Movie The School example essay topic

Ethics Ethics, what is it and how does it apply to the movie School Ties? First, we start with what the definition of ethics is. One such definition published by WordNet (R) 1.6, (c) 1997 Princeton University and found on Dictionary. com is "the principles of right and wrong that are accepted by an individual or a social group; "the Puritan ethic"; "a person with old-fashioned values" 2: a system of principles governing morality and acceptable conduct". Simple enough, right?

Or is it? What might be accepted by one person or group could be scorned by another person or group. Then you have the temptations that challenge an individual's or group's Ethical beliefs. This is what you see most in the movie School Ties on many different levels from a large prestigious school to each individual character in the movie. We start with the school St. Mathews. This school is portrayed in the movie as one of the elite high schools and a gateway to such colleges as Harvard and other Ivy League colleges.

The school's values of honor, integrity, and respect are diminished by the Alumni's greed for bragging rights in an annual sporting event, football. In the movie the school recruits a "ringer" to play quarterback in order to defeat a rival school in its annual game. Even though the school is Catholic and the student, David Green, is Jewish and keeping it hush hush from the student body. It was only when an Alumni slipped at a celebration that David was Jewish did any of the students know. In another smaller incident you have a teacher who's relentless push for his student's perfection in speaking French drives one student to have a breakdown. As for the star character of the movie, David Green, his own beliefs are tested on a magnitude of levels.

The most sacred one being his religion. He took the "don't ask don't tell" approach. He went as far as attending Mass with his fellow classmates to hide his religion He was also faced with participating in his school's football game and worshipping one of the holiest days in the Jewish religion, Roshan ah. He chose to play the game and then worship at night even though this holiday requires worship be done before sunset. Another major struggle he face was with ratting out a fellow classmate, Dillon, when the whole class was going to suffer for Dillon's cheating on an exam.

In this case David gave Dillon the opportunity to turn himself in before he told the class who had cheated. It was only when D llion accused David of cheating did David pointed the finger at Dillon. Another test of choosing what is right an what is wrong is the dilemma the rest of the class had in using the Code of Honor and choosing which character, David or Dillon, to believe. Majority of the students did not want to choose Dillon solely based on his religion, him being Jewish and everyone else, including Dillon being Catholic. In the end a majority of the group of students chose to believe Dillon. However as twist to this is the team captian who had also seen Dillon cheating on the exam.

He struggled with doing the right thing and announcing to the group what he knew. At the time of the voting he kept quiet about what he knew. It was only at the end when David, who decided to honor their traditions and lie by turning himself in did the team captian chose to do the right thing and tell the Head Master what he knew. As for Dillon, his struggles with doing what was right or wrong mostly dealt with his desire to live up to his families past and following in their footsteps even though he was not as athletically and academically as good.

In the end with his families connections he was most likely going to get to go to Havard anyway. In conclusion the movie showed many different situations that people and groups faced and how they went about making their decision whether it was right or wrong and whether it was what they believed was right or wrong. Also how they all manifested from the first decision made by the school to bring in not only a ringer but a Jewish one at that. In life people face many decision and have to decide whether to do what is morally right or decide to do what best suits them. It is a struggle we all face in our daily lives.