The slides for today talk about the loss of self, memories, dreams, the ability to control one’s life that appears so often in Philip Dick’s work. On the first page of “The Minority Report,” Ed Anderton asserts his free will to Ed Witwer, the young man who intends to replace him: “I’m under no compulsion to retire. I founded pre-crime and I can stay here as long as I want. It’s purely my decision.”
The rest of the story thrusts Anderton into a wild conspiracy (or is it one?) that raises questions about the existence and value of free will. At the end, do you think “The Minority Report” sees Anderton as acting freely, as absolutely constrained, or as having a real but limited capacity for self-determination? Why? Point to one or two specific moments or images that drive your thinking.
To be honest this story leaves me with more questions than answers regarding self-determination and will. If we consider Anderton’s explanation on how to precogs develop their multiple scenarios for the future, along with the tangible sense of spontaneity and doubt conveyed by the writing style, we can argue that self-determination exists as long as possibilities for different outcomes exists. However, we can also argue that paradoxically it is the existence of different outcomes, the illusion of choice, that strips us of self-determination and similar to Greek tragedies, the moment Anderton decided to act the prophecy fulfilled itself. If Anderton had resigned himself to a system which he believes in and created then Kaplan’s plan would have worked out and that system destroyed. Because Anderton struggled against this system of predetermination, he was able to safeguard it. Perhaps it does not matter whether we have real will or not, what matters is believing that we do and keep trying to exert it?
The ending of the story leads me to believe that Anderton was not acting with free will, but only because of his deep seeded beliefs. However, I believe that the world created by the minority report story there is free will. Anderton was in the unique position of knowing the prediction that he would commit murder. Coupled with the fact he knew the consequences of his actions, Anderton’s actions were essentially predetermined assuming his moral compass didn’t change. My reasoning for why Anderton does not have free will comes from his last conversation with Witwer. The explanation of the three reports seem to imply that each different prediction only creates one outcome. As Anderton points out this is a very unique position that only the police commissioner can be put in. This is because they have access to the reports, and have a lot to lose if the report is incorrect. Therefore, they are put into a moral dilemma between two evils.
On a separate note, I am confused by the other acts of killing and attempted killing in the book. Why wouldn’t these scenarios also be foreseen by the police?
Anderton clearly does not have the choice to pick his own destiny. I believe that Anderton had no free will in this story. Upon learning that he would commit murder within the week thanks to his position, he still finds himself in the same position that any other citizen would find themselves in. Even if he used free will to not commit the murder of Kaplan the transcripts would still point to him as being the guilty party. No matter his actions he seems poised to lose and a broken spirit directly correlates with having your own will taken away from you. Anderton is that he is in a much different situation than the rest of society is. People are still wrongly accused and convicted in society today and often times their are societal prejudices like race that can influence peoples minds. With a transcript foretelling of your murder it would be nearly impossible to argue against that notion. In the end Anderton had his will taken away and did not possess his won freewill.
The precrime apparatus that Anderson seeks to flee functions based on a complete forfeiture of free will in regard to the judgments made by the precogs. It is successful after all, as over 99% of crimes have been prevented as a result of adhering to the precog premonitions. To entertain even the slightest notion that the precogs are not omniscient would mean the crumbling of the entire justice system, which is exactly what Leo Kaplan seeks to do. Although throughout his career Anderton has followed the word of the precogs unquestioningly, which appears to be a necessary condition of its functioning, it does appear that Anderton does have some limited agency in terms of interpreting the majority and minority reports and their relation to one another. From what I understand, the precogs are able to predict the future based on differing time parallels, and so their reports are not always congruent. Anderton describes how often two of the predictions will agree, forming the majority report, and the third report that is different, the minority report, will be discarded as being inaccurate. However, at the end of the story Anderton realizes that the precogs have produced three minority reports that built off one another, and so the procedure for evaluating the precrime needed to be looked at differently. Thus, Anderton used his own intuition to interpret the precogs, making the legal system a somewhat more interpretive one than it had been before. As a result, Anderton realizes that past convictions may have had the same construction, and therefore innocent people could have been put behind bars. This, however, is where Anderton’s agency is stripped from him–he realizes that he cannot admit the nature of the minority report or else all former past convictions need to be called into question. It is unclear what further steps Anderton, or even Witwer, would take in reforming the legal system to accommodate the minority reports, or whether they would maintain the status quo in order to keep their society crimeless. In summary, Anderton’s case was a unique instance in which intuition was used in handling the impending crime, but previously the precog system of law required complete submission and faith in its veracity.
I fall on the side of limited capacity for purposes of this discussion. To arrive at this conclusion, I compare the predictions of the Pre cogs with the actual outcomes of the movie, and am thinking of two primary examples.
First, I think to the scene where Anderton is in Leo Crow’s apartment, and Agatha informs Anderton that he can seize control of his destiny by refusing to kill Crow. Anderton agrees, and peacefully lowers his gun. Yet crow, looking for the payoff to his family, ends up killing himself nevertheless. One could say that Anderton had the capacity to slightly alter the means by which the predicted outcome of Crow’s death happens, however the outcome still occurred.
The other example I think to with respect to this point is the end of the film. It was predicted that Burgess would kill Anderton, and as we know this prediction was completely wrong, seeing as Burgess kills himself. I think that in this case, Anderton didn’t really have any control of what ended up happening. Despite the fact that the prediction was wrong, the will of Burgess conflicted with his own will, giving Anderton limited capacity to control the outcome.
Ultimately, on a purely individual level, this movie demonstrates that people have some control over their fates. Getting a bit technical here, in a world where each individual possesses their own free will, these ‘wills’ will inherently come into contact with one another as individuals interact with one another. Given this clash, it is logical to say that any individual, despite their own free will & given the free will of those around them, only has so much of their destiny they control; the rest is determined by the choices of those around them.
I believe that Anderton had no free will in this story. The thing with Anderton is that he is in a much different situation than the rest of society is. By being the Commissioner of the Precrime Authority, Anderton in a way can see the future before it happens—He is given knowledge of the precrime transcripts before they are acted upon. When one transcript reveals that he is going to kill within the next week, he has the ability to act on this decision and decide whether or not to actually go through with it. Without this knowledge, the entire plot and situation of the story would have been different. He would have been surprised when he was accused, and not have had the ability to act upon it. I would consider this not having free-will. His actions were influenced by exterior forces, and he ended up fulfilling the prophecy that he would kill Kaplan that week. While it seems like it could be free will, he is constrained to society and has to make a decision based on how society is portraying him.