After watching Phil's life is permanently changed due to his experiences in the movie, Groundhog Day, I immediately thought the most memorable scene in the entire film was Phil asking the two gentlemen at the bowling alley “What if there were no tomorrow?”. When one of the guys responds with “That would mean there will be no consequences, there will be no hangovers, we could do whatever we wanted”, I thought of a world where nothing mattered and we were free to do whatever we pleased. In many ways, it is similar to a tale told in Philosophy, specifically Plato's Republic, where a man named Glaucon talks about a ring that makes the wearer invisible (Ever wonder where Tolkien got his ideas?). By using this ring to make yourself invisble, the wearer could technically be just like Phil – free to do whatever he wanted in a world of free reign.
Glaucon's ideas behind his story of the ring of Invisibility is to justify his argument that the idea of Justice is only a manmade convention, and that men are driven not by Justice, but by advantage, or gaining the upper hand. Glaucon essentially thinks that 'true' Justice is rarely every used – people are constantly looking for opportunities to one-up the next competitor. He then explains that if his ring were duplicated, and one invisibility ring given to a 'just' man, and the other to a 'unjust' man, the viewer would ultimately find that both men who possess this ring of Invisibilty would be the same – the just man would become unjust, and the unjust man just. They are one and the same.
In the same vein, what constitutes Phil's actions as Just or Unjust? When he tries desperately to revive the dying hobo on the streets, is he doing it out of sheer justice and good-will? Or is he doing it to make himself improve and therefore seek personal gain? Were this a matter of personal opinon, I would take the latter stance.
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