bocajeff

I just bought and watched Minority Report last night and it got me thinking about the ethics of precrime.

In the movie, murders are stopped before they happen, yet the perpetrator is sentenced and imprisoned for life. Basically for a crime they have yet to commit.

Now, unlike the movie, let's pretend the system was infallible. Would this be ethical? Would imprisoning people for a future crime that was going to happen without a doubt be ok? Or should it only serve as a preventative law enforcement measure with no criminal charges brought?

This is of course hypothetical, but I would lean more to the preventative side. I just don't see how people can be imprisoned for something they have yet to do even if it is inevitable that it will happen

Loren Pechtel

*IF* it were infallible I would have no problem with the system other than what it does to the precogs.

We punish intent anyway. Minority Report is simply taking that to it's logical conclusion.


What's silly about the system is that other than the precog's, the system was actually good. Ok, it was clearly demonstrated that it wasn't infallible--nobody should be arrested. However, it drove the murder rate to nearly zero because it allowed them to intervene in almost all murders-to-be. Keep the system but if they go after you, you get a psychiatric evaluation but no punishment.
You'll still get the benefits.

Pierre Bezukhov

I understand in the original script (or perhaps it was the original Philip K. Dick story) the last line in the movie was something like, "The next year, there were 243 murders in the city of Washington, D.C." It was taken out because that would end the movie on a downer. I think it would have been brilliant as it would have driven home the point of the story.

Misso

I haven't seen the movie, so maybe someone could explain: were the "murderers" actually going to commit a murder if they weren't stopped, or were they just thinking about it? If the latter, people are locked away for having a thought that they might never carry out, which I think everyone will agree is immoral.
In case of the former, I have a problem with that, too. It would work to get the murderrate down, but I doubt it would make society better. The issues leading to murder aren't adressed, so it'll still be curing instead of preventing. And when it's about the prevention of the crime, you could give the future-victim some sort of protection. No-one gets better from prisons.

Nowhere357

My problem with the movie is simply that the future does not exist. So what exactly were the visions? If they were just possible futures then to punish the pre-killers was unjust - they are being punished for something they did not do.

While if the visions were of something that would definitely happen, then predestination would be a fact, so free will has been denied. And capturing the pre-killers before the fact - thereby preventing the murder - shows the murder would not definitely happen - which contradicts the rationale for the pre-arrest!

Alonzo Fyfe

Intent already is a crime -- as in "intent to defraud".

Let's say we have wiretaps of somebody talking about blowing up a building. A search of his appartment shows bomb-making equipment. That is considered sufficient for an arrest.

The only difference with respect to the movie "Minority Report" is that it obtained this information in supernatural ways -- through a more direct way of interpreting the future than by inferring it using evidence such as wire taps and the presence of explosives in the room.

The movie was built on a pair of incompatible assumptions. It assumed that this "precrime" method was infallible. It also used the assumption that only an infallible system may be used. So, once the system was shown to be fallible, it was discredited.

But that makes no sense. The existing system -- of inferring intent from wiretaps and the presence of material evidence -- is also flawed. If there were a form of precognition, then even if it is flawed (like the others), this is no reason against using it as evidence.

A person who may commit murder can be apprehended and held for a couple of hours. (In the types of cases described in the movie, this would be sufficient to prevent the murder). And if the evidence is considered sufficient by a jury, the individual can be imprisoned for conspiracy or intent.

The 'dilemma' constructed in the movie is built on false premises.

Loren Pechtel

Many of them would have committed the murders. The problem is the precogs saw the most likely future but not the only future.

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by Alonzo Fyfe
The only difference with respect to the movie "Minority Report" is that it obtained this information in supernatural ways -- through a more direct way of interpreting the future than by inferring it using evidence such as wire taps and the presence of explosives in the room.

The problem is that the precogs didn't actually detect intent but rather the possibility of it.
Someone who was considering murder would be caught by the system even if they wouldn't have actually done it. Look what happened to the main character. Nobody stopped him from killing the "bad" guy.

The movie was built on a pair of incompatible assumptions. It assumed that this "precrime" method was infallible. It also used the assumption that only an infallible system may be used. So, once the system was shown to be fallible, it was discredited.

The system, as designed, probably convicted a fair number of innocents. The idea of punishing based on it is not valid.

A person who may commit murder can be apprehended and held for a couple of hours. (In the types of cases described in the movie, this would be sufficient to prevent the murder). And if the evidence is considered sufficient by a jury, the individual can be imprisoned for conspiracy or intent.

I don't think the jury is even needed--simply send them to the shrink and see if he says they need counseling. The murder rate will still be basically zero.

The 'dilemma' constructed in the movie is built on false premises.

Agreed. The one real problem is what happens to the precogs.

Alonzo Fyfe

The precogs made observations from which intent was a reasonable inference. That's all that one needs.


The system that we have convicts a certain amount of innocents. In addition, there is an argument for balancing the 'innocents' who get wrongly convicted with the "innocents" who are not murdered. Again, the arguments are no different from the arguments we face here and now. There is nothing special about the case raised in the movie.

The "message" of the movie -- that a less-than-perfect system ought not be used -- is quite easy to dismiss. (Though we should note that the original story did not contain this message -- the original story was a good examination of the issue with the idea that no system is or will be perfect, and asks the question of what we should do in the face of infallibility. The message, the rather foolish assumption that a system that is less than perfect is necessarily bad, belongs to the movie alone.

As I recall.

Loren Pechtel

However, if you keep the response system but don't lock them up you get the same basically zero murder rate without the downside of convicting innocents. It's not just their system vs what we have now!