MLP:FiM and Steven Universe are both examples of recent family-oriented cartoons with positive moral overtones. However, they take contradictory positions on a millennia-old debate in ethics – so according to each show, the other’s position is not simply incorrect but immoral.

A few notes before I explain why:

• In the title I used the word “existentialism” to mean the belief that an individual should choose their own purpose, even though that definition is not as broad or commonly used as others.
• To figure out the ethical ideas that a show teaches, I assume that if the protagonists of a show explicitly believe in an ethical idea, their antagonists explicitly believe the opposite, and the protagonists win in the conflict between them, then the show is teaching that those ideas are correct. This assumption would not work for all shows. However, it probably works for these two because they were designed partly for easily understandable moral education.

 

Outline of this post:

1. Crash Course Aristotle
2. Horse Teleology
3. Rock Teleology
4. An Uncomfortable Ethical Trilemma from the Contradiction of Rocks and Horses
5. TL;DR

 

Crash Course Aristotle 

Before understanding the ethical conflict between MLP:FiM and Steven Universe, one must understand a few basic terms of the conflict: telos, eudaimonia, virtues, and universal essence. I will try to keep the explanation brief.

Almost 2400 years ago, Aristotle distinguished 4 different ways to explain something: its matter, form, agent, and goal. For example, Aristotle would explain a hammer in these four ways:

1. A hammer’s material cause is the matter out of which it is made: wood and metal.
2. A hammer’s formal cause is the form of the matter which makes it a hammer instead of something else: the design of the hammer.
3. A hammer’s efficient cause is the agent that brought it into being: the person who created it.
4. A hammer’s final cause is the goal for which it exists: hitting nails to build structures. The Greek word for final cause is telos, which is why teleology is the study of things in terms of their purpose.

The telos of a hammer may seem obvious, but what is the telos of a human? Aristotle said that the function of a human is to reason well [1]. While the precise definition of “virtue” can take paragraphs to flesh out [2], virtues are basically “good moral habits” [3] which help one attain the highest good, eudaimonia. That term is often misleadingly translated as “happiness,” but can be more accurately translated as “human flourishing” or “a complete life” [1].

Even asking about the human telos, though, assumes that all humans have a telos. Without delving into religious questions [4], note that Aristotle based his teleology on a belief in the universal essence: the defining trait of a category, which exists fundamentally in all members of that category at once. To Aristotle and other essentialists who believe that such essences exist, we categorize things based on their essence: e.g. we call something a “human” if-and-only-if it contains the essence of humanity [5]. According to Aristotle, a living thing’s telos is part of – or identical to – its essence. 

 

Horse Teleology 

Some people[6] don’t believe they have a telos, but I bet they would be more easily convinced if it was stamped on their butt!

In MLP:FiM, a pony’s cutie mark represents its telos because it represents 1) the purpose for which that pony exists, which 2) cannot be created or altered by a pony’s beliefs or choices, but instead 3) is permanent and unchangeable throughout the pony’s lifetime. Each of these is stated or implied in MLP:FiM.

First consider “Magical Mystery Cure.” The cutie marks of the Mane 6 were swapped, and consequently each of them believed and chose to follow their false cutie mark because “It’s what my cutie mark is telling me.” When Spike asks Twilight why she does not fix her friends with a memory spell, Twilight responds that “It's not their memories, [but] their true selves that have been altered!” After Spike raises the possibility that “our friends will grow to like their new lives,” Twilight asserts that “They're not who they are meant to be anymore” because “Their destinies are now changed.”

Twilight’s language brims over with teleology, especially considering that a telos is what something “is meant to be” objectively. Changing a pony’s cutie mark, beliefs, and choices is insufficient to change “who they are meant to be,” so the pony’s purpose must be objective and intrinsic. What “ponies are meant to be” according to Twilight comes from “their true selves” which exist independently of belief, choice, or representation in a cutie mark. 

By using the term “destiny,” Twilight implies that a pony’s purpose – the referent of that pony’s correct cutie mark – is determined before that pony makes any choices. “Magical Mystery Cure” shows that, try as they might, a pony cannot alter their purpose by believing or acting as if they have a different purpose.  “The Cutie Map Part 2” is even more explicit. As the villain, Starlight Glimmer urges the Mane 6 to “Free yourself from your cutie mark”   and “Choose equality as your special talent.”

I will note a major difference, however, between the teleologies of Aristotle and MLP:FiM. To Aristotle, every human necessarily has the same function, but to MLP:FiM, every pony necessarily has a different function [7]. Before Starlight shut her up, Twilight said that “Everypony has unique talents and gifts, and when we share them with each other, that's how rea—.” She presumable meant to say something like  “how real friendship forms.” Compare Aristotle's idea that friendship is the mutual pursuit of the highest good by virtuous people [8]. Also note that in “Call of the Cutie,” Cheerilee defines cutie marks as “that certain something that makes them different from every other pony.” Since this matches the definition of a universal essence, a pony's telos is its essential identity.

Each pony may have their own telos, but they are still directed by objectively-defined virtues towards a highest good analogous to humans’ eudaimonia. I am unsure whether to call it Friendship, Magic, or Harmony, but that is a distinction without a difference given that the three are identical. The title states part of this equivalence as bluntly as possible: Friendship is Magic. And in “Friendship is Magic Part 2,” Applejack asserts that the Mane 6 “really do represent the elements of friendship,” which Princess Celestia confirms. If the Elements of Harmony are elements of Friendship, then Friendship is Harmony, which should be uncontroversial given that those terms are nearly synonymous in their normal use. I will call this highest good of ponydom “Harmony,” for convenience.

