Ethics and moral theory

Ethics - Moral Theory

ETHICS and MORAL THEORY in LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL

Life is Beautiful and Dishonesty:

The movie Life is Beautiful (1998) portrays the life of Guido Orefice, a Jewish tourist traveling in Italy just before the outbreak of World War II. Under Fascist rule, Italian Jews were rounded up and dispatched to Nazi extermination camps as part of Hitler's "Final Solution" to Europe's "Jewish problem." To keep his five-year-old son Giosue from being frightened by the ordeal, Guido tells him that their purpose for traveling by train to Germany is to compete in a contest to win a shiny new tank because the child greatly admired military vehicles. The film suggests that Guido's deception was justified by its purpose and raises the larger ethical issue of engaging in deception for beneficent rather than selfish reasons.

Objective Analysis of the Ethical Issue Presented by the Movie:

Different ethical theories offer conflicting views on the morality of lying in order to achieve a worthwhile purpose. For example, utilitarian concepts would support the use of deception exclusively for the benefit of the deceived individual whereas deontological theorists might oppose the violation of the general moral rule prohibiting lying; similarly, the virtue ethics perspective might support the deception if motivated by the underlying motivation that has a moral value. In general, lying is unethical only because deception is much more likely to be motivated by immoral purposes than for beneficent goals. Nevertheless, just as in the case of other ethical principles, the rules intended to preserve those worthwhile principles are not necessarily equipped to address every imaginable situation in which the issues are capable of arising. The interest of public safety requires that the flow of vehicular traffic be regulated by light signals and road signs in conjunction with which enforcement by authorities is appropriate to ensure compliance.

However, exceptions from the ordinary circumstances those rules of the road sometimes justify violating those rules. Emergency vehicles may not obey traffic rules for the purpose of achieving the greater purpose of responding to fires and other emergencies and private citizens may also have to violate those established rules to rush someone to the hospital. The fact that exceptions from ordinary situations may justify isolated violations of otherwise sound ethical rules does not undermine the value of those rules; in fact, in certain instances, adhering to formal rules may cause harm instead of preventing harm, which is the purpose of establishing formal rules like traffic laws in the first place.

Practically all ethical perspectives, as well as ordinary common sense, view purposeful deception for personal gain as unjustified immoral conduct. Utilitarianism might justify even selfish deception if the beneficiaries far outnumbered those being deceived, but would ultimately not support such a practice because the individual being deceived is being used for the purposes of others. However, where the sole purpose of the deception is for the benefit of the individual being deceived without any selfish benefit to the perpetrator of the deception, utilitarian analysis would support Guido's decision.

Possibly the only utilitarian criticism of Guido's decision might pertain to a situation where Guido is more concerned with sparing himself from the trauma of dealing with a hysterical child, in which case the same deception for that purpose would violate the utilitarian principle against using others as the means of achieving or furthering one's own selfish goals. However, there is no such indication in the film and Guido was clearly motivated by love and concern for young Giosue.

Deontological theory might criticize Guido's choice if the initial assumptions included the rule prohibiting lying. However, deontological analysis is only as useful as the underlying rules with respect to which it is applied. Therefore, the solution to the deontological issues raised by the issue presented by the movie is simply to reformulate a less restrictive rule that is incapable of being applied to every situation. Instead of proposing the rule that prohibits lying, the better rule might be to prohibit only lying for immoral purposes.

In fact, the blind adherence to rules under deontological principles often produces distinctly immoral results: it is difficult to imagine the moral purpose of informing a dying patient that a loved one was also killed in the same accident; nor is there a moral purpose for informing a child who is to young to understand the concept that he was adopted. In Guido's case, the sole purpose of his deception was to spare his child the fear and heartache of knowing that they were scheduled to be separated at gunpoint and probably gassed on arrival to concentration camps in Germany.

Virtue ethicists would inquire only into the intended motivation of the deception and its purpose. If its motivation and purpose was for personal gain or to trick another individual into giving up something of value to the deceiver, the intentional deception would violate fundamental moral principles. Conversely, where the only conceivable motive for the deception is to benefit the deceived or to spare the deceived from fear or pain, virtue ethicists would also support Guido's decision.

Conclusion:

Human ethical values provide principles for distinguishing moral conduct from immoral conduct, which requires a method of analyzing various forms of conduct. In general, ethical rules are sufficient to establish a framework for the analysis of specific occurrences, but even the best ethical system is only as useful as its rules are applicable to all situations. In most cases, the general ethical rule against lying is useful for preventing immoral conduct. However, exceptions in the types of motivation ordinarily associated with lies may exceed the useful limits of adhering to those rules in each and every situation.