Philosophy of Film Misc Summaries Assessment

December 2010 - Second Year - Philosophy of Film


Q1. Does Craig (the puppeteer) at the start of the film survive as Craig (trapped in Emily) at the end of the film? Why or why not? What complications are there to his survival? Give reasons. 

The movie being John Malkovich seems to presuppose that there can be physical and mental elements to the self, and suggests that one can have the experience of being self when disconnected from the physical. We encounter Craig's character at the beginning of the film as a person with a mind and a body. Later, Craig's mind is inside Malkovich and we are unaware of the whereabouts of his body. We cannot even be sure that his body hasn't been destroyed. Leaving Malkovich, Craig's mind is returned to his original body or to one that is identical to it, and later in the film Craig's mind is trapped in Emily.

When Craig is in his own body, in Malkovich, and in Emily, what is consisent in each case is Craig's mental states - his thoughts and beliefs, his memories, his desires. There is psychological continuity - Craig's mental states are persisted through time in a continuous way. I think this psychological continuity shows us that Craig has survived when he is in Malkovich and when he is in Emily.

Even though Craig survives in Malkovich and in Emily, he is not the same person. Personal identity and survival are not one and the same. Why is this, what are the markers of personal identity? Is it psychological continuity, or physical continuity, both, or something else? Personal identity is much more difficult to define than survival. At first it seems like a combination of physical and psychological continuity would be sufficient as markers for personal identity. These criteria would give the correct answer that Craig is not the same as Craig in Malkovich and Craig in Emily (though Craig survives, his physical state does not have continuity). But these criteria are problematic when we consider fission, as in the transporter case.

Suppose a transporter existed that allowed a person to be transported from Melbourne to New York in an instant. The process would work by destroying the person in Melbourne and creating a copy of their physical and mental states, in New York. We could say that physical and psychological continuity are preserved as the copy that is created is identical in every case. But suppose due to a machine malfunction two copies were created. Identity is a necessarily one to one relationship, it cannot exist for one to many, so it cannot be so that physical and psychological continuity are sufficient markers for personal identity. \

This is a problem Parfait explores when he makes his case that what matters is survival, rather than personal identity. It is persisted experience that is important, which is a sentiment that resonates with the characters of the film in two ways. Firstly, Craig is indeed surviving through the persistence of his psychological states, though his personal identity and physical states are changing. Secondly, Dr Lester is seeking survival over identity by desiring to continue his existence from other bodies, attaining a kind of immortality.


Crimes and Misdemeanors

Q3. After having got Delores murdered Judah is wracked with guilt. According to William's is this kind of guilt rational for a consequentialist? Should we take Judah's feelings into account when determining the utility of his actions?

It is rational to feel guilt when we have done the wrong thing - wrong according to the ethical framework we believe in. When our ethical framework is consequentialist, then an act is wrong when it does not maximise the type of value the framework is concerned with. When our ethical framework is classical utilitarianism, an act is wrong when it does not maximise psychological states of happiness. So if we are classical utilitarians and we bring about consequences that do not maximise happiness, we have done the wrong thing and are rational to feel guilty. If we maximise happiness and feel guilty, then we are acting irrationally.

If we try to evaluate the utility of someone else's actions, using a classical utilitarian framework, we must take their psychological states of happiness into consideration. All psychological states of happiness are relevant to our calculus, regardless of who is experiencing them. When we try to determine the utility of Judah having Dolores killed, we must consider how Judah will feel if he proceeds, just as we consider the frustrated future happiness of Dolores, and the preserved happiness of Judah's wife, family, and community. The narrative reveals to us that Judah is heavily influenced by his religious upbringing and we can foresee that if he has Dolores killed, he will feel guilty.

But we are evaluating Judah's actions from a classical utilitarian framework, a framework that plausibly says more happiness will result from Dolores being killed. By that framework, it is right to have Dolores killed - so doesn't that mean Judah's guilt is irrational? This is not the case - Judah's guilt would be irrational if he was a classical utilitarian, but he isn't. We are assessing all forseeable psychological states of happiness, regardless of who is experiencing them, so we must take Judah's guilt into consideration. It is reasonably foreseeable that Judah, with his religious upbringing, will feel guilt for having Dolores killed. He would be irrational to feel guilt if he was a classical utilitarian, but he is not, and so we must include those guilt feelings in our moral calculus.

 Q4. How does the treatment of "right" and "wrong" in Crimes and Misdemeanours refuse the resolution that is typical of Hollywood narrative cinema? 

