Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Do Movies Play a Role in Motivating us to Act Morally?
This past weekend the Oscars took place and while awards were being given out for best picture, best actor/actress, and a number of other things; one of the undertones of the awards was the underlying message in some of the movies. Movies such as Lincoln, Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, and Django Unchained, were all up for the award of best picture along with other candidates, but what all of these films had in common were that they each focused on key principles of morality that we have been discussing as of late in my Ethical Theory class. The movie Lincoln had the moral undertone of oppression and how the enslavement of others is objectively wrong; the same goes for the movie Django Unchained. Zero Dark Thirty focused on the moral undertone of torture and despite its benefits is it still morally right to do. The movie Argo focused on the moral undertone of dogmatic approaches by two powerful institutions during the 1980’s which was the American movie industry and the Central Intelligence Agency.
I recently read an article from the New York Times that was published before the Oscars took place and the questions that the article raised had to do with the impact that movies play in increasing our morality and making us better people; do they give us a sort of moral instruction telling us how to govern ourselves towards a social good or are they just a means of entertainment? These questions posed by the article got me to thinking about one of the objections to objectivity found in Shafer-Landau’s The Fundamental of Ethics, the objection that moral motivation undermines moral objectivity (Shafer-Landau, 332). The objection is underlined by the Motivational Argument which goes as follows:
1. Moral judgments are able, all by themselves, to motivate those who make them.
2. Beliefs are never able, all by themselves, to motivate those who hold them.
3. Therefore, moral judgments are not beliefs.
4. If moral judgments are not beliefs, then they can’t be true.
5. Therefore, moral judgments can’t be true.
(Shafer-Landau, 322)
This argument makes me think that maybe our beliefs alone can’t motivate us to act morally; maybe something like a movie such as the ones that I listed above motivates our beliefs and gets us to act morally. This was the case recently in Mississippi. Mississippi finally ratified the thirteenth amendment (which banned slavery) last week which was approved by three-fourths of the states one hundred forty-eight years ago. According to Huffington Post the Mississippi Legislature’s decision to ratify the amendment was inspired by the film Lincoln.
This case in Mississippi goes to show the role that movies play in motivating beliefs and adds some testament to premise 2 of the Motivational Argument. The link to the article on Mississippi’s recent ratification of amendment 13 can be found below.
Huffington Post article of Mississippi's Ratification
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I think this is a really interesting topic to choose for a blog post. This is a good example of how discussions (or may even just portrayals) ethics are truly relevant in our everyday lives and in pop culture.
ReplyDeleteSociety's reaction (towards the recent movies), however, seems to me like it is more along the lines of cultural relativism and in the above case of Mississippi ratifying their law because it is a cultural norm that they had legalistically failed to follow so are modernly making up for it.
I'm not sure I completely buy Shafer-Landau's reasoning that moral motivation undermines moral objectivity becuase of his clauses 2 and 3. How can it be proved that judgements hold more power than beliefs?
This is a very relevant reality check. Movies often reveal subliminal messages that could be interpreted as moral guidelines. Additional examples include: Taken (kidnapping and sexual slavery is objectively wrong), Remember The Titans, and Glory Road (both portray racism to be objectively wrong). Movies, social media, music, etc. all have influence on a mass audience and sometimes do offer moral guidelines. However, there are obviously many examples of movies that display these subliminal messages to influence people politically rather than morally. For instance, the Lincoln and Django Unchained apply negative connotations to slavery; both were set when slavery was not only an issue of morality but also of political significance. The same goes for torture in Zero Dark Thirty. Torture is a controversial political topic at times. Avatar is another movie that addresses politically controversial issues. On the other end of the spectrum, there are also a multitude of movies/tv dramas that revolve around worlds without morals. Examples that come to mind are Damages, House of Cards, and Game of Thrones. These are all mainstream productions that have been in the national spotlight.
ReplyDeleteThe argument that denies the validity of moral judgements brings several questions to mind. Like Kacy asked above, how can it be proved that judgements are more powerful than beliefs? Why can't beliefs motivate those, all by themselves, motivate those who make them? Since I am an objectivist, I believe moral judgements are true.