena from Jean Paul Sartre called "bad faith" (also translated as self deception).  Bad faith occurs when individuals fail to see what is actually true about themselves and instead act on false beliefs about themselves.

Members of democratic societies who fail to participate in rational discourse or deliberation act in bad faith.  The believe themselves to be free citizens, when they are likely to be subject to manipulation.  In a significant sense, they are no longer really free.

Sex vs. Gender

When I was younger I'd often hanging out in groups with guys and girls mixed in.  We'd have dinner, coffee, drinks, or whatever.  What I would notice in those settings is that they only time in which both guys and girls would jointly participate in the conversation was if it had something to do with guys and girls, i.e. sex and gender.  Basically we'd have the whole "Men are from Mars, women are from Venus" kind of conversation.

Since then, the notion of sex and gender has fascinated me.  One major question that I wonder about has to do with the connection between the two concepts.  Before getting there, however, I should try to clarify how I understand the two independently.

Sex is supposed to be a biological concept.  The sex of an organism identifies certain biological features of that organism.  This might include the sorts of chromosomes that an organism possesses, organs had by an organism, reproductive capabilities, etc.

Gender is supposed to be a behavioral concept.  The gender of an organism identifies certain behavioral features of that organism.  This might include psychological dispositions, social structures, mating rituals, different ways of communicating, etc.

So are these two concepts connected?  In particular, does sex determine gender?  Let's say that you are a female, does that in some way determine certain behavioral facts about you?  If so, how?  Let's suppose that the two concepts are not connected.  Then where does our idea of gender come from?  Why is gender so closely associated with sex?

I'm sure that there are lots of books or articles written about this.  If anyone out there has any recommendations on scholarly work, let me know.

The evocative nature of music

Music obvious has an effect on one's experience.  There seem to be close relationships between forms of music and mental states, such as emotions.  This kind of stuff is everywhere.  Here are some examples.

Songs in a minor key often evoke melancholy, whereas songs in a major key evoke happiness.
The tempo of a song is also associated with mood.  You never hear fast funeral dirges.
Sounds coming from different instruments have different effects.  Compare the sound of a flute with the sound of an electric guitar playing through a highly distorted amplifier.  They could play the same melody, but achieve vastly different effects on one's mental states.

Everything about music has this potential effect.  The volume, tempo, rhythm, pitch, harmony, timbre, instrumentation, etc.  Anything about a particular song can contribute to producing a certain mental state.

That's the power of music.  That's why you have film scores and soundtracks.

Here's a question.  What do we make of the fact that music has this causal effect on our mental states?  Why does music have this effect?  Why did our brains evolve to be sensitive to these musical details?  Do certain aspects of music have the same effects on individuals across time and culture?  If so, why?  If not, where do these associations come from?  Suppose that the association of minor keys with sadness is a western European thing.  Then how did that association come about?

An argument for the moral permissibility of psychoactive drugs (The medical type)

There seems to be a weird stigma about using prescribed psychoactive drugs.  These sorts of drugs include antidepressants, like Prozac, stimulants, like Ephedrine, mood stabilizers, such as Lithium, or sedatives, like Klonopin.  Some people hold the belief that it is somehow immoral or unnatural to take these kinds of drugs.  Here's an argument that shows that if you're okay with other sorts of pain-relieving medicine, you should be okay with psychoactive drugs as medicine.

1.  Prescribed psychoactive drugs are relevantly similar to (physical) pain-relieving drugs.
2. It is not a big deal (i.e. morally permissible) to use (physical) pain-relieving drugs in a responsible manner.
3. Therefore, it is not a big deal to use prescribed psychoactive drugs in a responsible manner.

I'm going to expand on the first premise, but let me say something quick about the second premise.  Obviously psychoactive drugs can be abused.  But this is true for any drug out there.  The potential for abuse is not something unique to psychoactive drugs, and is therefore not a good reason to think that it is morally questionable to use them.  The same can be said of potential side effects and possible addiction.

