By Portia Mazone, Javier Wallace, Lorna Love and Jarvis Martir

The Box is a 2009 science fiction/horror film based on the 1970 short story "Button, Button" by Richard Matheson, which was previously adapted into an episode of the 1980s incarnation of The Twilight Zone. The film is written and directed by Richard Kelly and stars Cameron Diaz and James Marsden as a couple who receive a box from a mysterious man who offers them one million dollars if they press the button sealed within the dome on top of the box. Production for the film began in November of 2007 and concluded in February 2008.

• Accept $1 Million Dollars and press the button and end up killing somebody you do not know VS. Not pressing the button and not receiving a $1 Million and keep on going about your everyday life as it is.

• Keep the $1 Million dollars and go about your everyday life, but your only son will be blind and deaf forever VS. Killing your wife by shooting her in the heart with a gun and going to jail, but your son will regain his hearing and sight and will receive the $1 Million dollars in a trust fund in which would be release to him on his 18th birthday.

At one extreme are those who believe that justice can best be achieved by relying on individual freedom and marketplace forces to provide for equality of opportunity. This view is represented by the traditional libertarian theory that media practitioners should be independent and autonomous, without any moral obligation to society.

At the other extreme are those who doubt that justice can ever be achieved through a blind faith in the self-interests of individuals and profit-centered corporations and that some form of social responsibility, enforced through public pressure or governmental action, is often necessary to ensure equality of opportunity. Proponents of this view believe that the media have a moral duty to promote equality and justice.

THE LIBERTARIAN CONCEPT OF JUSTICE

The libertarian conception of justice is closely aligned with the traditional view of the media’s role in U.S. society.

Media practitioners may report on social injustices but do not necessarily feel any responsibility to crusade on their behalf.

Libertarianism is clearly concerned with self-interest.

THE EGALITARIAN CONCEPT AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Egalitarianism focuses on ensuring equality for all members of society.

Philosophers would argue that media practitioners should relinquish some editorial discretion to ensure that various segments of society have access to the nation’s organs of mass communication.

Justice is a central moral principle of society. At the most formal and abstract level, as noted, it relates to giving individuals what they deserve.

Not to press the button and to not kill the wife: it keeps the cycle of injustice going.

In making this decision we believed consequences to be important (teleologists). We examined the potential effects of the decision on the cause of social justice. The positive consequences are weighed against the possible harm to the various parties in arriving at a just solution for the problem.

Aristotle’s golden mean can also be a welcome companion in confronting complicated situations in which the ethical extremes are unacceptable.