I love when ridiculous, otherwise terrible movies make me think about important philosophical questions. It almost redeems their overall lousiness and soothes my desire to ask for a refund. Premonition, starring Sandra Bullock, is no exception, and although it is without question an awful film, I was left pondering an important example of negative responsibility.
For discussion’s sake, I will provide a brief synopsis of the film, taking care not to reveal the entire story despite the fact that no one with any taste should watch this film. Sandra Bullock is a married mother of two who finds herself in a rather puzzling altered reality. She is informed that her husband was killed in a car accident, and then awakens the next morning to find that he is alive again. For unknown reasons, her week has fallen out of chronological order, such that she is aware of her husband’s pending demise prior to its occurrence. The overdone themes emerge, personal growth, coming to terms with things, etcetera, etcetera, and finally she asks the one redeeming ethical question of the entire film: Is letting my husband die the same as killing him?
This is an important question, not only for the particular character, but also for real world humans. Bullock’s premonition about her husband’s death allowed her to choose whether or not to save him. If she chooses not to act and allows events to transpire as they are meant to, would she then be responsible, to any extent, for her husband’s death? This is the notion of negative responsibility, and it is an important one for ethicists to try to address. If I directly cause harm, I am obviously responsible for the consequences of my actions. But what if I simply fail to prevent something terrible, without directly causing it?
Bullock’s situation is not typical, and I have a hard time saying that she is responsible for her husband’s death simply by virtue of having prior knowledge of its occurrence. Had she been aware of a plot to poison him, for example, my feelings might be different. As it is formulated, however, I see no justifiable reason to hold Bullock’s character accountable for her husband’s death simply because she failed to act on supernatural hyperawareness. But how might this interpretation relate to my everyday ethical practices?
Like many complicated ethical questions, the appropriate answer to whether we are responsible for failure to act and to what degree this responsibility is weighted, is a rather guarded “it depends.” Consequentialists follow a strict interpretation of the doctrine of negative responsibility, which states that I am responsible for my failure to act in much the same way that I am responsible for my actions. They would likely conclude that Bullock’s character, by failing to prevent negative consequences, is just as responsible for her husband’s death as she would be if she had directly caused it. I do not think that such an interpretation is warranted, however.
The problem with a strict interpretation of negative responsibility is knowing where to draw the line. If Bullock’s character is guilty, what about some of the indirect consequences of my own actions? I drive a car, and my nation’s government has killed many innocent people in order to preserve my access to the fossil fuel that powers this car. Am I responsible for all the deaths caused by “oil wars?” To some extent, I am, because awareness of consequences does entail some degree of responsibility for those consequences. However, this should not lessen the severity with which we view the actions of those who directly cause certain consequences. My decision to drive a car is not as significant as Bush’s decision to declare war, or Congress’s decision to provide funding for that war.
The point here, made rather well by the film in question, is that questions of negative responsibility are difficult to answer. We should not place all ethical responsibility, I think, on those who fail to prevent horrific acts because this negates the significance of the actions that directly caused certain outcomes. However, we should equally not fail to recognize the importance of our own complacency. To answer the question posed in Premonition, Bullock’s character letting her husband die is not the same as killing him. However, it is not so different as to be ethically unimportant or morally permissible.
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