How Does Wiesler Change In The Lives Of Others

The film, The Lives of Others, portrays an example of how human beings are in conflict with other human beings simply because they have no understanding of the lives of others. The main character of the movie, Stasi Captain Gerd Wiesler, seemed to change his views throughout the film constantly simply because he became aware of the lives of others. There are many scenes in the movie in which Wiesler’s actions would be considered moral on Kantian grounds.
For instance, Wiesler’s character starts off biased. He has no love or heart. He is monitoring into the private lives of others without thinking. Kant would support Wiesler’s actions because he believes that we have duties to help others. In the Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of …show more content…
This is because the boy was curious as he was told that the Stasi are bad people by his father. Wiesler replied, “I see. What is the name of your…” (Donnnersmarck, 2007). Wiesler began to ask what the father’s name is as he is used to interrogating because he is a Stasi Police Officer. However, he stopped himself and instead asked what the name of his football is. He cares about the boy, and therefore he halted before asking a hurtful question. Moreover, in another scene, where he meets Sieland in a bar, he states, “You don't know me, but I know you. Many people love you for who you are.” To which Sieland replies, “Actors are never ‘who they are’." Wiesler then continues, “You are. I've seen you on stage. You were more who you are than you are now.” (Donnnersmarck, 2007). Here, Wiesler is talking to Sieland like they are friends and thus, showing that he cares. Both the scene with the boy and the dialogue with Sieland are examples of Wiesler shifting from being a spy to a person who has feelings and cares. His experience with the lives of others, lead him to take action based on duty and goodwill. Kant explains, “Necessity of acting from pure respect for the practical law is what constitutes duty, to which every other motive must give place, because it is the condition of a will being good in itself, and the worth of such a will is above everything.” (Kant, Pg.201) In other …show more content…
Dreyman and Sieland were cuddling in bed, and Wiesler was trying to copy them. As he was in this position, his assistant stopped by and Wiesler abruptly walked over as if he wasn’t doing anything. He even told his assistant that he was five minutes late. The assistant thought he was originally sleeping, but what Wiesler was really trying to do was feel and embrace the emotion that Dreyman was feeling, because as a Stasi Police Officer he was not used to a life like that. This is an example of Wiesler attempting to gain experience. Kant would describe Wiesler’s transition going from a priori to a posteriori. To further explain, a priori means prior to experience and a posteriori means after experience is underway. During this scene, Wiesler is in the middle of his experience. When he didn’t experience or learn about the lives of others, Wiesler had no idea what kind of people they were and always assumed the worst. However, afterwards, when he did learned more about them, he understood them and cared for them. That is a posteriori. In addition, this is also an example of a hypothetical imperative. More specifically, Kant believed in two different types of imperatives based on Moral law: hypothetical imperative and categorical imperative. Hypothetical imperative tells you what you should do to achieve a particular