My Sister's Keeper

Have you ever felt out of control in your life? Maybe in day to day situations where the stresses of your workplace/school make you feel like you’ve lost control of your future? Maybe you get angry sometimes and cannot control the emotion you feel and lash out when you don’t mean to? I’m sure, the majority of all of us have control over what we do with our lives but God has a role in this also – he has a plan for us which we must obey. However, in ‘My Sisters Keeper’ (2009), 11 year old Anna has no choice. She has no control over what she wants - over her body, her future, her whole life. She was born in order to save her older sister’s life and she was treated as a means to an end, rather than as a person in herself.

The film (starring Cameron Diaz as Anna’s mother and Abigail Breslin as Anna) follows Anna’s journey to try and take control of her own life by refusing to give any more of herself in order to save her sister, Kate, from terminal cancer. She is tired of being treated as unimportant compared to Kate and even realises herself, at such a young age, the reason why she was born: ‘I was engineered, born for a particular reason. A scientist hooked up my mother’s eggs and my father’s sperm to make a specific combination of genes. He did it to save my sister's life’. This leaves us wondering if this is ethical at all. Some may argue that genetic engineering in itself is wrong, however, does it make it better that Anna’s parents had a reason for doing it, or worse? Also, the issue of consent arises since Anna was a baby when she was tested on and these tests often gave her the most incredible discomfort. However, she could do nothing to stop it because that was her purpose on earth, her reason for her life - she was born in order to help another.

The catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that ‘human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his/her existence, a human being must be recognised as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life’. Taking this quote into consideration, is this what Anna has? Does she have a respected life or rights as a person? Surely, if she had rights as a person, she would not have been put through (or to put herself through) all the procedures carried out on her and would have been able to stop it at any time. Instead she had to result in bringing her own family to court because they will not let her stop helping her sister. She cannot have a good sanctity of life through this process; her life is not being respected and she is being treated as a means to an end. In order for someone to have a good sanctity of life, they must be treated as a person in themselves. This means no operations, tests or procedures should have been carried out on Anna without her consent in order to help her sister if she has a good sanctity of life. It can be argued that her parents are limiting this for her.

This film does leave us wondering whether doing this is ethical in anyway. Yes, Anna is doing a good thing; she is helping her sister by trying to save her despite her own discomfort. This is an incredibly brave thing to do and we see at the end of the film that Anna only stops helping because Kate has asked her to as she knows she will die and doesn’t want her sister to be treated as a means to an end any more. However, we cannot just focus on the family in this film, we must also look to the scientists who suggest the process of having a baby in order to save another child. This raises the issue of if they are ‘playing God’; is this what the scientists are doing? Some may argue they are doing ‘God’s will’ – trying their best in order to save a patient’s life like loving their neighbour as Jesus taught them. However, some will disagree. God may have wanted Kate to die for a reason; he may have had a plan for her but when doctors use genetic engineering, it results in the disposal of embryos which some would argue are already a human life. Therefore, although they are saving one person, they may be going against what God wants for them by ending human life in the process – is this ethical at all?

Taking all into account, even though the motives of the family were good (i.e. they acted out of love) the way in which they went about getting the result they wanted is seen as extremely unethical by many people. However, can we really judge this until we are in that situation? If your daughter was dying, could we really be absolute in saying we wouldn't go to the same extreme? How can we say our emotions would not influence our thinking when we have never been in the situation Anna’s parents were in? The film causes a lot of controversy and I would say everyone will have their own opinion on whether they think the actions in the film were done ethically or not. I would definitely recommend the film to anyone to get them really thinking about genetic engineering and stem cell research. It is a topic everyone is aware of, however, most do not know enough about it to have a valid opinion. It is a thought-provoking and moving film which can be enjoyed by people of all ages and beliefs.

Inception – A Philosophical Review

Have you ever been completely positive that you have woken up from a dream, but to only realise that you are in fact still asleep? A dream within a dream? Sometimes this happens to us and can certainly throw you off, and can really make you wonder if you are dreaming or is this reality. 

Inception, a Leonardo DiCaprio blockbuster hit the cinemas in 2010 with a bang. A film where DiCaprio’s character Cobb is described as a ‘thief of ideas’; he shares a dream with his target to capture the secrets of a person hidden in his subconscious. He goes further and further in and out of his conscious mind where he can hardly establish what is dreams and what is reality. This idea of dreams and reality has been touched by many philosophers in history, and this film really does grasp the concept.

This film is built on a classic argument called the ‘argument of the dream’. Nolan built his film idea as: ‘an individual can share the dream of another, or create any decor. And whether there is or is not in the dream of someone else, you must bring a totem, an object of known characteristics alone, the weight felt.’ The argument of the dream has been investigated by Plato, Aristotle and Descartes.

Descartes wanted to fully establish whether we can ever really know for certain if we are dreaming or not. He therefore considered the possibilities that he is crazy, dreaming, or even possessed? His ‘radical scepticism’ is tested as if we cannot even 100% tell if we are dreaming, how can we know for sure that the world we live in is real? He even came to the question if he were real! 

