In American Horror Story, season 1, Ben Harmon committed a horrible sin – he slept with another woman while his wife Vivien grieved the loss of their unborn child. His unspeakable act makes the audience cringe and grimace in disdain, because there is something fundamentally wrong with his action. His motives were essentially clear – he felt emotionally distraught at the loss of his child and the stress that ensued in his life as a result. He made a choice that fed his own selfish motives in order to relieve his own distress, but not Vivien’s. The fact that Vivien was pregnant and lost her child seems to make the situation a lot more complicated. How could he cheat if his wife needed him, needed his loyalty to her and the unborn baby, as well as his full emotional support? Ben made a selfish move, his action bringing about moral dilemmas he was forced to face.
Ben’s decision to commit the heinous action of cheating reflects the idea that he deliberately chose his own transient happiness over his duty and promise to be loyal to Vivien. He made a sacred vow, and it is innately known that a vow must be kept because it is a moral responsibility. Ben’s transient happiness seemed to have been the motive for his action to cheat, because he decided that his moral duty to be loyal could not impede his wanting to be happy. Ben also had some tie to his unborn child. His crime of cheating seems much more heinous since his wife was pregnant and also lost that child. The audience is further enraged to discover that Ben cheated while Vivien suffered loss. Why should the audience get more worked up about this? It could be because the audience seems to think that the vow he made to his wife to stay loyal somehow extends to that unborn son. It is as if the moral duty to remain loyal should have been stronger than him wanting happiness, since that loyalty extends to more than one living being. Therefore, Ben’s actions are not just morally wrong, they are also unjust in a sense that he owed his wife and unborn son loyalty, but failed to uphold the promise of loyalty. He owed his wife his loyalty because it was her promised “right” due to their marital vows.
Ben failed to uphold his duty as a loyal husband in exchange for his short lived happiness, and as a result, his selfish motives were stronger than his unselfish motives at the time he made his decision to cheat. During the time Ben made his treacherous decision, his selfish motives of relieving his own distress and grieving emotions was stronger than the competing motive of considering the long term effects of his actions. The adulterer did not perceive the dangerous effects on his marriage that his actions would create, and probably did not think his wife would find out. However, his wife’s not finding out was obviously not an excuse for him to act so selfishly. Maybe Ben did not have a strong enough moral compass to direct him to the correct decision to not cheat. Maybe the society in which he was raised had its own notion of moral imperatives that would not morally condemn those who placed a stronger moral value on their own needs. The fact that Ben let his selfish desires overcome him makes the audience mortified because he seemed to be selfish to a very large degree, again because there was another life involved-the life of his unborn child. It makes the audience question Ben’s character and maybe even deem him as corrupt. The audience probably thinks why he wasn’t taking care of his wife’s needs to repair his marriage and communicate with her instead of fulfilling his own selfish desires. Again, it seems as if his moral character is flawed in some ways.
One could say that although Ben cheated, he obviously did not do it to intentionally cause harm to his grieving wife. During many scenes in the season, he constantly apologized to Vivien and wanted to desperately mend their marriage back together. However, to do an action that causes a great amount of harm to someone, even though this harm was not intended by the doer of that action, does not lessen the impact of the harm done. It may make it more permissible in a moral sense, but does not mitigate the effects of the action. Ben did not intend for his actions to be an ends to a means, in other words, he did not intend to ruin his marriage and break his wife’s heart, but just because he didn’t mean to, doesn’t mean the harm was any less grave. It seems that in Ben’s case it actually is worse that he committed his action not intending harm because since he did not intend harm, his motive for committing adultery seems much less necessary. The purpose for the action is drained of its force, and it seems like Ben had no actual reason to cheat. Therefore, him not wanting to intend harm caused the most amount of harm, and actually may not be more morally permissible than intending direct harm to his wife.
Ben’s decision to cheat reflected on his poor moral character and judgment. He failed to uphold his vow to his wife and indulged in a transient happiness. His actions reflect the dark side of humanity, and humanity’s potential to commit actions that are morally incorrect and bring about suffering and grievance. Ben’s motives for his betrayal reflects that human beings have a choice to act in a way that favors others to a certain extent. They have a general belief that others are important in the same sense that each individual feels him or herself as important enough to believe that their suffering matters to others as well. Ben’s moral struggle with himself is a an overall human struggle, in which people have to choose between what’s right for them and what’s right for others, without being too impartial or unjust. Individual moral decisions in this case seem to be driven by a stronger moral motive to commit one action rather than another.
