Saving Private Ryan Ethics Essay

Saving Private Ryan Ethics Essay

The act of causing a human body to become lifeless is always seen as a horrid action and punishment soon follows through justice. For some, an ethical dilemma by which it is thought that the action justifies itself through revenge, but for others, it is just done for a vague and pathetic purpose. Asking yourselves metaethical questions like if it is the right thing to do consists of your own ideas rather than interrogating the normative ethics with, "What one should do." When it comes down to it, I believe that the fact that you are ending another being's life short of what it can be is a disgusting act no matter who that person is or the environment around you.

At wartime, many people lose their lives, those soldiers become like family and some are actually related by blood. When a mother receives word that three out of the four brothers have lost their lives, it can completely destroy her life as well. Once that scene came up, the military tried to help; they sent out a group of soldiers to go out and save the last brother, Private Ryan. The ethical dilemma being faced is if it is worth it to risk a group of soldiers' lives in order to save one man. In my opinion, it is a bad decision. If they knew Ryan's location, they could've sent out helicopters, but instead they did not know where he was and had to enter unknown lands to find him. When doing so, they can risk killing their entire group without even a hint of disclosing Ryan's location. I wouldn't want to send word to many more families and have them suffer due to the soldiers' tragedies compared to only informing one family. Nevertheless, the decision was made to find Private Ryan.

Throughout their search in finding Ryan, the group embarks upon an enemy stationed at the top of a hill and decide to fight them. They lose one man and capture the person responsible. Most of the soldiers have the moral of revenge and want to kill the German POW, but one Private believes different and stays true to the law by letting him go. I think that was the right thing to do until Stephan Spielberg makes us question that decision once that same German soldier comes back and kills more American troops. Its true, I would've probably done the same and let the soldier go, therefore, following my ethical beliefs. Although, when challenged on those beliefs as Spielberg has done by bringing the same German soldier back, punishment was unavoidable. Death was the only answer.

Having to deal with death or be the reason for it is a heartache. Private Ryan experienced that when he saw his captains grave in the memorial cemetery, many years after the war. At this moment, he was thinking and questioning himself as the audience has done the entire movie, was it worth it to purposely provoke death for the objective of finding one man? In a number of ways, Spielberg confirmed