Assignment
Context: Watch an overview of the 2014
Oscar-winning film The Imitation Game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-nLjiQ9phs
The 2014 Oscar-winning film The Imitation Game dramatizes the British government's attempt to break the Nazi code, Engima. Enigma transmitted a series of encrypted messages about Nazi plans of action and attack. The British government, to gain an advantage in the war, needed to crack the code. So, they assembled a top-secret team, led by mathematician Alan Turing, whose sole aim was to crack Engima. Turing did not disappoint. He developed what is now considered to be the forerunner of our modern-day computer and was eventually able to crack the Enigma code.
The film portrays the government as using the information gathered from deciphered messages in a utilitarian fashion. They act only on information when it brings the best benefit to the ultimate war effort. This is because they do not want the Germans to know that they have cracked the code. The result is that they don't intervene to prevent attack on low-value targets.
Was the British government remiss? How should they have responded to the intelligence gathered from the deciphered messages? How would a virtue theorist respond to this moral problem?
Write a 3-4 page paper in which you do the following:
1) How would virtue theorist respond to this moral dilemma?
2) Compare the virtue with either an act or rule utilitarian response. Assess the strengths and weaknesses of virtue and act or rule utilitarianism.
3) How would you respond and why?
4) What did you learn from this thought experiment?