Film Analysis of Minority Report

975 Words2 Pages

“According to the traditional view of man, what distinguishes him from animals is his freedom to choose between one course of action and another, his freedom to seek good and avoid evil. The animal has no freedom, but is determined by physical and biological laws; like a machine, the animal responds whenever the appropriate stimulus is present” (Bolles 1963, p.182). In Minority Report (2002) one of the main issues is free will versus determinism. Is there some point that people can and do change their mind while committing an act? In the movie, the police have the right to arrest and charge citizens that have been determined to be committing a crime by the three precogs. So the debate on whether or not precrime should be implemented nation wide is based on the debate of free will or determinism. There are many different agreements in scholarly work for free will, as well as many others for determinism; all from many different viewpoints. This paper will outline the free will arguments and viewpoints, determinism arguments and viewpoints, and Rafters views on Minority Report (2002) and how it fits in with crime films.
The first argument for free will is what one could call the quantum mechanics argument. This argument is about the uncertainty principle and how human nature cannot be statistically determined because atomic physics and human behavior do not follow the same laws (Bolles 1963). Another argument described by Bolles (2002) is the sense of freedom of man. Man’s awareness is the creation of free will, so that alone would rule out determinism. Another problem with predicting human behavior is that people are all different artistically and intellectually, so everyone will react differently (Bolles 2002). In Bolles w...

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...tive used in the film.

Works Cited

Bolles, R. C. (1963). Psychological determinism and the problem of morality. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 2(2), 182-189.
Foot, P. (1957). Free Will Involving Determinism. The Philosophical Review, 439-450.
Huemer, M. (2009). FREE WILL AND DETERMINISM IN THE WORLD OF MINORITY REPORT. Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence, 103.
Molen, G., Curtis, B., Parkes, W., & de Bont, J. (Producers), & Spielberg, S. (Director). (2002). Minority report. [Video/DVD] United States: Amblin Entertainment Cruise; Wagner Productions; 20th Century Fox; DreamWorks Pictures.
Ogletree, S. M., & Oberle, C. D. (2008). The nature, common usage, and implications of free will and determinism. Behavior and Philosophy, 97-111.
Rafter, N. (2006). Shots in the Mirror (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

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