HBO Film, One Man's War

The film One Man's War, produced for Home Box Office and directed by Sergio Toledo in 1990, is an example of the television docudrama, a drama based on real events and purporting to show those events in a dramatic but truthful fashion. The film raises a number of ethical issues related to its story of Dr. Joel Filartiga, member of a prominent family in Paraguay and a doctor who ran a free health clinic in that country during the dictatorship of General Stroessner. The story told in this film raises a host of ethical questions and issues related to different characters and to the social situation itself. The film does not address all of these issues in depth, and indeed many of them are more implied than examined.

The film also raises the issue of making ethical judgments about a different culture, because at some point ethics become cultural. Moral principles are formed through interaction with parents, peers, and the society in which one lives. Ethical problems develop on every line of work and in nearly every area of human interaction. Ethics is a broader subject than is law. Law is the ethical embodiment of a society, a codification of the most important ethical principles which a people believe need to be enforced by coercion if necessary. Ethical principles have a broader application and are expected to be applied even in situations and cases where no law exists. An ethical system is a guide for behavior and for life-decisions. It can be personal in nature or

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the individual from that power. He felt that once individuals came together to form a social order, what was formed was a new entity with a common life and a common will. This is the general will, and it always tends to preserve the existence and welfare of the whole. The general will is something intangible but powerful. It becomes the motivating force for the preservation of social values. Rousseau states, The general will alone can direct the forces of the state in accordance with the purpose for which it was created, namely, the common good. For if the opposition of private interests made the establishment of societies necessary, it is the agreement of those same interests that made it possible. This sense of human rights is completely absent from the society of Paraguay as depicted in the film. There are the few who believe in this sort of social structure, such as Dr. Filartiga, and there are the masses who are subject to oppression and who see no way out of their dilemma. There are also those overlords who see the people as no more than property to be used and abused as needed for the benefit of the rulers. Each individual in such a society makes daily ethical choices to determine their own behavior, to influence

Category: Film - H