forked from logenkain/criticalsarcasm
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267 lines
17 KiB
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<meta name="created" content="2018-01-05T14:03:39.991112897"/>
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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0.2in; line-height: 100%">TOUCH
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<p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Touch
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of Odyssey</font></p>
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<p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Joseph
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J. Green</font></p>
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<p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Northern
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Arizona University</font></p>
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<p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><br/>
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</p>
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<p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%; page-break-before: always">
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<font face="Times New Roman, serif"> Touch of Odyssey</font></p>
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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"> The
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films 2001: A Space Odyssey and Touch of Evil (hereafter known as
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2001 and Evil) both work to use as a subject for the further study of
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philosophy. At least half of 2001 is wasted showing off camera
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technologies and special and practical effects, but when they get
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into the dialog, especially with the computer HAL, some notions of
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philosophy start to shape up. Evil, on the other hand, one large
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philosophic struggle. In our analysis, we will be relating the themes
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of knowledge and power, ethics and morals, and law to these films.</font></p>
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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="4" style="font-size: 14pt"><b>Knowledge
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and Power</b></font></font></p>
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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"> Knowledge
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and power are often interrelated. Often times it is those with power
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who obtain knowledge, and in other situations, it is those who obtain
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knowledge that end up with power. </font>
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</p>
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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"> In
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2001, men, presumably government or some other high ranking people,
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discover a thing on the moon. This thing appears to be something
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unnatural, that something or someone must have purposely planted this
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thing on the moon millions of years prior. Much as is the case with
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Plato’s prisoners, who were only permitted to see shadows and hear
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echos, the men in control of this knowledge feared that humans would
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be unable to handle it and lash out against them or fall to anarchy
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(Plato, 1998). The men with the knowledge had the power to hide such
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a thing from the masses, and so they did. They did this by leaking
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out a lie that it was an epidemic that they were trying to cover up
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to mislead the masses. Later on, we are shown a new crew who are
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working alongside a possibly sentient computer system named HAL,
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which is believed unable to have an error, on a space ship. It is
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later discovered that this system may actually be able to fall to
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errors. Fearing this, the two crew members Dave Bowman and Frank
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Poole decide that it may be a good idea to disable HAL’s ability to
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think. HAL, as is the way in such films, discovers the plot. HAL was
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designed to have control over all functions of the ship, therefore
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HAL was able to use this power, and knowledge, in an attempt to
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defend itself, and try to kill all the humans.</font></p>
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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"> In
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Evil, knowledge comes across a handful of times. Near the end of the
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film, Menzies finds Quinlan’s cane near a crime scene. As Quinlan’s
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closest friend, Menzies uses that power to try to help capture a
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recording of Quinlan admitting guilt. Quinlan himself has some sort
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of pseudo-knowledge that comes from his leg injury. A special
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intuition. One such time is when he starts to suspect that Menzies is
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trying to catch him incriminating himself. With this knowledge,
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Quinlan is encouraged to use his power to kill Menzies and get away
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with it to preserve his own good name. It is revealed that Quinlan is
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happy to plant evidence in an effort to capture the guilty, something
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a man of his reputation can get away with. The unjust who appear just
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reap great rewards, and, as Plato would say, Quinlan had managed to
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obtain the greatest that any unjust man could hope to obtain. To use
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injustice to further his ends, yet appear just.</font></p>
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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"> A
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member of a criminal outfit, Grandi, uses his knowledge and power in
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an effort to control the world around him. He uses his knowledge of
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Vargas, a person trying to imprison his brother for being involved
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with narcotics, having a wife, and his power over his family, to, in
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a way, capture Vargas’s wife and intimidate Vargas. He is later
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able to blackmail Quinlan into entering into a deal with him to
