Gattaca And Behaviorism

Evolution of Self
In the movie, Gattaca, the predominate society believes in behaviorism. Which is the theory that there is no self only the body, or more importantly they view the self as a display of each individuals’ genetic makeup. But this idea is not true, the movie actually implies the self does not arise from our genes, the self is a choice. Sartre’s transcendence is that we, as individuals, choose what to make from the facts of our lives. Even Vincent is taken in by the idea of behaviorism when becoming Jerome. Eugene and Vincent focus on giving him the name, blood, physical appearance, signature and work history of Jerome, but that was not enough to make him truly Jerome. They still fear capture, because all those facts are only …show more content…
People are able to take a fact about themselves, like Vincent being a faith birth, and turn it around into a different meaning or justification to their actions or lack of actions. Vincent viewed himself as Jerome entirely differently that Eugene does. Vincent is afraid that someone will notice that he is not Jerome, when he expresses these concerns, Eugene says to Vincent “You still don't understand. When people look at you, they don't see you anymore. They only see me.” Vincent becomes his authentic self, an astronaut and someone strong enough to reach that dream. He becomes everything Jerome was meant to be, everything that their society believes is a result or behaviorism, or their individual genes. Though this new self is very different from how he previously acted Vincent is still himself despite going by the name Jerome. This plays into another aspect of transcendence, that no self is complete until their death. A person will continue to redefine the facts of their life as long as they are living. This makes every self a work in progress, and something that is always …show more content…
The conflicting ideas are especially show cased when the directors said to Vincent about his mission to Titian, “It's right that someone like you should be leading the mission”. In the original context the director was talking about Jerome and his DNA, and if Jerome had not been Vincent this could have been true. But ironically the director is current in saying Vincent is a good choice to lead, because Vincent was able to see past the behaviorism his society presented to achieve his goal. Vincent creates his self and uses transcendence to do so. He takes the facts about his life, being a faith birth, having a high genetic chance for multiple physical and mental health conditions, and he turns them from excuses into motivation. He does not let bad faith, giving up before he could try because of the facts of his life stop him from reaching it. The body does not define the self but a combination of a person’s factuality and how they choose to act based on them does. We all have a responsibility as humans to create our own selves and to acknowledge and accept the blame onto ourselves that person we are today is a result of our own choices, and that self will change again in the future as we continue to redefine