Value Hedonism In The Film Paradise Now

In the film “Paradise Now”, two Palestinian men living in Tel Aviv are recruited to become suicide bombers. Khaled and Said are the two main characters in this movie. Khaled and Said become involved with a suicide bombing group. They become trained on how to properly execute their missions by a leader. The mission that Khaled and Said are given is to cross the border into Israel. As they are crossing, they have bombs strapped to their chests. If they disassemble these bombs themselves and do it incorrectly, the bombs will explode. Before they make it through security to Israel, they have caught border patrols attention. During the chaos, the men get split up. Khaled goes back to the terrorists, while Said manages to sneak across the border into Israel. Throughout the film, Khaled seems to contemplate following through with the bombing. While Said on the other hand, has fully committed and is willing and wanting to …show more content…
Utilitarianism decides if an action is moral or immoral by the number of people affected and their happiness. Utilitarianism ultimately wants to be the greatest outcome for the greatest number of people. So the question here is, Do Said’s actions result in happiness for a large amount of people? Bentham also talks about Value Hedonism. Value Hedonism refers to pleasure versus pain. In Said’s situation, there would be much more pain than pleasure because it is assumed that he bombs himself, and many others, on a public bus. We also must think about Said’s mother, siblings, friends, and Suha. They would experience significant pain from Said’s life being lost. Bentham says that a right action is only right if it produces the highest amount of utility over every other action. According to Bentham, Said’s actions are not morally justifiable because he is killing a bus full of innocent people. This will undoubtedly cause many people pain and suffering and therefore does not support