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discredit Vargas thanks to is knowledge of Quinlan’s situation, and
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his own power.</font></p>
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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="4" style="font-size: 14pt"><b>Ethics
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and Morals</b></font></font></p>
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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"> When
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it comes to ethics, these films are full of them, as should already
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be obvious from the previous section. We have HAL, Bowman, and, to a
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lesser extent, others dealing with the ethics of deception and
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murder, and the various characters of Evil struggling to entertain
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their own sense of ethics.</font></p>
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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"> In
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2001, when the movie manages to get to dialog about 27 minutes in, we
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are introduced with deception. Dr. Floyd meets with some Russian
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doctors who are very curious about this epidemic. Of course, Floyd is
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bound not to discuss such matter, but to allow people to believe that
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they may be in immense danger is certainly an ethical dilemma. The
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film later has Floyd explain that secrecy was so important that, even
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though he disagreed with the means, he believed that the ends of
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keeping the secret was justifiable. The clear dilemma is, do we
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deceive these people, or do we allow them the truth even though we
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believe it may cause them great harm?</font></p>
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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"> Later
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we are met with deception again. HAL said that some equipment was
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bound to fail within 72 hours. Upon replacing the damaged equipment,
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the humans decided that there was nothing wrong with it, and
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therefore HAL must be wrong. However, it is also possible that HAL
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was simply experimenting with deception as a method of trying to
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control the humans. Since Bowman and Poole believed that HAL may not,
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after all, be infallible, they decided to deceive HAL and speak in
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private about the possibility of disabling HAL. HAL managed to
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discover their plot and switched to self-defense mode. HAL’s
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response was to deceive, such as telling Bowman that he didn’t know
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what went wrong for Poole, and kill all humans, in which it is
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implied that he killed the crew members who were in stasis, and
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refuse orders, such as when Bowman demanded the air lock be opened.
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What is most interesting, since it is not made clear by the film, is
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that HAL may have been, much like Quinlan, trying to protect the
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reputation of being perfect, and decided that everyone must die in
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order to protect that reputation. It is also just as likely HAL was
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simply defending itself. The idea that it was simply defending itself
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is made evident when HAL told Bowman that he was scared as Bowman was
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disabling his supposed sentience, which brings up another question of
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morality; is it just for Bowman to effectively <i>kill</i><span style="font-style: normal">
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HAL? Is Bowman any more or less moral for killing HAL than it was for
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HAL to kill Poole?</span></font></p>
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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><span style="font-style: normal"> </span><span style="font-style: normal">In
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Evil </span><span style="font-style: normal">characters are more
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readily defined</span><span style="font-style: normal">. What were
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Quinlan’s ethics and morals? He believed that guilty men must be
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put away, and that it was his job to do so. It didn’t matter to him
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if he was being unjust. He, allegedly, planted evidence in many cases
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to put men that he </span><i>knew</i><span style="font-style: normal">
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to be guilty behind bars. He’s all too happy to lie, and even
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willing to kill. He seems to be without ethics. The only thing he is
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interested in beyond putting guilty men away is his own reputation,
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this is reinforced throughout the film as he complains of how little
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he has to show for all the years he’s given to the force.</span><span style="font-style: normal">
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In this, he is very successful. He has </span><span style="font-style: normal">but</span><span style="font-style: normal">
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a </span><span style="font-style: normal">small</span><span style="font-style: normal">
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ranch, but he is considered a celebr</span><span style="font-style: normal">ity</span><span style="font-style: normal">.
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</span><span style="font-style: normal">Much like HAL, Quinlan seeks
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to protect his reputation and well being.</span><span style="font-style: normal">
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</span><span style="font-style: normal">Further proof of his
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disregard for morality and justice, is his unrestrained willingness
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to beat </span><span style="font-style: normal">Sanchez, </span><span style="font-style: normal">a
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man he only suspects (Najdowski and Bonventre, 2014). </span><span style="font-style: normal">Another
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interesting thing about Quinlan is that he manages to convince
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everyone else of his innocence in the face of clear incrimination.
