Financial Analysis: Philosophical Analysis of Three Case Studies 2017

This essay provides a financial analysis of three distinct case studies: The Truman Show, Insider, and Schindler's List. The analysis of The Truman Show explores the interplay between reality and illusion, drawing parallels with Plato's "myth of the cave" and examining the significance of Truman's name and his pursuit of truth. The Insider case study delves into the ethical considerations of amoral business practices, particularly within the tobacco industry, and analyzes the moral courage of individuals like Wiegand, relating their actions to Kant's second rule and the importance of treating humanity as an end. Finally, the essay examines Schindler's List, focusing on the concept of compassion as highlighted in Talmudic teachings and the actions of Schindler, while also addressing the concept of "institutionalized cruelty" as defined by Hallie. The essay incorporates philosophical frameworks like Socratic virtue ethics and Kantian ethics to analyze the characters' actions and decisions within each case, drawing conclusions about ethical dilemmas and the complexities of human behavior.

Financial Analysis
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By student name
Professor
University
Date: March 25 , 2018.
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Contents
Case
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Case
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Case
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References.....
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Truman’s Show
1)Both the Plato’s “myth of the cave” and the “Truman Show”, explores the
relationship between the reality and the illusion of the human life and how the
relationship between the two, affects the life of the people. It deals with creation of
an understanding that there is a thin line difference between the reality and illusion
of a person, and things are not always as perceived. The difference between the
two is that as per Plato’s “myth of the cave”, people who were chained to the wall,
where happy with their perception of their lives, and did not wanted to free
themselves from it, while as in Truman show, Truman, was able to break the
shackles of his projected reality that was indeed an illusion, he had a desire to know
what lies behind the reality that has been showcased to him.
In Truman show, the perfect world is the world in which the Truman lives, and
one that is projected and controlled by the director Christoph.
The concept of one person being deluded to the humanity being deluded is
very naïve, the fact is that everybody’s reality is different than others and in
the real world it is difficult to identify the same. What can be said is that we
are all humans tried to the soundstage, looking at each other realities and
making our own predictions and trying to go through the lives in similar way
(Stacey, 2018).
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2)The significance of Truman’s first name is that just like his name, he was
the only person whose emotions were true and was living a true life from his end in
this faked made up world of the Truman show. It holds a significance to the
emotions of the story where the reality of Truman in this face world was the only
true thing that was alive.
3)If I had to choose, I would rather life a difficult life founded on the true perception
of the world. This is because it is very easy to live a life based on lie, but that is for
a very short time, after that the realities will end up haunting you. The true soul of a
human life lies in the fact that it is as uncertain as it can be, and it is important to
explore that uncertainty and understand the true meaning that one’s life hold, no
matter how harsh or how pleasant it can be. Thus, the only thing that should be the
goal would be to live a life that is real and not based on any perceptions but ridden
by self-discovery and emotions (Iggers, 2018).
4) Socratics believed in the fact that knowledge is virtue and virtue leads to
happiness, and if have one virtue we in a way end up having all the virtues.
Courage needs wisdom, wisdom needs temperance and temperance needs courage,
so all of it are untied to each other. In this story if we study each of the characters
and associate each of them with the Socratic virtue ethics, we would see that –
 Truman – Truman had the wisdom to understand that the world that he lives
in, is different from others, he understood that Sylvia wanted to say he
something. He had the temperance to make changes to his way and the
courage to break free, and tried to get out of this virtual world and face his
realities.
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 Director – The director was the one who was running the entire show, so he
had the wisdom to see that his audience will like such a show, he had the
temperance to make moderation to his actions, based on the emotions that
were displayed by Truman, and at the end he did had the courage to make
Truman aware about his reality and the world that he lives in (Boghossian,
2017).
 The people on the island- These people lacked the virtues, because they did
not have the courage to break free from this world, to tell Truman the reality
of it and to make alterations to their life. They were mere puppets in the
hands of the director.
 The audience – the audience lacked the virtues, as they felt good in seeing
the turmoil’s in the life of a person who was the truest to his emotions and
reality. But they did support Truman in his quest of finding the truth
regarding his life and achieving the desired goals.
