Laura Abreu

Eng2400

Final Essay

Prof.Scanlan    

     Is empathy the same as Virtue ethics? No, they are not the same because Empathy is defined as the capacity to feel or understand what another person is experiencing and the capacity to place oneself in another’s position, And virtue ethics is defined as the moral theory that focuses on the development of a virtuous character.   Empathy along with virtue and another type of ethics can be seen in literary works which are later translated into films. A  film in which empathy and ethics like deontology and virtue ethics are “The Life of Pi” by Ang Lee the film version of the written story “The Life of Pi” by Yan Martel. In the film the life of PI, there are many scenes in which we can see Pi feeling empathy for the animals, Pi following a set of rules, and Pi being moral.

    In the film the Life of Pi, a scene in which we can see Pi feeling empathy for the animals is seen, in the scene were the hyena attack the zebra in the boat, and eats the broken leg of the zebra, in this scene, there’s a close up on Pi’s face while he is screaming to the hyena not to eat the Zebra, in this close up we can see Pi crying which can be interpreted as if Pi was feeling the pain that the Zebra was feeling. Another scene in which Pi Feel empathy for the animals is shown when he helps orange juice gets, the orangutan on the boat and sees that she is seasick and tells her that if he had medicine for seasickness he would give it to her, this scene shows empathy because it shows that Pi feels bad for the animals. In the written version the two situations that I  mentioned above are the same as in the film but in the written story there is a slight difference. This difference is that in the written story there is a part where it shows utilitarian ethics, utilitarian ethics is defined as the idea that believes that the purpose of morality is to make life better by increasing the amount of good things (such as pleasure and happiness) in the world and decreasing the amount of bad things (such as pain and unhappiness).  Utilitarian ethics is seen after Pi helps orange juice get in the boat and right after that says “ I clung to hope that a zebra, a familiar prey and an orangutan, an unfamiliar one would distract it from the toughs of me”. This is an example of utilitarian ethics because although the hyena would attack the zebra and the orangutan would make him sad, he will be happy because the hyena will not attack him for a while.

    In this film, we can also see examples of deontology, deontology is defined as any system that involves a clear set of rules, an example in which Pi follows a clear set of rules is seen when he founds the survival guide and follows the rules written in it. Another scene in which pi follows a set of rules is when he creates/follows the rule of “shipwrecked whit dangerous carnivorous animals and attempt to mark his territory and to train Richard Parker. Another example is seen at the beginning of the films when Pi is practicing many religions and how he follows the rules of those religions. If it had not been for the survival manual and the rules written in this Pi, I would have died or gone crazy.

  In the film we can also see a clear example of virtue ethics, virtue ethics is defined as the moral theory that focuses on the development of a virtuous character. In the film we can see a clear example of virtue ethics in the scene where Pi helps Richard Parker (the tiger) to get back on the boat, after it jumps off the boat attempting to catch a fish, this is an example of virtue ethics because it shows Part of Pi morals, although he knew that if he had let him there he would have gotten rid of him, this shows Pi morals because he knew that letting the tiger die in there wasn’t the right thing to do although he knew that rescuing it may not be a good thing to do because he could attack Pi. Another example of virtue ethics is seen when Pi asks orange juice for her baby and after noticing that it wasn’t with her he tells her that probably his mom and dad have it, this is an example of virtue ethics because Although Pi knew that the baby was probably dead, he answered that way because it was the right thing to do and to try not to make Orange Juice sad. Both the written version and the film share the same storyline in which we can see examples of empathy and ethics. The only difference between both works is that the film has a more clear way to project the ethics and ideas than the written version because throughout the film the director use film techniques like camera, close up, and shadows.

  In conclusion empathy and virtue and other types of ethics can be seen in literal work and in films, an example of empathy and ethics like utilitarian ethics, virtue ethics, and deontology is seen in both the written story of the “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel and the film version of the “Life of Pi” by Ang Lee.