Kantian ethics are deontological, they revolve entirely around duty rather than emotions or consequences. All actions must be performed with an underlying principle or maxim. He says that every rational being can act morally and have the same reasoning.
All human beings are free rational agents bound by a will that is logical. Bad human beings have bad wills.
Now that we have some understanding of Kantianism, let’s return to analyzing the book.
Alex is a 15 year old boy who participates in criminal gang activities. He steals, he hurts, he rapes and he kills.
He is the worst example the author could give. We can not try to justify his actions. He isn’t insane, he doesn’t have a traumatizing past and he doesn’t do these actions for anything in particular.
Alex eventually has a fight with his friends and they turn their backs on him. After a house robbery goes wrong and a lady is killed, Alex gets arrested. His friends are long gone by the time the cops arrive.
After this scene, Alex starts being portrayed as somewhat miserable. He is beaten up behind the bars, harassed by perverts and abused by the guards. After a while, they suggest something called “Ludovico Technique” to “treat” him. The aim of this treatment is to make him a good person who can be a part of society again without the fear of the person returning to their old habits, something that frequently happens with ex-convicts. Because they have no house to go back to, or because crime is all they’ve ever known, they go back to their old ways.
What if a celebrity donated 50 thousand dollars to a charity just to gain some popularity?
Are they still doing a good act? Are they a good person if they are doing an action that is generally perceived as “good” just because?
I mentioned some Kantianism before. Now, according to that, not only Alex doesn’t do good actions or become a good person, the doctors are in fact the bad people for doing something that destroys the very essence of us humans in the first place: free will.
After the treatment, Alex doesn’t start questioning his actions. He still wants to kill, he still wants to rape, and he still wants to cause damage. But he just can’t. He becomes sick whenever he tries to do these actions. So quite literally, he can’t do anything. Whether that’s bad or good.
If the treatment actually worked and Alex became a “good person” the result would be like this:
Alex would develop a healthy thinking process and analyze his choices. He would do good because he would know it’s the right thing to do, not because he wanted someone to like him. He wouldn’t do things for his personal gain. He would realize that if he stole, everyone could too and the world would be a chaotic place to live in. He would change not because he wanted to get out of jail, but to change the world.
On the contrary, after he gets released, people start walking all over him because he doesn’t have the ability to protect himself. That is because he doesn’t have a rational reasoning anymore. There are no gray areas with Ludovico Technique, because the patient doesn’t have a free thought process anymore. They will only do things that can’t, even as an accident, hurt someone. Not only that, he also doesn’t achieve what a good person hopes to. The cycle of immorality continues, it’s just not him this time but other people. He contributes to evil in the world because of this.
What’s so disturbing about this is the realization that it doesn’t matter what you do, if you go against them and you’re different, you’ll be forced to change.
The book concludes that* you only matter when you are profitable to the government. Your individuality, mistakes or the sins you’ve committed don’t matter as long as you are the front page of a newspaper and help them get a few thousand more votes.
As long as you go do your job and be quiet. As long as you call the police when you are beaten up by a gang returning from your ordinary job and expect them to solve it for you. As long as you don’t worry and believe in God when the gang can afford better lawyers and your attackers are walking freely in the streets when your life becomes a cage.
Fairy tales aren’t real and this book is the perfect example of it.
*based on the ending of the American version and the film directed by Stanley Kubrick
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