I Am Legend's Ethical Value

[voo-u]

I am doing a report on the movie I Am Legend with Will Smith and have read the thread discussing it on here. I am guessing quite a few of you have seen this movie and enjoyed it. I really liked it as well and am using it to do a paper in my ethics class.

So far I have my point of view of the message being pretty much not to play God. Also I want to touch on the nonethical research testing procedures prior to and after the virus destroyed almost everyone. Has anyone gotten anything else out of this movie I might be missing? I need some filler for a few more pages...

Thanks for your help!

[Hagbard Celine]

I am doing a report on the movie I Am Legend with Will Smith and have read the thread discussing it on here. I am guessing quite a few of you have seen this movie and enjoyed it. I really liked it as well and am using it to do a paper in my ethics class.

So far I have my point of view of the message being pretty much not to play God. Also I want to touch on the nonethical research testing procedures prior to and after the virus destroyed almost everyone. Has anyone gotten anything else out of this movie I might be missing? I need some filler for a few more pages...

Thanks for your help!

How can the message be to not play God when the cure for the illness ended up being "playing God?" If your definition of "playing God" is to pursue and use scientific knowledge and you view this as an "evil" that brought the plague upon mankind, how can it be then that the use of that same scientific knowledge ended up being mankind's saving grace in the end? Is it both a bane and a blessing? Perhaps. I think the real message, as always, is the use of caution and moderation and of course, "with great power comes great responsibility," etc.

[diuretic]

How about the altruism of Smith's character? And may I add this is not filler! :laugh2:

Seriously though, in the previous manifestations of the theme from the book the survivor (in this case Will Smith's character) is exhibiting altruistic behaviour. He could have just taken off with Sam and found the survivor colony and lived happily ever after but he chose to stay in New York and continue his - I would think quite dangerous - work in trying to find an antidote or cure.

He had the expertise, he had himself as a subject, he used captured ex-humans (might want to think about the ethical position there in terms of discussing his capturing of subjects - Mengele comes to mind - even though they were transmuted)
and he continued his work). I suppose you'd have to take a strongly consequentialist position there.

He had no other reason to stay in New York, we know his family were killed in the helicopter incident, but he stayed.

Anyway I'd be looking at it from the perspective of altruism and trying to work out whether it was altruism or a form of ethical egoism and perhaps, if you have space, wondering about the nature of altruism (ie does it exist past self and immediately family) and ethical egoism.

Just a couple of thoughts.

[hjmick]

Read the book.

[dan]

He had the expertise, he had himself as a subject, he used captured ex-humans (might want to think about the ethical position there in terms of discussing his capturing of subjects - Mengele comes to mind - even though they were transmuted)
and he continued his work). I suppose you'd have to take a strongly consequentialist position there.


This is the aspect that I would explore were I to write this paper. Interesting topic, though.