Minority Report (film)

Does the system of justice described in The Minority Report truly benefit society

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I don't think so because fate and free will become a tangled mess. The premise of PreCrime is that human beings' actions can be predicted, and that there is a certain amount of predetermination that goes into every act. In this schema, free will is an illusion, and human beings are victims of fate, unable to control or modify their actions at will. As a PreCrime cop, John Anderton firmly believes in this philosophy. However, once he is framed for a future murder of Leo Crow, he begins to question its efficacy. How can he kill someone whom he doesn't even know? When he meets Crow, he is led to believe that Crow is the man who kidnapped and killed his son 6 years ago. For a moment, Anderton becomes a victim of his own fate, filled with a murderous rage at Crow. Agatha, however, reminds him that if he knows the narrative of his fate, he can choose to make things turn out a different way. "You have a choice," she reminds him, and sure enough, Anderton is able to break out of his spell of rage and resist his supposedly predetermined fate. Thus, the film is concerned with examining the relationship between free will and fate, showing the ways that, while certain things are fated or predestined, human beings still make choices, and these choices are evidence of their free will.