Hollywood narrative cinema typically follows a three act formula. A situation or problem arises, the characters involved in the situation address it, and then the situation is resolved (or shifts into a new situation). Typically the third act's resolution satisfies typical moral criteria - the cheating husband gets caught, the murderer gets punished, the nice guy gets the girl. By the end of a typical Hollywood movie, good is rewarded, bad is punished, and the audience can leave with a sense of an orderly, just universe.

In Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanours, this treatment is not the case. Rabbi Ben, the character who most embodies the good, becomes fully blind. Murderous Judah, most embodying the bad, has gotten away with murder, and someone else convicted of the crime. He has even stopped feeling guilty for what he has committed and is now enjoying his life as much as before the Dolores situation eventuated. Woody Allen's character Cliff's marriage has ended, but this is hardly a dramatic resolution for him, the marriage was loveless from the beginning of the film. He had largely been a sympathetic character throughout the film despite his romantic feelings for Hally whilst still married, but he is not to be rewarded. His arrogant brother-in-law's behaviour goes unpunished, and is even rewarded by his engagement to Hally.

So Crimes and Misdemeanours is atypical in the way it does not reward and punish the characters according to any moral framework the audience would share. Instead it seems to favour an existentialist viewpoint - it posits that there is no independent or objective moral authority, and that the only meaning in life is that which human beings can freely choose for themselves. The character in the film who espouses the view is Levy, but though the film's outcome vindicates this view, we see that Levy has not been adequately comforted by this philosophy, because he chooses to end his own life.

If we were to replace the film's actual third act with a more typical one, we would see Hally and Cliff together romantically, with a hugely successful documentary on Levy's life. In the actual film, Levy's death destroyed the possibility of Cliff proceeding with his documentary at all. Rabbi Ben's sight would not have continued to worsen, and perhaps his sight would even be restored by god. Cliff's brother in law would be exposed as the arrogant and self involved womanizer he had shown the audience to be, and Judah would be imprisoned. These outcomes would leave the audience with the sense of a moral universe, but instead Woody Allen creates a tragi-comedy that reinforces existentialist themes.

 MatrixQ5.
Explain and evaluate Putnam’s argument for the conclusion that the Brain-in-a-Vat hypothesis is inconsistent? 

The brain in a vat hypothesis is a sceptical hypothesis, it proposes that what we believe we know to be true may not actually be true. We think we are having a physical experience of the world, of a blue sky, of sitting in a lecture theatre, but we may not be actually having that experience. We might really be brains in a vat, hooked up to electrodes stimulating neurons and creating the perception of the blue sky, and the lecture theatre. We might be being deceived.

Putnam has a semantic argument to demonstrate that the hypothesis is inconsistent. The argument rests on the idea that when the deceived experience had by the brain in a vat formulates the thought "I could be a brain in a vat", the thought does cannot meaningfully refer to a brain or a vat, only the image of a brain in a vat, which is something quite different.  How does language meaningfully refer to anything? Well suppose we had a towel, and we had a Chinese noun for the word towel and a French noun for the word towel. The French word, the Chinese word, and the English word "towel" all refer meaningfully to the same towel. But Putnam's argument is we do not have this meaningful reference when the brain in a vat conceives of being a brain in a vat - the brain in a vat can only conceive of being something like a brain-vat-brain in a brain-vat-vat.

Putnam's argument is that a brain in a vat cannot formulate a semantically correct idea that it may be a brain in a vat and therefore the idea is self refuting. I think he is correct here - yes, what a brain in a vat could conceive of is a separate thing from what actually is - the brain-vat-brain image refers to something different to the brain itself. The example he provides is useful - if an ant randomly traces a line in the sand which spells "Winston Churchill", it does not meaningfully refer to the actual historical figure Winston Churchill, because it is impossible for the ant to conceive of him.  But I do not think that Putnam's argument proves that we are not brains in vats, only that we cannot accurately describe the possibility that we are.

I think what we are really concerned about when we consider the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis is not whether we are precisely brains in vats (in which case, Putnam's semantic argument would certainly threaten the precision and exactness of our hypothesis) but whether what we are experiencing might not truly be reality. And this is a concern because we expect our experience to be authentic, to be objective, and feel undermined by the notion this not be the case. Chalmers matrix-as-metaphysics argument is far more useful here than Putnam's argument. Where Putnam tells us we haven't accurately described our possible predicament, Chalmers tells us we should not feel undermined. Chalmers tells us that it is our experience of reality that is important. If we are brains in vats, it is still true that we are in the lecture theatre of looking at the blue sky, it's only the metaphysical truth about what constitutes a lecture theatre or a blue sky that is different to what we first conceived.

