In the movie, “The Minority Report,” a unique and interesting justice system is in use. Beings called precogs predict future murders and detectives have to stop it before it happens. The example in the clip we saw was of a man who was about to kill his wife and her lover. The precogs predicted this crime of passion and the detectives for the where, who, and why aspects of the crime in order to arrest the felon for the “future murder” of two people. The question is, is this justice system really ‘just’? Just is defined as “acting or being in conformity with what is morally upright or good.” Given only the material that we see in the video clip, I argue that this system is not just. One reason for this is an alternate future theory, because …show more content…
He picks up a knife and stabs both of them. This is the future that the precogs know can happen, they look for murders, not second thoughts. Say the same events happen, a man walks upstairs, sees his wife with another man, picks up a knife and then breaks down crying because he just can't kill them. The precogs don't know this future, they will never see this future, because they see murders, and that wasn't what they were looking for. So time plays out, the little time train switches tracks to the second future, the nonkilling future. But the precogs don't know, the detectives don't know, because all the events leading up to the possible murder are exactly the same. The detectives figure out where and who is committing this possible murder. They storm into the house, snatch the knife from the possible murderer’s hands and arrest him for the future murder of his wife and her lover. A murder that was never going to happen because the second future was the one that played out.
Another reason the precogs are unjust is because you never learn if there is a proper justice system. Do the accused get a fair trial? And if they do how will the judge believe them if all the people think the first future was the one that happened? Even though the man never intended to kill his wife, everyone believes that that was his plan. And there is no way the judge will believe that he was not going to kill them, not when