Movie: “Election” (1999- Matthew Broderick, Reese Witherspoon)
Scene:
“After all the ballots are counted, Tracy has won by one vote (we learn that Paul, who has no ill will towards Tracy and did not want to egotistically vote for himself, voted for her). McAllister is so angry that he secretly disposes of two of the pro-Tracy ballots, demands a re-count, and names Paul as the winner.”[1]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_%281999_film%29
We can see that the decision taken by the professor McAllister is a human act since he has the intention to do so. That is, he considered that she does not deserve to be the class president; so when he counts the ballots and sees that she wins, he disposes of two of the ballots. He has the intention to make his student notice that there are more important things than winning that election. That is why he takes that decision considering that that is the right time to do so.
McAllister is completely awareness of his acting brings. That is, he knows what consequences his disposing of the pro-Tracy ballots carries. That is why he decides to act like that so as to reach his purpose. However he is not aware at that time of the consequences that he deals with when everybody knows about his cheating. If he had analyzed the consequences that his acting would bring, he would have avoided many unpleasant situations, to be fired from her job, considered to be a dishonest and disloyal person, to lose the respect he used to have among the community where he lives (one of his students spit him out after his cheating came to light).
Although McAllister has other choices to teach Tracy a lesson, he does not take them into consideration; so that he considers that preventing Tracy from winning is the most suitable choice.
According to Daniel Ruiz (1987) there are three requirements that a human act must have in order to be morally good. These requirements are the following:
· the action must be good in itself
· good intention/ purpose
· good circumstances.
To begin with, an action to be good in itself must follow two principles “kinship (to help somebody who belongs to your community) and reciprocity (to help somebody and assume that that person will do the same for you) principle.” So according to that, this human act is not good in itself; it responds neither kinship nor reciprocity principle although he thinks that his acting is right. This human act lacks these principles since he does not think about Tracy and the harm that he may cause her (he is not helping at all, he thinks that though).
The circumstances at which he tries to teach that lesson are not good either. I think that it is not the right moment or situation to show Tracy that he/she is wrong about being very ambitious. The intention that his acting may respond is not good since what he wants is Tracy to lose so as to learn a lesson about life. Would you make somebody feel bad and sad in order to teach her a lesson?This professor does.This human act is not morally good because it does not follow to any of the requirements that they must have to be considered good.
Finally, I think that there are other options to be considered in this decision, for instance, to talk to the girl and make her reflect over her acting. The teacher considers that she is “evil and needs to be stopped, especially when she is able to use her rather false good girl image” so that he decides to stop her in that way. Neither he nor anybody can prevent somebody from being happy, no matter what that person thinks about being happy. “Tracy wants to be simply because it would make her college application even more desirable to colleges;” that is why she works to the bone in order to win, so why do the teacher feel that she does not deserve to win if she responds to the characteristics that any commitment person have to fill that role?
What is more, the teacher knows that Paul, the boy who wins, is not very concerned with the issues that he must deal with as being a school body president.
So to my mind this was not the best choice to take since as a result of the teacher’s acting, many people got hurt.
