Moral Deliberations in Modern CinemaVaknin, Samuel
Philosophy
Moral Deliberations in Modern Cinema
Vaknin, Samuel
Motion pictures -- Reviews
It all boils down to the question of free choice and free will versus
the benevolent determinism imposed by an omniscient and omnipotent
being. What is better: to have the choice and be damned (almost
inevitably, as in the biblical narrative of the Garden of Eden) - or
to succumb to the superior wisdom of a supreme being? A choice always
involves a dilemma. It is the conflict between two equivalent states,
two weighty decisions whose outcomes are equally desirable and two
identically-preferable courses of action. Where there is no such
equivalence - there is no choice, merely the pre-ordained (given full
knowledge) exercise of a preference or inclination. Bees do not choose
to make honey. A fan of football does not choose to watch a football
game. He is motivated by a clear inequity between the choices that he
faces. He can read a book or go to the game. His decision is clear and
pre-determined by his predilection and by the inevitable and
invariable implementation of the principle of pleasure. There is no
choice here. It is all rather automatic. But compare this to the
choice some victims had to make between two of their children in the
face of Nazi brutality. Which child to sentence to death - which one
to sentence to life? Now, this is a real choice. It involves
conflicting emotions of equal strength. One must not confuse
decisions, opportunities and choice.
Decisions are the mere selection of courses of action. This selection
can be the result of a choice or the result of a tendency (conscious,
unconscious, or biological-genetic). Opportunities are current states
of the world, which allow for a decision to be made and to affect the
future state of the world. Choices are our conscious experience of
moral or other dilemmas.
Christoff finds it strange that Truman - having discovered the truth -
insists upon his right to make choices, i.e., upon his right to
experience dilemmas. To the Director, dilemmas are painful,
unnecessary, destructive, or at best disruptive. His utopian world -
the one he constructed for Truman - is choice-free and dilemma-free.
Truman is programmed not in the sense that his spontaneity is
extinguished. Truman is wrong when, in one of the scenes, he keeps
shouting: "Be careful, I am spontaneous". The Director and fat-cat
capitalistic producers want him to be spontaneous, they want him to
make decisions. But they do not want him to make choices. So they
influence his preferences and predilections by providing him with an
absolutely totalitarian, micro-controlled, repetitive environment.
Such an environment reduces the set of possible decisions so that
there is only one favourable or acceptable decision (outcome) at any
junction. Truman does decide whether to walk down a certain path or
not. But when he does decide to walk - only one path is available to
him. His world is constrained and limited - not his actions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account