Okay, now on to the first premise.  We're all okay with using pain relievers like Ibuprofen, Tylenol, and Aspirin.  We're also okay with lots of other symptom repressing drugs like antihistamines, antacids, or various cold/flu medicines.  We are we okay with using these kinds of drugs?  Here's my guess.  Pain is a mental state.  It exists to alert the body that it is somehow in harm's way.  Once an individual has placed her body out of the potential source of danger, then the pain has served its purpose.  It is no longer useful at that point.  Many times, however, the pain still lingers even though we've taken the corrective measures.  This pain is not only superfluous, but can act as a detriment to our living our lives.  As a result, we take the sorts of pain relieving drugs mentioned above.

Emotions are also mental states.  They also serve as alerts to the individual.  They respond to stimuli in a similar way as pain does.  Negative emotions indicate external stimuli that may be psychologically harmful to the individual.  Once an individual has acknowledged such emotions and has taken the necessary steps to address the stimuli and has taken corrective measures, the emotion has served its purpose.  Like pain, however, negative emotions can also linger.  And, like pain, such emotions can be not only superfluous, but also harmful.  Psychoactive drugs repress negative emotions, like pain-relieving drugs repress the sensation of pain.

If you agree that this is a reasonable assessment of emotions, and if you are okay with taking pain-relieving drugs, then you should be okay with taking psychoactive drugs if you need them.  Now, it is important to note that it is only permissible to take such drugs to deal with superfluous negative emotions.  It is not okay to take such drugs in lieu of addressing the stimuli that is causally connected to the pain.  But this is also true of pain-relieving drugs.  It is obviously not okay to take pain-relieving drugs in lieu of actually dealing with the source of the pain.

Perhaps this is why the stigma exists.  It may not be clear if an individual has really dealt with the source of negative emotions, whereas it's usually pretty clear when an individual has dealt with the source of physical pain.

Physical versus Psychological Harm

The concept of harm plays a central role in moral and political theorizing.  We generally tend to believe that every person has the right to be free from harm inflicted by other.  But exactly counts as harm?  This is a tough concept to analyze.  I'm not going to pretend to give anything close to a complete analysis here.  I just want to think about it a little bit and maybe make a few sketches.

Okay, so let's think of life as dynamic.  Either things are moving forward, or things move in circles.  Life moves forward by growing, learning, adapting, achieving goals, etc.  Things move in circles via some kind of maintenance, like the nitrogen cycle, homeostasis, etc.  The idea is that there is some kind of action or movement, and the right kinds of movement are considered good.

So with that metaphor, we might consider harm to be either an impediment to this kind of movement, or movement in the wrong direction.  For example, oxygen deprivation is considered harmful because it impedes the respiratory and circulatory process in the body.  Degenerative diseases are harmful because it reverses the growth process.

So if we have the notion of harm as either impediment or regression, then we can make a further distinction.  For persons, harm can be either physical or psychological.  This distinction is pretty self-explanatory.  Physical harm is harm done to the body.  Psychological harm is harm done to the mind.

In most societies, we try to legislate against harm.  For instance, aggravated assault is a kind of physical harm, and it is illegal in most societies.  In general, we think that harm is morally bad.

What I want to note here is that psychological harm is worse than physical harm.  In fact it seems true that a lot of physical harm is bad only because it also inflicts psychological harm.  This seems particularly true when it comes to harm inflicted by another person.  For instance, two guys fighting in a boxing ring inflict harm on each other.  But we don't think that this kind of physical harm is morally bad.  However, two guys fighting in a parking lot is considered bad.  Why?  Because we think that there is also some psychological harm involved.  In this case it the exertion of dominance by one over the other.