Determinism and Moral Responsibility in Minority Report Essay

January 2011 - Second Year - Philosophy of Film Essay  


The following dilemma is presented in Minority Report:
If pre-criminals have free will then it's not clear how we can be sufficiently certain that they would have committed the crimes for which they are being punished. But, if they lack free will then it seems like we have reason to believe that they cannot be morally responsible for their actions, and thus cannot be punished.
Explain how Frankfurt and Smilansky arguments can be combined to find a way out of this dilemma. You will need to explain compatabilism and show it how makes pre-punishment morally permissible.  
In the film Minority Report (Spielberg:2003), there is a police unit responsible for arresting "precriminals" - people who it is known will commit a crime in the near future. That it can be known with certainty what persons will do suggests a determined universe, but if future is determined we should worry that persons do not have free will and should not be held responsible for their actions. In this paper I confront these issues. First I will explain why we might think there is no free will and moral responsibility in a determined universe, and why this should make punishment problematic. Then I will introduce the idea of compatabilism as a way to accommodate free will in a determined universe and make punishment permissible. Thirdly I will draw on Frankfurt's argument in advance of a compatabilist viewpoint (Frankfurt:1969), then Smilanky's explanation that compatabilists must support prepunishment (Smilansky:2007). Finally I will reflect on Smilansky's objective : in showing that compatabilist's must endorse prepunishment, he reduces their overall claim that determinism has no impact on a person's moral responsibility to absurdity  (Smilansky:2007).

If the future is determined, then it seems we do not have free will. When we think about ourselves as creatures with free will, we think of ourselves as choice makers, Each time we make a choice, we believe we could have chosen differently. I decided to take a philosophy class, but I believe that I did so freely and could have chosen to study Italian instead. But if the future is determined, then it would always have been the case that I chose philosophy and not Italian. I could not have made an alternative choice, which would mean that I do not have free will.

If we do not have free will, then the idea that we are morally responsibility for our actions seems problematic. We usually think that a person is only morally responsible for actions they freely chose to take. When someone commits an offence because they are being coerced to do so, or because they are mentally ill, then we believe that they could not have done otherwise and it does not seem right to hold them morally responsible. But if the future is determined and we do not have free will, then it is true for all actions that an agent could not have done otherwise, so if we are consistent then it does not seem right to hold any agent morally responsible, for any actions, in a determined universe.

We usually think that moral responsibility is necessary for punishment.  There may be other objectives for punishment (for example, to deter others from offending), but we think that what justifies punishing a particular person is that they are deserving of the punishment. But again this raises the problem - could the person have done otherwise? If they could not - if they did not have free will - then it seems they are not morally responsible, and if they are not morally responsible then it seems they do not deserve punishment. Again, an offender who has been coerced or is mentally ill seem relatively uncontroversial examples here. So if the future is determined, there is no free will and we cannot hold people morally responsible for their actions, or be justified in punishing them.

Minority Report is a science fiction film that suggests a determined world where future crimes can be predicted. For now I will ignore some narrative elements that question whether the future is determined at all, and focus on the moral question raised by the film's treatment of those who are foreseen to commit crimes. These offenders-to-be are prepunished. Prepunishment is punishment administered before a crime has been committed.

To be morally justified in prepunishing an offender, we must be certain the future is determined. If the future was not determined, there could be the possibility the offender-to-be would change their mind and not go through with the crime. We must also address the epistemic problem of how the future could be accurately predicted. Suppose the epistemic problem could be overcome, we still face the problem that in a determined universe a criminal cannot be held morally responsible, so how could punishment of any kind be permissible? A compatabilist perspective can be utilized here,  offering an argument that free will is compatible with a determined universe. If compatibilism is true, then an agent can be held morally responsible and can be permissibly punished. For the remainder of the paper, I will consider Frankfurt's argument advancing a compatibilist perspective (Frankfurt:1969), and Smilanky's case that compatabilism is compatible with not only punishment generally, but prepunishment specifically.