In the same way that Aristotle says all humans strive for the good of eudaimonia, all ponies strive for this good of Harmony, because the Elements of Harmony relate to Harmony itself in the same way that Aristotle’s virtues relate to eudaimonia. The five main Elements are defined as virtuous traits. At the end of “Friendship is Magic Part 2,” Twilight says that each of the others in the Mane 6 “represents the spirit of” that trait, i.e. the virtue defined by that trait. But the last Element is different: “the spark that resides in the heart of us all” creates the Element of Magic. That “spark” is the essence of ponydom. Because the Element of Magic requires all of the virtues, and emerges from the essence of ponydom, it is the highest good of ponydom.

 

Rock Teleology 

At first glance, it may appear that the gems of Steven Universe are teleological in the same way. Rose Quartz points out in “Greg the Babysitter” that “When a Gem is made, it's for a reason. They burst out of the ground already knowing what they're supposed to be, and then... that's what they are. Forever.” This brief description covers the criteria for a telos as previously described: it exists throughout the gem’s lifetime regardless of that gem’s beliefs or choices, never changes, and is that gem’s essential identity.

However, the apparent telos of a Gem is not the morally correct purpose for them to pursue. The protagonist Crystal Gems, under Rose Quartz’s ideology, assert that the correct purpose for a gem to pursue is their chosen purpose. Consider how Bismuth describes Rose’s ideology in “Bismuth”: “[Rose] was different because she decided to be … Gems never hear they can be anything other than what they are, but Rose opened our eyes.” The idea that identity can and/or should be altered by choice is incompatible with teleology. Bismuth later cites “[Rose’s] talk about how Gems could take control of their own identities” and “how we'd been convinced to ignore our own potential,” which confirms that identity can be changed by choosing a different one.

Choosing one’s identity/purpose is upheld by the protagonists in Steven Universe, so it is presented as good. Conversely, adhering to one’s given/intended/innate identity/purpose is upheld by the antagonists, so it is presented as bad.

 

An Uncomfortable Ethical Trilemma from the Contradiction of Rocks and Horses 

The fundamental contradiction between MLP:FiM and Steven Universe is that the former claims that one should pursue only their inherent purpose regardless of belief or choice, whereas the latter vehemently disagrees by claiming that one should pursue only their chosen purpose regardless of their inherent purpose. When the two conflict, MLP:FiM says to pursue inherent purpose, whereas Steven Universe says to pursue chosen purpose – a direct contradiction.

From this contradiction, we are forced into one of the following strange conclusions (under the assumption that we can know that actions are right or wrong): When innate purpose conflicts with chosen purpose…

1. …one should pursue innate purpose, so Steven Universe teaches immorality by implying the opposite. The Crystal Gems of Steven Universe should have followed their design and intended purpose.
2. …one should pursue chosen purpose, so MLP:FiM teaches immorality by implying the opposite. 
3. …the right choice depends on the context, so claims about moral purpose can only be judged as true relative to their context.

As a side note, I would have included that the Mane 6 should have followed “what their cutie mark was telling” them in “Magical Mystery Cure” – and were wrong to overthrow Starlight Glimmer in “The Cutie Map” – as part of option 2, but in both cases the ponies who had chosen to pursue a purpose different from their telos conveniently changed their minds and chose their telos. This potentially shows another difference between Harmony and eudaimonia: the former, being Magic, is a goal but also a force that can interact with the world to bring itself about. It's also a tree. That raises its own weird metaphysical questions, but I will shelve those for now.

Anyway, to my knowledge, the three options of the trilemma are mutually exclusive (if one is true, then the others are false) and mutually exhaustive (necessarily at least one is true, such that no alternatives exist). Which of the three do you believe? Alternatively, is something wrong with my reasoning? (Probably.)

 

TL;DR 

MLP:FiM calls it good to do what one was created for and to follow one's intrinsic purpose (what Aristotle called a telos). Steven Universe calls that bad and instead says to create one's own purpose. Either one of the shows is morally wrong, or purpose is only right or wrong relative to context.

 

Footnotes

1. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics Book I, ch. 7 §8-16.
2. See Alasdair MacIntyre’s three-stage definition of virtue in After Virtue, ch. 15, p. 219-20. To be fair, though, MacIntyre's writing style is about as concise as C.S. Lewis's is subtle: not.
3. James K. Smith, You Are What You Love, ch. 1, p. 16.
4. Note however that the 13^th-century Christian philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas fleshed out Aristotle’s philosophy and merged it with Christian theology. The philosophy he created is called Thomism, which is still “the official philosophy of the Roman Catholic Church.”
5. Aristotle and Plato disagreed over whether the essence of a thing could exist even if the thing did not exist. Plato said it could because the essence exists more fundamentally than examples of it; he called the essences Forms. Aristotle disagreed, saying that essences only exist in the things which instantiate those essences.
6. Myself included, for the record. I think MLP:FiM shows what the world might be like if final causes existed.
7. A human's telos comes from its essence (i.e. "quiddity"), its "whatness" which makes it what it is: a human. In contrast, a pony's telos comes from its "haecceity," its "thisness" which makes it this pony instead of any other pony.
8. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics Book VIII, ch. 3 §6.

Edits:

• 2018-03-25: Fixed broken links to "four causes."
• 2018-08-01: Added footnote 7.