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Much like Plato said, when people are shown a greater amount of
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information as compared to a former time, they may believe that the
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former is more true than the reality, which describes Quinlan’s
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situation perfectly.</span></font></p>
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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><span style="font-style: normal"> </span><span style="font-style: normal">Menzies
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and Vargas are pretty much the opposite of Quinlan. Vargas is very
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concerned about being just. He goes so far as to say that he hates
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the work he has to do, </span><span style="font-style: normal">and
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that</span><span style="font-style: normal"> the only time the work
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of police is easy is when </span><span style="font-style: normal">working</span><span style="font-style: normal">
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in a police state, such </span><span style="font-style: normal">as </span><span style="font-style: normal">is
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the case of totalitarianism (Longley, 2018). </span><span style="font-style: normal">
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Menzies, however, is </span><span style="font-style: normal">a
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</span><span style="font-style: normal">trusting and good cop till
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the end. So much so that he serves justice with his dying breath by
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shoot</span><span style="font-style: normal">ing</span><span style="font-style: normal">
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Quinlan to save Vargas.</span></font></p>
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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"> Grandi,
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our last big character, seems to reflect a special kind of morality.
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While he certainly wants to hurt other people’s personal and
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professional reputations, he clearly doesn’t want to harm others.
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He is all to happy to subvert and blackmail Quinlan in an attempt to
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get his brother free from Vargas’s testimony, but he also choose to
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beat a family member who threw acid at Vargas. While he is clearly
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willing to do immoral things to get his way, it is also clear that he
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wishes to do so in the least harmful way possible.</font></p>
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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="4" style="font-size: 14pt"><b>Law</b></font></font></p>
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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"> 2001
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has little, if anything, to do with laws. We could assume that
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murdering is an illegal act and HAL was willing to do so, but that’s
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the only thing that could be tangentially related to law in 2001. As
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for Evil, it should be obvious that Quinlan had no respect for the
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law. He found the law to be worthless, even said something similar
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when talking about being a lawyer. He wasn’t interested in
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bantering words and people getting out and technicalities and what
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not, his only concern was to put bad men behind bars, or six feet
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under, by any means necessary. His partner Menzies, as well as
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Vargas, are the opposite. They have nothing but the upmost respect
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for law. They may not like a law, but they both want everything to be
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done in the most just way possible. To plant evidence or any other
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unjust act, even if completely convinced that a person is guilty and
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would otherwise go free, would be violation of their own beings. Even
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Grandi seems to have a healthy respect for the law. He understands it
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as an opponent to his operations, but he clearly does what he can to
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stay on the right side of the law. Early on when he gets Vargas’s
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wife to talk to him, he makes it exceptionally clear that she is not
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to be touched. Unfortunately for him, Quinlan did not feel the same
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way, which ultimately lead to his death.</font></p>
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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="4" style="font-size: 14pt"><b>Conclusion</b></font></font></p>
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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"> 2001
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and Evil surely have their place in philosophical study. They are
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both particularly strong in displaying the relationships between
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knowledge, power, morals, and ethics. Law mostly only applies to
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Evil, but surely law and morals, at least in some respect, go hand in
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hand. In any case, it is clear that philosophy is rarely, if ever, a
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simple matter of black and white.</font></p>
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<p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%; page-break-before: always">
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<br/>
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</p>
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<p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><b>RESOURCES</b></font></p>
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<p style="margin-left: 0.2in; text-indent: -0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.08in; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman"><i>2001: A Space
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Odyssey</i>. (1968). [DVD] Directed by S. Kubrick. MGM.</font></font></p>
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<p style="margin-left: 0.2in; text-indent: -0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.08in; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">Longley, R.
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(2018). <i>Totalitarianism, Authoritarianism, and Fascism:
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What's the Difference?</i>. [online] ThoughtCo. Available at:
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https://www.thoughtco.com/totalitarianism-authoritarianism-fascism-4147699
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[Accessed 14 Jun. 2018].</font></font></p>
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<p style="margin-left: 0.2in; text-indent: -0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.08in; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">Najdowski, C. and
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Bonventre, C. (2014). <i>Deception in the interrogation room</i>.
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[online] http://www.apa.org. Available at:
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http://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/05/jn.aspx [Accessed 14 Jun. 2018].</font></font></p>
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<p style="margin-left: 0.2in; text-indent: -0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.08in; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">Plato
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(1998). <i>Republic, The</i>. Project Gutenberg.</font></font></p>
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<p style="margin-left: 0.2in; text-indent: -0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.08in; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman"><i>Touch of Evil</i>.
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(1858). [DVD] Directed by O. Welles. UI.</font></font></p>
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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><br/>
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