Ethics In The Spotlight Movie

927 Words2 Pages

Justice and ethics are, in part, conceptually what defines right and wrong. For many people, this stems from religious traditions, however there are historically, and current, instances when a religious regime grows so powerful it becomes virtually unchecked. To be clear, I do not interpret any religion as good or bad. However, from a historical and political perspective, religious institutions, customs, and laws have been used to hide heinous crimes. The movie, “Spotlight”, is based on a true story about a team of investigative journalists at the Boston Globe. The Spotlight Team was comprised of multiple reporters, namely: Marty Baron, Ben Bradlee, Jr., Sacha Pfeiffer, Mike Rezendes, and Walter Robinson. The film starts in 2001, when the team …show more content…

Garabedian, a lawyer working with sexual abuse victims, to establish a pattern of behavior of instances of boys being raped by Priests. However, this morphs into a story about how the Catholic Church is protecting the offenders with draconian laws. There was apparently documented proof of the Church’s knowledge of the problem, but when Rezendes went to get the files, they were supposed to be public records, he found them gone. This started a court case where the Spotlight Team won against the Church and, ultimately publish their findings. The film credits state that there were hundreds of articles published exposing the Catholic Church’s corruption starting in …show more content…

In his context, utility is used to mean “whatever produces pleasure or happiness, and whatever prevents pain or suffering” (p. 34). His premise states that the course of action taken should be the one that “maximizes utility” (p. 34). On a superficial level, this seems to make intuitive sense, people want to do what makes them happy. However, there are some substantial flaws in his logic, namely the concept of individual rights and the concept of value (p. 40). This premise negates the importance of human rights, naturally gained rights, that can no one can take away. His logic dictates that if a majority of people will be happy, it would be okay to violate the rights of a single being. His skewed viewing of the world negates the concept of

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