In the movie “Minority Report” and the play “Oedipus the King, both experience issues of free will and determinism and how free will and determinism affects their everyday lifestyle. In the article “Free Will and Determinism in the world of Minority Report” explains the theory behind “free will” and how it’s unfair to send future criminals to jail.
In “Oedipus the King” Oedipus’s future was already foreseen since the day his mother gave him birth. His parents realized that they didn’t want Oedipus in there lives because he was to kill his father and marry his mother. They got rid of him. They had free will. They choose to get rid of Oedipus and not got against the prophecy. This incident is like the “Minority Repot” just because in the move “Minority Report” once an incident was foretold, the people choose to listen and believe it. In “Oedipus the King” once a prophet told you what he seen, people choose to believe him.
In the movie “Minority Report” people are arrested for pre-crime, for crimes they haven’t committed yet but are foretold to happen and occur. There’s absolutely no free will, people are taken in to jail for something they haven’t done. In the beginning of the movie, a husband was arrested for pre crime because it was foretold he would kill his wife’s lover. The police came into the house and arrested him. In the movie the statement that is trying to be argued by the state is “all who have been accused of crime would have committed crimes if not for the intervention of the police.” They honestly believe that if not for them this person who was accused of pre crime, would eventually commit the crime. What proof do we have of that though? This is similar to the play “Oedipus the King” because what proof do we have that Oedipus was truly going to kill his father and marry his mother. Another similarity is in both the movie and play people choose to believe what the person who foresees the future says. It is also seen that the person who’s future isn’t going to be good, choose to deny it and becomes ignorant to it. For example in the movie the husband gets arrested before he commits the crime. He doesn’t believe that he was really going to kill this man. In Oedipus the play, Oedipus can’t believe that the prophet told him he was going to kill his father and marry his mother.
In the article “Free Will and Determinism in the world of Minority Report” it is said “future criminals lack free will, and that it is unjust ice to punish them since they are not morally responsible for what they would have done.” I agree with this because why future criminals should be locked up, what proof we have that they will go forward with the crime. They might change their perspective. How do we know that their perspective of what they want to do won’t change? Is it a crime to have negative thoughts?
You have made some really good connections between the article and the two texts, but when you think of the outcome of Oedipus vs the movie it is obvious they ultimately do offer a different perspective on the issue you need to explore.
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