Movie Monologues that Radicalized my Moral Philosophy
Added 2025-09-16 16:17:16 +0000 UTCTo act in this world is to put yourself in moral peril, to shake the foundations of your own philosophy, sometimes overwhelmingly so. In such times, when you're no longer sure which way is right, where do you go? Who do you become?
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Comments
A very thought-provoking piece! And your videography is now large enough to contain various "Yes, But"'s to your own video; like Solnit against McCarthy's pessimism about human beings, or The Good Place' collective ethics against the threat of individualist Chidi-like indecision this video is worried about. The video has some great examples illustrating movie characters and their ethical styles. (I would nitpick that Rorschach is a retributivist deontologist [rule-follower, not Kantian] with no regard for consequences.) It seems tough to find truly noble consequentialists/utilitarians in movies, perhaps because it is more of an ethic for governments, hopefully constrained by human rights. Hollywood doesn't like Power, as you said before, and we don't seem to be in an era of noble politicians gaining power. I would nominate Lincoln, both IRL and in the Spielberg movie, as a consequentialist who is genuinely noble. Perhaps Lady Eboshi from Princess Mononoke as a noble-but-arrogant one. A YouTube comment asked for female moral heroines, which is a good question. Perhaps they are the ones facing the real-life issues, like balancing desires against social expectations. Although Clarice Starling, for one, does put her soul on the line, to face mythic darkness.
Akshay Patki
2025-09-18 19:16:37 +0000 UTCYou have me now in tears, Tom. As always, bravo.
Julie Arp
2025-09-17 17:51:01 +0000 UTC
