Warning: spoilers.

I saw the show The Last of Us recently, and it’s been an enjoyable experience. The series is based on a video game by the same name (which I haven’t played, by the way), and it has garnered immense popularity ever since it came out. And for good reasons too. The show is mostly well-acted and has a gripping plot. A plot, I must add, appealing partly because of its parallels to the on-going COVID pandemic.

Watching the season finale got me thinking about a critical decision that Joel, one of the series’ protagonists, makes, and what it means in the context of the moral framework I adhere to.

I subscribe to a form of consequentialist moral philosophy known as utilitarianism. There are different versions of the utilitarian outlook, and each has its own challenges and complexities. But what it essentially means is that I strive to judge the moral worth of an action based on the amount of well-being it produces in sentient beings. If an action could generate both well-being and suffering, then I strive to maximize well-being for the greatest number of sentient beings. I think this is a reasonable position to hold. Even so-called duty-based moral systems are at some basic level consequentialist in nature, for they tend to take the consequences of actions into account, though imperfectly.

The series is set in a world ravaged by a fungal brain infection that is spread through bites from the host. Joel is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl who is immune to the infection, out of a military-run quarantine zone to a research facility run by the Fireflies, a militia group that claims to be working to bring back democracy and freedom. Members of the group believe that it’s possible to extract a cure from Ellie’s body. When Joel and Ellie reach the research facility, Joel learns that the surgical procedure that Ellie must go through will cause her to die — painlessly, claims Marlene, the commander of the Fireflies. Incensed by this knowledge, Joel goes on a killing-spree against the group, successfully rescuing Ellie in the end.

Putting aside the obvious pain and suffering that Joel caused in the process of rescuing Ellie, let’s look at the Fireflies’ decision to pursue the vaccine and the potential consequences of preventing its creation.

Whether the group’s decision was morally sound depends on several factors, including:

• If Ellie would have suffered in the process of the surgery or from the knowledge that she won't survive it. As mentioned before, Marlene claimed that she won't feel any pain. She also said that before the anesthetic was administered to her, Ellie was in a calm state of mind and that she wasn’t told that she will die as a result of the procedure.
• How many loved ones Ellie had, and how much suffering would the knowledge of her death cause them. In the show, Ellie doesn't seem to have any family. The only person that the possibility of her death significantly affects is Joel.
• How probable it was that the vaccine is going to work, and what would have been its likely efficacy rate. Marlene seemed pretty confident that it would work.

It’s important to have as much information as possible about a particular scenario before deciding on the correct course of action. That said, in any situation, there are so many variables at work that it’s impossible to have all the information, which means that there’s always the possibility of getting the utility calculus wrong. Given that risk and the mental labor required to come to a rational judgment, it's tempting to abandon the project of moral reasoning altogether. But I would argue that this action itself could entail moral culpability. Say, for example, it’s up to you to decide whether to go ahead with the process of making the vaccine. Avoiding the question means that you could have potentially saved civilization from a horrible and painful infection but didn’t.

Considering the amount of information we have, I’m reluctant to rush to a conclusion. But staying true to the utilitarian ethos, I maintain that if the amount of suffering that would have been caused to Ellie and, indirectly, to the people close to her were outweighed by the amount of well-being that came about because of the vaccine — which seems to have been the case — then going ahead with the procedure was the right thing to do. I find Ellie's character charming and lovable, and it would have been distressing indeed to see her die. But then what we want is often at odds with what is right.