Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Ethics and The Boondock Saints



When the subject of ethics, especially the views of Kant versus utilitarianism, in movies is brought up the movie The Boondock Saints comes to mind. This movie is about two Irish brothers who accidentally kill mafia thugs. They then turn themselves in and are released as heroes. Seeing this as a calling by God they become vigilantes and start killing off mafia gang members one by one. Now ethically, is this right?
From Kant’s view point and his categorical imperative the answer is no. This imperative requires that we fulfill our duty in the circumstance the act is occurring in. Meaning we cannot look at the outcome of our actions but only the act as the basis of evaluation. The killing of the mafia gang members would only be seen as the act of killing, which is morally and ethically wrong. One way I like to look at this is by asking myself, “would I want anyone and everyone to be able to do this”? The outcome of these two brothers’ actions, as I can see it, is good. But would I want anyone who feels like it to become a vigilante and kill off whoever they think is deserves it? No. This leads into the utilitarian view of “do the ends justify the means”. In this case they do, in killing of these gang members “the greatest good for the greatest numbers” is being achieved. By ridding society of the corrupt, the brothers would be considered as acting ethical.
Below is the final scene from The Boondock Saints (Spoiler Alert!). Something I found interesting is in their final speech they say, “Do not kill... Do not rape...Do not steal... These are principles, which every man of every faith can embrace. These are not polite suggestions, these are codes of behavior and those of you that ignore them will pay the dearest cost! There are varying degrees of evil. We urge you lesser forms of filth, not to push the bounds and cross over into true corruption, into our domain!” This shows that they understand what is moral and ethical from both point of views (Kant and utilitarianism) and go on to say that by killing, raping, stealing it makes you corrupt. They say that this is their domain, so they recognize themselves as already corrupt but choosing who gets to be there with them.


 

3 comments:

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  2. I agree with Zach in thinking that the Boondock Saints presents a very interesting ethical dilemma. It is an interesting dilemma because they state that no one should kill, rape or steal, yet, as Zach points out, they recognize themselves as corrupt because they kill people. I think the fact that they are killing people and know that it is wrong, but continue to do it anyways, makes them as big of villains as the people they are taking down. From the Utilitarian point of view they wouldn’t be evil because the two brother’s actions are getting rid of criminals and by doing this, society gets better for majority of the people. However, where do you draw the line? Also, they are taking away the criminals chance to repent. Or do criminals not deserve that chance? For all we know one of the mafia men that the brothers might have eventually turned his life around and then used his experiences as a way to deter more kids from the draws of a criminal lifestyle. He might have been able to help hundreds of kids. Then, not only would he have reduced the number of criminals, but he might have increased the number of productive citizens in society. His turn around could have resulted in more good for society than the brother’s killings gave, but by killing the criminal and never giving him a chance to repent, we will never find out. An example of this is the movie Megamind. If Metro Man had killed Mega Mind one of the times he stopped him instead of throwing him in jail, then Mega Mind would no longer have been able to become the next hero.

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  3. good exchange here, Zach and Travis--the complexity of ethics in a world where not everyone plays by the rules--The brothers do live by a particular code, one they follow deontologically, but their interests in setting up the code does embed personal interest, will, and desire, which places their intentions out of categorical imperative that Kant suggests.
    The difficulty of living in a flawed world challenges our notions of justice and our patience with a system that seems broken and slow.
    Wikipedia has a great list of films that deal with vigilante justice:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vigilantes_in_popular_culture

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