Insider Case Study
1)The myth of amoral business states that there is no relation between business
and moral and both are in no connection to each other. When people do business,
they are only concerned about making money and pay no importance to the fact
whether the same is ethically correct or not. In this case the same applies because
people are only concerned with making more money through their business and are
not concerned whether the same will have negative impact on the life of the people
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involved. Same goes for the tobacco company, who even after knowing that
nicotine can be dangerous and addictive for the human mind, sells the same
because their only concern is to run their business and earn money (Norberg,
2018)The CBS is also with an aim to make more money and make sure that its
shows are doing well, and for the same they are ready to produce sensational news
that will lure the audience, but their moves are also influenced by other parties who
are there in the business from a long time and can sponsor their shows.
2)Wiegand had the moral courage to break from his job, when he felt that the
same was not correct for humanity and ethically, and was able to say that loud and
clear without fearing about his life. He just wanted to let people know that the
smoke they were undertaking was as harmful as possible. Even though he had a
high paying secured job, he was not happy and he moved on to tell the world the
truth that he knew. He also had the physical courage that was required to move
from one happy lavish life to a more moderate one.
3)As per Kant’s second rule we should treat humanity never as a means of end,
but always set upon an end. All the rational action must not only be guided by a
principal but also an end. It is important to treat humanity in that manner. Wiegand
actions were based on the same, because he never considered people as mere
objects and respect the fact that they have an inherent value that is different from
the instrumental value that lifeless things have. Wiegand did the same and even
though he could have easily earned money out of the same. He did not follow the
same and said the fact aloud that humanity should always be the top priority. As far
as actions of Bergam can be considered same are guided by humanity but there lies
an underlying thing that more than for the people, he wanted to do the story for his
channel and show, but he was a seeker of truth and no matter what happened he
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would have tried his best to get the same out. This was reflected during action
undertaken by him (Stacey, 2018).
4)It is very difficult to choose between what is right and wrong in this superficial
world. In case I was there in Wiegand position, I would have tried my best to let the
truth out and make people aware that there lies a lot of harm in taking that
tobacco, but it is difficult to follow the ethical way and consider living a life that is
full of hardships and that might even cost you your life. Wigand is doing his nearest
duty to be as ethical as possible in his approach and make people aware about the
things he can, and as far as it goes, it is the only thing important because we as
human beings should try to do as much as we can from our end and give our best
and that is all that matters in the end (Wellmer, 2018).
Schindlers List
1) As per Talmud, compassion is the biggest thing in life and in a way that if one
human being is saved, they in turn can save lives of more men who are there, so it
goes like that one who saves one life saves an entire world. Human being is the one
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who can give birth to one more human, so in a way that if one life is saved we end
up saving the entire race of people. Thus, the biggest thing is compassion, that one
must have towards another, this will help in making the world a much better place.
2) Schindler showed a great amount of compassion, by saving the life of 1100
people by giving up on all his savings and his life. Previously his motive was to
make money, but later when he saw the poor condition of the people of that region,
he felt that there was a need to do something for such innocent souls. For this he
exhausted all his savings, his money and ended up saving them and in return the
people of Le Chambon showed their gratitude and their virtue of hospitality by
giving Schindler a letter that is signed by everyone along with a gold ring and that
gold was extracted from their own gold teeth. Thus, we see that both of them, gave
up everything that they have. Schindler gave up his money his fortunes and the life
of these people and Schindler in return got something that was price less. These
refuges had nothing for themselves still they gave up the only valuable thing they
had to show their respect and gratitude to the man who saved their life (Salter,
2018).
3) The fact that Schindler previously hired the Jews to work for him and make
money for him, lowers his level of gratitude, because when compassion is shown
towards someone it should never be with a view of getting anything in return from
that person. It should never be under the image of coercion. But this does not erase
the fact that Schindler gave his motives of money making and did all that he could
to save the lives of people. His earlier action was driven by selfishness but later
they were all driven by compassion. The same is suggested by Berger who has
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mentioned that compassion should never come up with an expectation (Chiapello,
2017).
4) Hallie’s defines in his theory “institutionalized cruelty” as constant
humiliation that is showered upon a community or group of people, but the people
on both ends, i.e., the victim and the victimizer finds way to downplay the harm
that is being done by them. In case of the given case the prisoners were forced to
run naked, to find who is healthy and who is unhealthy and people who were found
be to less active were segregated from the one who were and then were shot to
death. This was a humiliation on part of the workers because they were asked to
run naked and no compassion was shown by the ruler to them, but Schindler tried
to downplay the harm that was caused by taking these people under his shelter. But
initially the workers had to go through the humiliation and they were not able to do
anything about it, so this is different from institutionalized cruelty, because there
was no downplay in it (Boghossian, 2017).
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