In class we talked about ethics and defining what they are. This comes down, once again to Bacon's Idols. What one person sees as ethical may be completely unethical to someone else. Take for example the "hero" Syndrom in The Incredibles. Syndrom was shunned by his childhood hero which caused him to turn to a different ethical code. To gain respect and become a hero he builds a giant robot that is strong enough to defeat any normal super hero. However, his plan involves sending the robot to a heavily populated city, allowing the super heros to fail. Syndrom can then swoop in with the remote control and make it look like he defeats the robot and saves the day. To him this is ethical. Which leaves me to question, if one knows what they are doing is wrong, but they do it anyway for personal gain, is it unethical? Or, if one doesn't know what they are doing is wrong, but they stand to gain personally, is that unethical as well?
Syndrom directly violates Kant's philosophical views on ethics. According to Kant it is unethical to use anyone for benefit. Syndrom uses many people for his own benefit. He leurs super heros to his island so he cant test his robot to determine if it is strong enough, as seen in the clip below. He also uses the people of the city he attacks by creating false trust. To Syndrom the ends justify the means: Syndrom is Utilitarian. This clip shows how just how quickly the ends justify the means can be used to justify evil deeds. This provides proof that Kant's theory of deontology, looking at and judging the actions and not the outcomes of said actions, would be correct. However, how often in real life do we stop and think, what I'm doing is Utilitarian or Deontological? Am I doing this for my personal benefit through the use of others? This could lead to an A J Jacobs experiment, a month in Deontology and a month in Utilitarianism back to back.
What Syndrom does is unethical but I believe he knows it is unethical. His actions aren’t a product of what he believes is best thing to do because he knows it isn’t right. It is more on the nature of evil. As Lizzy said, in his childhood Syndrom was shunned by Mr. Incredible (his childhood hero) causing him to despise all the supers and become the evil person he is at the end. I don’t think in his mind he is ever thinking he is doing the right thing but by different ethics. He admits do selling weapons to other countries for money, keeping the best weapons for himself, and even having an evil monologue to his plan just like any villain does. This is all just to fill his childhood dream of being, to the people of the city, a superhero. In achieving this though, he knows that he didn’t do the ethical things to get there. I do agree that Syndrome’s end justify his means. Everything he is doing is working him to his ultimate goal, but utilitarianism also says the greatest good for the greatest number so by that definition Syndrome is not a Utilitarian because that number is only one, himself. He is acting more under ego-ethics, the greatest good for himself and whatever means it takes to get there.
ReplyDeleteLizzy’s post had me wondering if it would be ethical to kill Syndrom. If you look at it from the Utilitarian point of view it would be ethical. Killing Syndrom would be ethical because it would result in the greatest good for the greatest number of people, but if someone is really not evil, could you kill that person despite that fact that it would result in the greatest good for the greatest amount of people? I say this because, as Lizzy and Zach talked about, Syndrom doesn’t really seem to understand the implications of his actions. He does not understand Kant’s category that says that you cannot kill for your own gain. There are plenty of movies where the evil character thinks that the end result of their actions will be a good thing. The example that comes to my mind is Batman Begins. In this movie the league of shadows thinks that by realizing the toxin into the air of Gotham they will free the city from corruption and that end result is worth all the loss of life. Both Syndrom and the league of shadow believe that the end results of their action will be better for society and therefore do not believe that they are doing anything wrong. If Mr. incredible and Batman were able to catch these men and could actually get across to them that what they were doing is evil because it crosses Kant’s category that killing is evil, but they continue their plan despite this knowledge, then they would truly be evil characters. I say this because I do believe there are categories that are essentially wrong, maybe not killing in general, but I cannot think of an instance where killing for the joy of taking someone’s life would be the right choice.
ReplyDeleteI love this movie and am glad to see the post and the commentary.
ReplyDeleteI like this exchange and the connection to ethics--utilitarianism, deontology, and ego ethics. The complexities of behavior and choices and how we justify our actions because of our past history brings up many issues from Kant. He believed in pure reason and his categorical imperative is based on duty and freedom from will and desire. So many films take on this debate. The ethos of a character is shaped by their background and our ability to relate to their ethical decisions, given the circumstances under which their decisions are shaped.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo came up later in the blog with some of the same concerns.
The interaction between Bob and Syndrom really highlights the degree to which extenuating circumstances shape a hero and a villian. Bob's shunning of Syndrom's provides a framework his revenge, a big theme in many movies that take on the theme of ethics. I have to wonder if Bob experiences a moment of ego ethics when he rejects Syndrom??
There are some great small scenes in Billy Madison where Adam Sandler's character has to make amends for all the bullying he has done--the effects of that bullying on his victims is quite interesting.