Frankfurt advances a compatabilist argument by disputing the proposition that an agent is morally responsible for what they do only if they could have done otherwise (Frankfurt:1969). To do this, Frankfurt focuses our attention on the reasons for an agent's action. He draws out examples where an agent acts in a certain way and could not have done otherwise, but that they could not have done otherwise is not their main reason for acting so. (Frankfurt:1969)

The key idea in Frankfurt's argument is that what matters for morally responsibility is why I do what I do (Frankfurt:1969). Suppose I am choosing whether to eat an orange or an apple. Unbeknownst to me, an evil demon has seized partial control of my brain and is determined that I will choose the orange. The demon is capable of directing my choice towards the orange, however will only do so if I first choose the apple. If I choose the orange outright, the evil demon will not need to intervene. Now the facts of the matter are, I can only choose the orange. If I attempt to do otherwise, the evil demon will ensure that I do in fact, choose the orange. I cannot do otherwise. And yet, suppose I don't decide to choose the apple - I go straight for the orange, and the demon does not intervene. Haven't I chosen the orange freely? Certainly my experience is of exercising free will and not being coerced. It was the reason I chose the orange rather than the presence of the demon that was necessary for me having free will.

Frankfurt argument challenges that free will requires could have done otherwise (Frankfurt:1969). His new argument is that free will requires could have done otherwise OR acted for reasons other than could not have done otherwise (Frankfurt:1969). Even if the future is determined, we do not have the experience of the determination. We have an experience of thoughts and feelings contributing to our choice makers. We act for our own reasons, and not because of some sense of coercion. All of my choices may be as certain as the certainty I would choose the orange in the above example, but that is not my experience of those choices, and it is my experience of my own agency and choice making that is necessary for free will.

Frankfurt's argument supports the idea that we can live in a determined universe and yet still experience free will, be held morally responsible, and be punished when appropriate (Frankfurt:1969). As I type this sentence, then if the future is determined it was always the case that I would type this sentence, yet my experience of it is still something I choose to do freely. Just as I can be permissibly rewarded for writing a good sentence, I can permissibly be punished for committing a crime.

Smilanky argues that if we accept that determinism is compatible with free will, we must think that prepunishment is morally permissible in a determined universe  (Smilansky:2007). The common sense view is that prepunishment is morally reprehensible because people are innocent until they commit a crime, but in a determined universe the crime will necessarily be committed, there is no special moral reason why the punishment should be administered after the crime and not before  (Smilansky:2007).  

Smilansky is not arguing that the compatabilist should always prepunish, or that prepunishment is unproblematic. He allows that there may be epistemic and pragmatic problems with prepunishment. What Smilanksy is emphasizing is that there may be circumstances where post punishment is not possible, and in these circumstances a compatibilist has no principled reason not to adopt prepunishment  (Smilansky:2007).  What is important is that the criminal is punished, when the punishment takes place in the chronological sequence of events is of no consequence  (Smilansky:2007).

We can combine Smilansky's  (Smilansky:2007) and Frankfurt's (Frankfurt: 1969) arguments to conclude that prepunishment is morally permissible in a determined universe, if we adopt a compatibilist view. But Smilansky has offered his argument not as a defense of compatabilism, but to illustrate the absurd conclusions a compatabilist must make  (Smilansky:2007). Prepunishment goes so against our strong intuitions about how persons should be treated, that it shows compatabilism is wrong to say a determined universe does not change the morally responsible status of persons  (Smilansky:2007). I think Smilansky is correct here, showing that what is meaningful to us when we speak of free will has not been captured by the compatibilist argument. Our sense of the kind of creatures we are is intrinsically linked to our idea of ourselves as choice makers. Our relationship to the future is one of expectation of many possibilities. The possibilities the future offers justify our effort as human beings, as we labour and as we labour over our choice making. A determined universe undermines that effort,  so the prospect of it lacks moral resonance as well as undermining the sense that our lives have any purpose at all.
This paper has examined the problem of prepunishment in a determined universe, prompted by the film Minority Report (Spielberg : 2003). I have explained the problems attributing moral responsibility to persons if the future is determined, and considered the argument of Frankfurt (Frankfurt : 1969) in defence of a compatibilist position. I have drawn on Smilansky's (Smilansky : 2007) argument that compatibilists must support prepunishment and presented his conclusion that this shows the compatibilist position to be absurd.
Bibliography
Frankfurt, H (1969) <span>Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility</span>, Journal of Philosophy, vol. 66, no. 23, p. 829-839.

Smilansky, S., ( 2007) <span>Determinism and prepunishment: the radical nature of compatibilism</span>, Analysis, vol. 67, no. 4, p. 347-349
Spielberg, S., (c2003) <span>Minority report [videorecording]</span>, [United States] : 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.