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Ethical Movie Review: Blood Diamond

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Ethical Movie Review: Blood Diamond
Ethical movie review
Title: Blood Diamond
Year: 2006
Studio: Virtual Studios
Producer: Warner Bros.
Director: Edward Zwick
Country: United States of America

0.1 Introduction
The following essay will examine ethical issues addressed through the movie “Blood Diamond”. The two main issues identified and discussed are; child soldiers and conflict diamonds. My main lens of ethical theories will consist of the four western theories, this includes, egoism, utilitarianism, ethics of duties and ethics of rights. Even though these theories are based on ethical absolutism, I will still try to apply a pluralistic view. Additionally, some of these theories will be expanded and other theories that do not tend so much towards ethical absolutism will be added. The following section will concentrate more on how these issues occurred and try to give some potential answer to the problems. In order to do so descriptive ethical theories will be tools in the examination. Finally the conclusion will be presented by a combination of a film review and a short summary of the findings in the text.

1.1 Children with guns
The first of the two ethical issues that will be examined is the use of kids as soldiers. In order to do so I believe I have to take a subjective role on the subject, looking from a rebel soldier. The reasons for this is because I believe objective or western views on this topic will in the end state that this is neither moral or ethical. In order to get a more interesting view on the matter, I will use an alternative approach and try to look out of the eyes of a soldier taking the use of kid soldiers. The question is; how can the use of kids as soldiers be justified?

The situation described in the movie tells us about the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), which is a rebel group fighting the government in Sierra Leone 1999. To put the situation in a soldiers mind, one could argue that his or hers thoughts were, “I am being invaded by the west, they are


References: Anand V, Ashforth B.E. and Joshi M. 2004, business as usual: the acceptance and perpetuation of corruption in organisations. Academy of management executive, 18:39-53 Crane A. And Matten D. 2010: Business ethics, third edition, Oxford university press. Ford R.C and Richardson W.D 1994, ethical decision making: a review of the empirical literature. Journal of business ethics, 13:205-21 Movie: “Blood Diamond”, Virtual studios, Warner Bros production, directed by Edward Zwick, 2006 Murphy, William P. Sep 2003: 61-87, Military Patrimonialism and Child Soldier Clientalism in the Liberian and Sierra Leonean Civil Wars, African Studies Review 46.2 Websites Diamondfacts.org viewed at 09/10/11 http://www.diamondfacts.org/ Global Witness, viewed at 08/10/11 http://www.globalwitness.org/campaigns/conflict/conflict-diamonds Imdb.com, quotes from the movie, viewed at 14/10/11 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450259/quotes PRWatch viewed at 17/10/11 http://www.prwatch.org/node/5580
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