This is where it gets confusing - Descartes realised that even if he were mistaken about everything, then he must still be thinking, because he can’t be deceived unless he is thinking. Therefore if he is thinking then he must therefore exist, as there must be a ‘thinking thing’. And this idea sprouted his famous quote “I think, therefore I am”.

Descartes created an idea which resolves the blur between dreams and reality, and that being that “our memory can never connect our dreams with each other and with the course of life, in the way it is in the habit of doing with events that occur when we are awake.” Therefore to establish possibility that you might be dreaming, you need to be awake. This is a way to distinguish dreams from reality, therefore can provide evidence that you aren’t currently dreaming.

Therefore in the film Inception, Nolan bases the whole film on in fact rejecting Descartes solution. When Cobb goes into the dream state he is fully aware that he might be dreaming but might not. Therefore in the film it is impossible to tell if you are dreaming or not without having the ‘totem’ to confirm, whereas Descartes knew how to establish between dream and reality without such a thing as he was able to distinguish dreams from reality because it can’t occur to us within a dream that we might be dreaming. That’s why the film could only have ever ended with the doubt if Cobb was dreaming or not, even if the totem stopped spinning at the end of the film, it would still be impossible to tell if he was dreaming or not because even when he created the totem, that could have been a dream also. 

In conclusion, Inception as well as being a great film overall despite the philosophical point of view, it does create thought-provoking ideas about what are dreams and what is reality and how can we distinguish the difference? The film creates its own theory of this and definitely made me think, I recommend the film if you are looking for something to really get you thinking.

V,S

Dead Poets Society

The Dead Poets Society is a film which can really represent different moral and philosophical issues by following the films moto ‘Carpe Diem’. This is Latin for ‘seize the day’ which is shown through the courage of the students for standing up in favour of something, and doing their own thing. In this case, it’s the ability to become free-thinkers and enjoy poetry in life. The saying ‘carpe diem’ can even be linked back to biblical times, as there were many references in the Bible to living life to the full, and taking opportunities that may come our way. 

This is shown by the unconventional English teacher who challenges his students to question anything they have been taught before, such as standing on their desks and ripping out chapters of their text books. This is easily linked to any key Ancient Athenian key philosophers who have stated their opinion that we must learn to think for ourselves, and become rich within our own knowledge. As Socrates once said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Therefore, we must broaden our knowledge as much as we can, even if others around us don’t agree this is right. 

This can then easily be linked to an ethical issue that was also raised in the film, which was justice, law and punishment. Even though the film only lightly touches upon this particular ethical topic, it is still apparent throughout the whole film. The students don’t go as far as to break the law, but they are certainly going against the rules of the school, and so is their English teacher, who is pursuing this forward-thinking set of mind. The government and head teacher of the school believe that the students should be taught from the books, and everything has to be examined, to in turn form a conclusion, including poetry. However, their English teacher, Mr Keating, believes that the boys should be thinking for themselves and concentrates on the power of passion that poetry can contain. This leads to the boys creating a secret club that meet in the dead of night within a cave near the campus to discuss poetry. When they are found out, what means of punishment should be used for disobeying the rules of the school? In the film, the cane was used to punish one of the students, but could this ever be justified today? Is it too hard to decide what punishment would be appropriate for this type of rule breaking because there are too many opinions? Mr Keating, a man who obviously had a wide range of knowledge and was professional would have suggested otherwise. 

The main conflict in the whole of the film wasn’t actually between the students and their new-found love for poetry against the school rules, but actually between a student named Neil, who dreamed of becoming an actor, and his father, who commands him to become a doctor. Neil lacked the will to defy his father, and ends up committing suicide. This is yet another ethical topic raised in the film, life after death. Many people, both religious and non-religious, believe in life after death, and that there is Somewhere else to go once our bodies have moved on. However, some absolute Catholics may actually believe that because Neil committed suicide, he took his own life, and tried to play the role of God. Therefore, he will not be able to enter heaven, because we shouldn’t try and play the role of God, as we are only humans, and we cannot do such a thing.

The fact that Neil actually committed suicide also means that it is easy to look at the philosophical topic of conscience. Neil’s father is probably going to evermore wish he could have been more lenient and understanding with his wish to be on stage, as his grief was depicted so clearly. Is it fair that this is going to stay upon his conscience forever, because of the action that his son took? Or is conscience actually just a feeling that we made up in our own minds, and doesn’t really exist?

Overall, the Dead Poets Society was a really good film that touched upon many different ethical and philosophical topics and highlighted them in clever ways. However, I think the main message that was trying to be highlighted above all others was the idea of ‘carpe diem’ and living our lives to the full. The fact that the film ended with Neil committing suicide was a contrast to this message, as he ended his life. This could be because he didn’t feel like his life would be to the full without his love of acting being involved in some way. 

HL