So it seems that much physical harm, at least the physical harm inflicted by persons, reduces to psychological harm.  If we want to legislate against harm, then we should be legislating against psychological harm.  But note that there is not much in terms of laws against pure psychological harm, i.e. psychological harm without physical harm.  For instance, there are laws against child abuse, but this is child abuse primarily understood as physical abuse.  I'm not aware of very many cases where a child was taken from his/her parents solely because of what the parents said to the child, even though such words can deal irreparable psychological harm to the child.  Likewise, there are no criminal laws against adultery.  Adultery is another example of psychological harm that is not physical harm.

Why is this?  Well the easiest and most obvious answer is that it is difficult to enforce laws against pure psychological harm, especially when such harm is inflicted through speech.  If a child accuses her parents of psychological harm through emotionally damaging criticism, what evidences can she provide?

To further corroborate this point, we already do have some laws against pure psychological harm.  These are laws related to libel and slander.  More recently, states have passed laws against bullying and cyber-bullying in particular.  Libel, slander, and cyber-bullying are all instances of pure psychological harm.  These laws are considered enforceable because evidence can be mustered for this kind of harm.  This is the interesting about technology and psychological harm.  As technology advances more and more communication becomes of the type that can be preserved and documented.  We communicate via text, video chat, social media, email, etc.  All of these can be recorded and saved.  Thus evidence of psychological harm can be preserved, and laws prohibiting forms of psychological harm can be enforced.

So it'll be interesting to see how technology affects our legislation regarding psychological harm.  What will also be interesting to see is how this interacts with our concern for privacy.  Being able to access these forms of communication is often seen as an invasion of privacy, but it also enables society to control instances of psychological harm.

Voluntary bodily control vs involuntary functions

When I was in grade school, I learned that there were two types of actions with respect to my body.  There were voluntary actions, like using my muscles to type, walk around, and speak.  There were also involuntary actions, like my heart rate, digestive process, and metabolism.

I was taught that some actions in my body had to be involuntary, because if they were all voluntary, I'd have to concentrate on all of these functions in my body.  A lapse in concentration could lead to my death.

This is all well and good.  However, there are certain bodily functions that are both voluntary and involuntary.  Two examples include blinking and breathing.  When we don't pay attention, our body automatically breathes and blinks.  It is normally an involuntary action.  However, we can direct our attention to these actions and voluntarily control our rate of breath or the rate at which we blink.  Thus, these sorts of actions can be at times involuntary, and at other times voluntary.

What I always wondered about was why some actions had this property of being both voluntary and involuntary, while lots of other actions do not.  I can control the rate at which I breathe, but why can't I directly control my metabolism?

There are lots of things in my body that I have no direct control over.  I have no control over lots of sensations.  For instance, if I feel pain, I can't, without medication, decide to just not feel pain.  The same goes for emotions.  If I am sad, I can't just directly turn off this sensation.  Similarly I can't just decide to fall asleep.  If I am tired, I can close my eyes and drift off to sleep.  But there are plenty of times where I close my eyes, wanting to sleep, but don't fall asleep.  I have absolutely no direct control over my digestive and metabolic processes.  I can't directly command my body to convert the food I eat directly into energy, rather than storing it as fat.  The same goes for healing processes.

This makes me wonder about the relationship between me and my body.  It seems like I have very little direct control over a lot of things that go on in my body.  Can we conclude anything from this?    What's interesting is the fact that I have any direct control at all.  Why aren't all of my actions involuntary?  Why is it that have I some direct control rather than no direct control?  It's this mix of voluntary and involuntary actions that go on in my body that leaves me scratching my head.

This is an example of a curious feature of human beings (and maybe some other mammals as well).  We are self aware creatures.  We are not completely responsive to the environment around us.  Some parts of us are totally responsive to external stimuli.  Perhaps our metabolism, heart rate, etc. are examples.  But some of our actions aren't completely dictated by external stimuli.  Why is that?

This aspect of human beings, this sort of dual, two-tiered nature, is something I find highly fascinating.  I'll be writing about this more in later posts.