Sam Devenport

For the justice system as depicted in “Minority Report” to be valid, there needs to be one crucial presupposition: the future is unchangeable, that events that have yet to happen are inevitable, that there is an established and unstoppable sequence of reality that is ultimately very similar to the notion of fate. Similarly, there would be no free will, no ability for an individual to make his own decisions and consequently choose his own destiny. Though there it is difficult to propose a formal argument that might be able to disprove such a world (and, conversely, support one with free will among other things), it is such a discouraging way of things that to even entertain the possibility that we today have no influence in what we do or become years from now is far too unsettling to even consider. Like the concept of predestination, which subjects those not favored or chosen to a life made miserable by the knowledge that, after their time spent on Earth, they will be condemned to an eternity (which is, of course, considerably longer than the half century spent toiling away in the living world) in the pits of Hell, the realization that nothing can be done, whether redemptive or preventive, to salvage one’s future does little to encourage the prospect of the rest of one’s life. In fact, it encourages nothing but paranoia as man lives under the oppression of the knowledge that he could, at any moment, be apprehended and punished for something that they knew nothing about. Further more, it destroys the philosophy of justice, which is, in essence, a two step process; first, a crime, whether in moral or legal terms, is committed, followed by the intervention of some higher authority, who punishes the committer with an appropriate sentence corresponding directly to the severity of grievance. To remove the crime breaks all the logic, regardless of how effective the method is.