V for Vendetta

​In V for Vendetta, V fights for a revolution against the current political state.  Though many of his actions seem rooted in revenge for his past mistreatment, he continues to revolt for what he believes to be a truly corrupt state.  He believes that his actions are necessary to bring about the revolution he wishes to see, so many of the deaths that happened by his hand were an inevitable means to his end.  In this sense, V, himself, is not evil, nor does he intend to cause harm for harm’s/evil’s sake (Kagan).  The only people that V intentionally seeks out to kill are those linked to his imprisonment and disfiguration.  The rest occur through his actions of revolting to make a less dystopic society.  

​Evey starts as an innocent, somewhat disgruntled bystander.  During the initial meeting of her and V, Evey helps V escape.  In sparing his life, V feels an obligation to help Eveywhen she is left unconscious from the ordeal.  V must outweigh the consequences of taking her with him or leaving her.  Ultimately, he takes her to his place of residence, in a sense imprisoning her.  Though there are some negative side effects on Evey’s part, V felt that her life outweighed her imprisonment since she would have most likely been taken to a concentration camp for aiding V at the news station.  This action shows how evident it is that V is concerned for the people within the dystopian society that he is revolting against, since he has already saved Evey from law enforcers at a previous point.  In this way, V is very determined to bring about some type of goodness, even if he has to produce some negative outcomes.  He is saving Evey’s life in turn for her innocence, he is bringing about death to weed out the corruptness of the political power, and he is blowing up parliament to bring about a revolution to create a better, less corrupt society.  So, in essence, his actions (though harsh) are merely a means to an end, and the deaths and other negative outcomes are inevitable to bring about his ideal state. (Nagel)  In the end, V has changed Evey’s perspective so drastically that she is the one to send the train to blow up parliament and help actually start the revolution in his absence.  His determination led Evey to believe in his cause, and led thousands of others to continue his cause when he couldn’t.

What "V" Kant and Can Do: Questioning Whether Justice Can Lack Morality

     According to Kant, the idea of “morality” is premised by a couple of factors. One of them being that “actions are moral if there are no ulterior motive.“ So if someone has an ulterior motive, does that make all of their actions immoral? If following this rule of morality, are their actions unjustified? The answer would be no. Justification doesn’t need to be morally promising. Justice can be sought through a form of war, but that also does not make war morally right. Take 9/11 into account, basically, the US was affected by terrorism, and sought justice by declaring war against those the United States deemed as a current enemy.  Fighting against enemies can be justified on the premise that they affected the citizens, but the war itself and the techniques used to find our enemies was immoral in so many ways. 

     In V for Vendetta, V had been seeking vengeance against Britain’s wrong-doers for administering illegal testing and “treatments” similar to that of the Nazi concentration camps in WWII. The comic and film were meant to mirror real life immorality in war, and take the possibility of revenge to justify V’s actions in a way that the audience and Evey can sympathize, or even empathize. V had obvious ulterior motives, mirroring Guy Fawkes from the 19^th century, to take down the tyrannical, futuristic government of Britain. He killed the scientists and government officials that once abused the human rights of the citizen experiments, he blew up parliament (which Guy Fawkes could not do), and practically aimed for anarchy, since he deemed the government unfit. He took power into his own hands and wasn’t very secretive about it. He helped Evey understand his means by recreating the torturous camps he once was a part of.   

    His motives make him immoral, but the question I ask is if he was justified. If these actions that he took, was a form of justice. Justice can be immoral, it can affect bad people while helping the good, and it can also be just completely wrong from a moral standpoint. Correlating that back to 9/11, the United States tortured prisoners which is immoral, as most countries have done, but they thought it justice, because it was believed it could help to “stop the bad guys”.