TOK-PRES+PLAN+CLARISSA

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Presentation planning document
Submit to: **TOK teacher** Session: **May 2013** School number: **000357** School name: **DULWICH COLLEGE SHANGHAI**

Candidate name: Clarissa Tan Shu Yi Candidate session number: 000357 _ _ _ _ Title of presentation:

1. What is the real life situation under consideration? The film Good (2008). Directed by Vincente Amorim. (Adapted from a play by C.P Taylor)

2. What is the TOK knowledge issue that will be the focus of your presentation? (This must be expressed as a question.) How do emotion and reason play in making ethical decisions?

3. Write a summary in note form (for example, a bullet point list), of the way you plan to deal with knowledge issues during your presentation). - Introduce knowledge issue - Define terms in knowledge issue. (such as ethics, reason, emotion) - Give a brief summary of what the film is about and background information of the setting in which the film was set. - Show a short clip or relavent and important scene that can help explain the knowledge issue - Explain and describe how emotion and reason link to such actions - Examine how such actions are processed in one mind scientifically (linking to reason and area of knowledge: Human science and more specifically psychology.) - Investigate how language and sense perception come into play; in this case how it affected his emotional and logical response - Consider a certain biased the director may have had when directing the film; how historical facts may have been toned down or twisted. - Consider my biased in addressing the knowledge issue. - Include my personal opinion in possibly what i may have done in the situation - Conclusion: Taking into consideration the certain bias that may have occur; through what i have discovered....

Different Clips from the Movie to show 1) The Protagonist of the film; John Halder (played by Viggo Mortensen) - in the beginning we see that he regards hitler as a joke - he then being asked to write a paper for the party; the party tries to recruit him and suceeds - in a way he turn his back on his best friend (maurice) and the next time john sees him; Maurice begs him for exit paper out of the country. - He does initially try but he does it unsuccessfully and without his whole heart. - However, when he hears about the plotting of the night of the broken glass; he steals exit paper and tries to get them to maurice. - This plans fails as john's wife betrays him as she thought she was doing the right thing.
 * EXAMPLES: **

2) Maurice Gluckstein (played by Jacob Issacs) - Maurice ask to John to come by his house to beg him for exit papers. - he is desperate and tries to play to both John's sympathy and reason to get those papers

3) Anne ( played by Jodie Whittaker) - She instead of handing the exit papers to maurice turns him into the Gestapo; in thinking that was the right thing to do.

John: -the benefits of joining the party - such as promotion, the privilege of attending parties, a position of power and authority, money, etc. Maurice - the chance to live and keep a shred of dignity Anne: - she would be sending another human being to his death.
 * ARGUMENTS: **
 * Reason:**

John: - betraying his best friend and disappointing him Maurice: - Germany was where he grew up in; his homeland Anne: - in her mind its the right thing to do; as she is of aryan german race
 * Emotion:**


 * AREAS OF KNOWLEDGE: **

Biology: Evolution and the Brain

As part of evolution; we as human being are hardwired to have both and emotional side and a logical side and both are interlink. This being said there is no such thing as purely rational or a purely emotional decision. Having said that; it is possibly we might never know how emotion and reason play in making decisions. However; studies have shown that in making difficult decisions, the “emotional” brain provides a more reliable platform. In this instance; when John is forced to make the decisions though it took a while to convince him john eventually buckled; he sticks to what he thinks is right however when reason kicks in he changes his mind. In addition; when relying on reason; we have to process these thoughts.

Psychology: Sigmund Freud Structural Model of the psyche.

Consists of the Id/devil (unconscious), ego(conscious) and super-ego/angel (unconscious).

In making these decisions; the unconscious automatically generates an automatic emotional reaction thus enabling us to make up our mind in what’s right and wrong as the id and super-ego resides in our unconscious. Using logic, the brain needs more time to process information thus ; we are more likely to think on our feet figuratively.

Furthermore our ethical views are based on what we have learnt growing up; we seldom question it and accept it without giving much thought as we are conditioned to.


 * PUT MYSELF IN THE SITUATION: **

If I were in John position; I would help Maurice as much as possible but if I were in Anne position I would turn Maurice in. I consider myself to think more with my emotion than rationally think something out. Given Anne position; I would turn him as I would most likely be brainwashed with Nazi Ideology.

The way the film was made and the characters portrayed are to show what happen in the film did or did not happen in real life. Though the storyline is mainly fiction; there is some truth to certain parts of the film and as one of the main storyline of the films to consider is that not all Nazi solider were bad to start of with but instead they were good at one point. Or in other word: "What makes a Nazi?" Therefore, the director's perspective must be taken into account. The director of the film is from Austria who was allies with Germany during the war. This makes it possible that the director downplayed the actions to create a sense of humanity in the film in order to show that Nazi soldiers are not that bad. The does create a big impact as he responsible for how the film plays out does affect how the decisions were portrayed on camera and affects how I viewed the situation. However, the playwright; which the film was adapted from is from Scotland. Though she did not have a very big role in decision made in the film the biased must be taken into account. This biased is not very big and does not pose much of a problem.
 * DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES/ BIASED: **

The film can be interpreted a couple of ways. This presentation was based on my analysis of how the 3 characters made their decisions or used emotion and reason and may not necessarily be what it should be or what the director envision. But in my opinion, I demonstrated how emotion and reason played apart in all their decision they made. Firstly, my past experiences could have affected this. As someone who values friendships; I would consider what John did in regards to Maurice an unforgivable thing. Secondly, growing up in a westernized world where history was written by the winners(containing a certain biased there); in my mind I see the Holocaust as a terrifying moment in history and considered the act inhumane. Thus the fact that Anne did so could have swayed my perspective of the situation. Even though I tried to keep an open mind; I would think that my biasedness had a big impact in my presentation. Furthermore; having never been place in such a situation; I could only speculate and infer from the film what the characters were thinking but does not affect the analysis in a big way.

Given the definition used as part of this presentation; a rationalist would then mean to see the situation in a more colored way as to the way I have seen it which is more straight forward; in black and white. The rationalist would be able to justify how the characters had made their decisions and have a better understanding of the situation.

“So convenient a thing it is to be reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make reason for everything one has a mind to do” –Benjamin Franklin. Emotion and reason do have big roles in ethical decision-making but in different ways. As emotion tends to go hand in hand with impulsivity we rely quite a bit on our emotions. Using the analogy of an accused in a courtroom; emotion is the one being trialed while reason is the lawyer trying to argue it case using bits of evidence it can find. there can be a lot of variables that are dependent on this. such as context of situation, personal relations to person, whether the person is highly rational or not, etc. There is no better or worse in this situation; sometimes emotion is better than reason or vice versa.
 * IMPLICATIONS/ CONCLUSION: **

How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer. Sigmund's Freud Structural Model of Psyche
 * SUPPORTING MATERIALS: **