Rhoda Williams Psychological Theories

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In the movie Rhoda Williams gets causes a car accident and kills John Burroughs wife and son. The movie follows her life after the accident as another identical earth was found. The movie discuss determinism and free will as it explores the idea of two different worlds. The movie starts when Rhoda looks up at Earth two driving her car intoxicated. The movie relates to P. F. Strawson’s idea of reactive attitudes because it is a theory of responsibility and most of the movie talks about her responsibility. Reactive attitudes regard people as responsible agents to be ready to treat them in certain ways. He states “in general, we demand same degree of goodwill or regard on the part of those who stand in these relationships to us, though the forms …show more content…

These are both very important to reactive attitude theory since they allow individuals to deal with and make up for their attitudes. Her guilt causes her meet John and try to make his own world better. Her guilt is seen through how she interacts with the mirrors or her own reflection. She works very hard to make John’s life better so that she is able to pay the debt that she believes she owes him. In the movie Rhoda tells John, “It's about a girl. At the start, she's...naive, reckless. She does something that is...unforgivable. And one day, she goes to apologize. But she loses her nerve. She's weak. She lies to him. And then... she thinks that she might, in the smallest ways, be able to make his life just a little bit better. And so she wakes up every day just to do that. And some days she thinks it's for him. Other days, she worries that it's for herself, that it was really just a way to survive what I have done” when she talks about how she tried to make up for her actions (Another Earth). Rhoda evolves throughout the movie as she deals with her guilt, but it is unclear if it is Rhoda from Earth one or two. This sense of reflection has a big impact on the movie, especially in the beginning. Rhoda also asks for forgiveness from John after she tells him. Throughout the whole movie she tries to reach forgiveness. Strawson talks about forgiveness as he says, “to ask to be forgiven is in part to acknowledge that the attitude displayed in our actions was such as might properly be resented and in part to repudiate that attitude for the future” (Strawson 2012: 153). This is a way for people, like Rhoda to start to make up for the attitudes she gives

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