The film, Eyes without a Face (original
title: Les Yeux sans Visage) (1960), can be taken as a demonstration of
the validity of Kant’s ethical theory. Whether or not viewers have studied Immanuel
Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, the film is a good representation that it is unethical to treat other people only as a means. Kant claims that people should always be treated also as ends in themselves. In the film, physician Génessier
literally goes into innocent young women with his scalpel, using them as means in his obsession to provide his daughter, Christiane, with skin on her face. She
has no skin on her face because of an automobile accident in which her father was at
fault. For our purposes, the film's message is relevant. Companies literally have human resource departments and so many states use human beings as expendable soldiers. The very notion of a soldier can be viewed as an oxymoron to the extent that beings having a rational nature are sent out to be killed. It's not like having a flee killed. The film provides us with a great
service in bringing Kant’s ethic to us, if only in that we don’t to read the philosopher's recondite ethical treatise (though Hegel's books are even more difficult).
Sunday, October 29, 2023
Eyes without a Face
