Kantian Ethics on the Movie John Q

For Immanuel Kant, what is morally good is a good will. It is a good will if it conforms to duty. Duty pertains to what is ought to be done. Kant believes that rational humans are agents, they have plans, and they make deliberate choices. It is this fact about humans that Kant’s ethical theory seeks to enshrine and protect.

When Michael, John's son, fell fatally ill and needed an emergency heart transplant operation that John couldn't afford and his health insurance wouldn't cover, he vowed to do whatever it takes to keep his son alive. He desperately took an emergency room hostage, with all the people inside it including those who needed medical treatment themselves. He also almost offered his life to give his son the transplant needed for him to survive.

John was performing his duty as a father to his son, however, for Kant we should only do something if it sets a precedent that we think everyone else could follow. He said that, "one must act upon a maxim through which at the same time will that it should become a universal law". In the case of John, the questions to be asked are: Will all the fathers do the same thing that John did in a desperate attempt to save their son’s life? And, should all the fathers have to take hostage innocent people and even try to kill himself to save his son? So I think that it does not become universal, And for Kant, if you think that it would become universal do it, but if not avoid it.

Kant also has a rule that "you must act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means but always at the same time as an end." And John, in his plan to sacrifice his life to give his own heart in order to save his son's life by undergoing a heart transplant almost treated himself not as an end but as a mean towards an end. Human agency should never be sacrificed for anything less valuable and everything is less valuable.