Sussman 1 Adam Sussman HZT4U Ms. Efimov May 25, 2014 V for Vendetta Reflection Throughout the film V for Vendetta, V shows the audience his cleaver and insightful ways on how he plans to heal the damaged society. As V takes on the totalitarianism society run by the British Government, he displays to Kant’s theories that he is the opposite. Although his morals might be in the right place, he continuously uses others to meet the ends of his own means, which directly goes against Kant’s categorical imperative. Along with this, V’s revenge seeking mission goes against another maxim Kant put on his categorical imperative. This is the ‘universality’ maxim. If everyone were doing what V was doing the entire time, many more people would have been killed as well as they are would be no conflict in the first place. What the ‘party’ or the government of Great Britain has been doing the entire time would have never have occurred if they were all fighting the party like V was. V goes against every bit of Kant’s categorical imperative and justifies his own ends through other peoples will. V doesn’t force anyone to do anything in V for Vendetta but rather offers him or her a question of joining or opposing his ways.

Sussman 2 As the film progresses, V just shows us how much he actually opposes the guidelines of Kant’s first maxim in his theory of the categorical imperative. The first maxim being universality, V shows the audience that he is the only one who can be doing this and no one else would have the bloodthirsty passion that runs through his veins. V being the one who survived the horrific fire back when the labs, and cells went a blaze, has the burning passion to seek and gain revenge on the party and everything that it stands for. He shows Evey by putting her through the same torture he received and only after that she chooses to stay with V. She now carries that same fiery passion that V does and has the courage to pull the lever in the end. If V had the power for everyone to go through that same torture, in the same process he did, the universality affect would prove to be great aid for V. If everyone in the universe put each other through this same torture not only V and Evey would carry this passion and hate that unites them, but everyone would. Now not only would everyone be connected, but even the party going through this torture would finally see the flaws in their ways and might choose to take a different future path for Britain to follow. If universality proved to be true V’s ‘job’/mission in V for Vendetta would be a lot less elaborate and difficult. V does not want to follow universality for it’s not as black and white as it may seem. Having so much passion and personal hate towards the party V finds onus upon himself to personally take down the party via manipulation of others and personal talents. Along with this, all the decisions V makes throughout the film show us that if everyone would make the decisions he made, not only would a lot more lives be loss, but the end goal would fail as well. For these reasons we

Sussman 3 can see why V fully opposes Kant’s first maxim for his categorical imperative on universality.

Not only does V oppose the first maxim of Kant’s categorical imperative but he also fails to follow the second maxim as well. The second maxim being you cannot use humans as ends for your means but rather just as ends. This means everyone needs to respect humanity and each individual human as their own being. You cannot use other humans to find means to your ends, I.e using them to obtain things your want. Although the mind is a place of greed, V overlooks the second maxim of the categorical imperative by manipulating the civilians of Britain to oppose and overthrow their totalitarianism government. Even though V used humans as an end to his means, he also uses them to bind together as one and fight for their own end means. Although the civilians at first would never dare to over throw the Party and their agents, through the hope and passion V feeds them they finally bind together as one to successfully overthrow the party. Without V opposing Kant’s second maxim on the categorical imperative, London and Great Britain would always be under the dark wraths of the Party. If a commander in war would lead his army in such a way that V leads Britain, the world would have a lot less blood on its hands. V leads the civilian party to take down the government Party in a way in which they surrender. If an army commander created havoc personally to inspire and give hope to his army to a point in which they are so powerful their enemy would instantly surrender, many commanders would do this today. The civilians of Britain want it to end like

Sussman 4 this but don’t see a way to get there. By V using humans as ends to his own means, he shows the civilians how their ends do not differ from one another. Their ends are V’s ends and V’s ends are their ends. Although V uses them to find ends to his own means, by doing this he also finds ends to their means. V doing this for the greater good still goes against Kant’s second maxim on the categorical imperative but finds personal morality in the whole thing.

Even though V opposes the categorical imperative and all that it stands for, he does it for the greater good of the innocent civilians of Britain. Without V opposing the Universality maxim and the ‘ends to means’ maxim he would have never been able to unite the innocent population of Britain to overthrow their government. If Kant were alive today he wouldn’t allow for V’s exceptions to the categorical imperative to pass for his first intent was to feed his only personal hate and revenge on the party. Although by the end of the film it is everyone’s goal to do this, it was not in the innocent civilians intentions to overthrow and oppose their government anytime soon. It shows how their beginning intensions and morals were not the same as they’re end ones. Through V purposely manipulating many over the course of the film and opposing the categorical imperative he finally leaves Britain with an end that they all deserve.