Titanic, or A Moral Deliberation

The film “Titanic” is riddled with moral dilemmas. In one of the scenes, the owner of Star Line, the shipping company that owned the now-sinking Unsinkable, leaps into a lowered life-boat. The tortured expression on his face demonstrates that even he experiences more than unease at his own conduct: prior to the disaster, he instructed the captain to break the trans-Atlantic speed record. His hubris proves fatal to the vessel. Moreover, only women and children were allowed by the officers in charge into the lifeboats.

But the ship’s owner was not the only one to breach common decency and ethics.

The boats could accommodate only to half the number of those on board and the First Class, High Society passengers were preferred to low-life immigrants under deck and other Third Class passengers.

Why do we all feel that the owner should have remained aboard and faced his inevitable death? Because we judge him responsible for the demise of the ship. His disastrous interference motivated by greed and the pursuit of celebrity was a crucial contributing factor. The owner should be punished for what he had done, we feel. This closure intuitively...