Gone Baby Gone And The Ethical Dilemma

995 Words4 Pages
The film Gone Baby Gone raises many deep moral questions surrounding our morality and our ability to make decisions based on ethics. The film, directed by Ben Affleck, centers around the investigation led by the police and two private investigators looking for an abducted girl. The girl’s family is distressed, although their ability to take care of the girl is questionable. It is made obvious that her mother has addictions to various drugs, and that her and her boyfriend owe money to a drug lord. We learn the backstory of a head of police; his daughter was also abducted and killed many years ago. As the film moves forward, we are led to believe that the drug lord took the girl in revenge, but we soon discover that it was in fact the head of police, caring for the girl and protecting her from harm. The main investigator, who makes this discovery, is caught in a moral dilemma, but chooses to return the girl to her rightful family, and abide by the law. This sparks many questions about what we ourselves would do in this situation, and how we would react. Do you return the girl, to her loving yet broken and unstable family clouded with drugs? Or leave her in her naivety with a stranger who will, in the end, take better care of her than her own family? Take into account the philosophy of John Stuart Mill, a figurehead for the ideals of Utilitarianism. Using utilitarianism, we can see that his answer to the problem would be to leave the girl where she was found. Utilitarianism is known as the "greatest-happiness principle", as defined in John Mills book “Utilitarianism”. In the second chapter, Mill formulates a single ethical principle, from which he says all utilitarian ethical principles are derived: “The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote

More about Gone Baby Gone And The Ethical Dilemma

Open Document