Philosopher kings and moral compromises: Prosper's Demon, by K.J. Parker (Tom Holt)

 Read this one.  By the title, you may think that the novella of this morning's post is a twist on The Tempest.  Not so, although references to history and literature are scattered throughout.  Regardless, this one comes with my highest recommendation.  For those unaware, K.J. Parker is a pseudonym occasionally used by Tom Holt... 'cuz.  Prosper's Demon is the first in a duology of fantasy novellas set in an alternate world of roughly Renaissance technology and culture, but with actual demons and exorcists.  Wackiness ensues.

Here's the deal.  Your unnamed POV character is an exorcist, which means that he can see when there is a demon setting up shop inside a person's head, and kick out said demon, either gently or roughly.  He cannot kill the demon, because you cannot kill a demon, but if exorcised roughly, he can cause the demon fuckloads of pain.  Also, there are about 7K demons total, in the world, and everyone is territorial (demons and exorcists, both) so he runs into the same ones over and over again.

The Duke has a son.  He brings assistance from Prosper of Schanz, who is not Prospero, but rather, every historical genius rolled into one.  Prosper is to teach his son, and make him a good and proper philosopher king.

Also, Prosper has a demon in him, and some proportion of his genius has been that demon's influence, which is part of a grand design.  That design includes a philosopher king, who will make things groovy for a while, and then everything will get smashed to bits, but that's a long way off, at least according to the demon hiding out in Prosper's head.

We find this out when the POV character shows up at the Duke's place to discover his old nemesis setting up shop in the Duke's infant son's head, and a new demon (old, technically) in Prosper.  We are given reason to trust Prosper's demon, and hence the moral dilemma.

POV agrees to work with the demons because, hey, he'll be dead in a thousand years, or so, and if the grand design cannot be defeated, then fuck it.  Let peace reign for a while, and the future is the future's problem in the inexorable face of time.  Or so he tells the demon in Prosper's head as he agrees to work with them.

But really, POV says fuck this.  Prosper's big art project is a giant bronze horse, as a gift to the Duke's infant son during a big ceremony.

Gift of a horse... hmm.... in a book filled with historical references...  Yeah, nothin' fishy there!

POV manages to fill the gigantic bronze horse with gunpowder, kablooey during the ceremony, the end.  So much for the grand design, for a while.

This is good.  This is really good.  Holt/Parker can write.  It is darkly funny, clever in its use of historical reference, elegant, efficient, and just fucking awesome.  Read it.

Now let's have some fun with serious concepts.  The concept of the philosopher king is one of those bullshit, dorm lounge ideas that sounds cool if you are either a) 19 and it's 2:00 AM, or b) you are full of yourself, and it's ancient Greece.  The plaything of adolescents, those who diddle adolescents, and novelists, but Holt is a novelist, so it's fine, let's go with it.  Picture, if you will, an idealized form of government, and a path to achieve it.  Sure, a demon may be involved, but it requires superhuman genius to achieve that ideal, so therein lies the requirement for genius, right?

It will fall apart, but it always does, right?  Do you take the deal?

Let's put this in math terms, and suppose Prosper's demon is telling the truth.  We are, I think, intended to take that as a given.  Time runs from t to t + 1 to infinity.  At t + d, the grand design kicks in, everything goes pear-shaped, and there's hell on earth.  For d periods, everything is awesome.  Or, you can postpone the grand design to d'.  Let's make some quick calculations and comparisons.

OK, now in order to do this, we have to cheat, sort of.  You see, we need to treat utility as something like additive across people, which you should not do.  We're going Jeremy Bentham on this, which is a thing I have done in some of my work, and yeah, it's a cheat, but fuck it.  This is obviously pre-Kenneth Arrow anyway.  What is the total utility lost by blowing up the horsy, and what is the gain?

How much better is the world with the philosopher king?  Let's call that PK, so we have PK*d for the d periods during which the philosopher king glory era would occur.  But remember that you aren't actually stopping hell on earth, ever.  It's just a matter of when.  Give up the philosopher king, and hell on earth starts at t + d' rather than t + d.  So it is a comparison of PK*d to (d' - d)*(HoE).

Well, here's the problem.  Hell on earth should be infinitely bad, right?  In that case, there is infinite utility loss by accepting the deal, in Bentham terms.  You're going to have that (d' - d) term multiplied by an infinite amount.  Bad deal.  Don't take it, right?

But by the same token, if you believe Prosper's demon, at some point, you have negative infinity anyway, which was the whole nature of her case to POV.

All of this depends, then, on whether or not we can put a finite utility loss on the grand design, or even if you care.  POV kind of doesn't.  POV just says fuck you, I'm not working with you, you're demons, you're my enemy.  Well, so much for the philosopher king!

Shall I revert to a deontological argument, because that's sort of the method, except that POV denies having any scruples.  And really, POV is an asshole, even if you cannot necessarily say he's wrong.

Either way, it is one hell of a novella, and as Prosper says, the greatest force for good is art.  I tend to believe him.

I haven't played the Drive-By Truckers for a while.  That's wrong.  Patterson Hood & Mike Cooley doing "Demonic Possession," live.  The studio version is on Gangstabilly.