Utilitarianism And Deontology In The Movie Fyre

The movie Fyre directed by Chris Smith shines light on a variety of ethical, moral, and legal issues that we constantly face in present-day society. When analyzing these ethical and moral practices, it is crucial to take into account their motivations, past experiences, and exact business settings. As we can see in the movie, each of these factors influenced the outcome. Billy McFarland, the primary co-founder of the Fyre Festival, along with his team of business partners clearly used ethically ambiguous practices on multiple occasions. They not only practiced many Theories of Ethics such as Utilitarianism and Deontology but also several Ethics Traps like following orders and short-term perspective to name a few.

Since the beginning of the film, it is undeniable that Billy comes off as an arrogant and cocky individual though he gives the complete opposite impression at first sight. He chooses his words carefully and is able to manipulate people through his kindness, generosity, and intellectual ability. Billy thus practices the theory of Utilitarianism meaning “he acts on moral actions that produce the greatest net pleasure compared to net pain” (Mann, Roberts, 18). More simply put, he has flexible moral guidelines and does whatever is most practical. In almost every situation throughout the movie, Billy does just that and acts upon what he believes is most beneficial regardless of morality. One event, in particular, that is significantly telling about the ways in which Billy and his team practiced Utilitarianism is when it came to the last 10 days before the start of the festival. Every person involved was running around attempting to put together anything they could while the clock kept ticking. Small amounts of progress had been made, supplies were running out, and moral was hitting an all-time low as everyone began to understand the severity of the situation. It got to the point where “they didn’t have enough tents and 350 people would have nowhere to stay… So this was now becoming clear that there wasn’t any money” (FYRE). And if it couldn’t get any worse, they “had a $6 million contract with Star Catering to handle all of the foodservice but yet only had $1 million allocated” which forced “Billy to fire them over the phone” (FYRE). Billy in this situation epitomizes the theory of Utilitarianism because he acts based on what will produce the greatest pleasure and what is most practical regardless of moral guidelines. He knew with 10 days remaining that there was not going to be enough food or housing but still decided to not release the information to the public. He wanted to maximize immediate happiness for himself, his team, and all stakeholders regardless of the pain and complications it brought in the long term.

The core belief of the theory of Deontology is that a person must achieve the outcome by employing the proper means. Billy, on the other hand shows that he is only concerned with the outcome of a situation and will take every shortcut possible to achieve it. One time in specific in which Billy's ethical actions did not follow universal moral laws (lying, cheating, stealing) was towards the end of the movie after he had been caught lying several times, and was going to continue doing so if not stopped. When Billy had to finally think of what to say in the draft of their official legal response, Billy attempted to write “Due to circumstances out of our control…” (FYRE). At that point, his business partner Jorge, disgusted with his constant lies “looks at him and says, ‘Do not lie again. This is your chance to tell the truth. Don't say ‘out of control.’ This was perfectly in our control’” (FYRE). This instance further proves Billy's continual lies and illustrates how he does not follow what the majority of society considers to be universally proper means or laws. He will lie to get himself out of any circumstance and measure his success based off just results. Thus, analyzing Billy’s character throughout instances like these makes it clear that he follows the opposite ideals of deontologists.

One of the most prominent Ethical Traps encountered throughout the movie is following orders. Billy established a power structure where he delegated roles and centered everything around himself. He used his personal confidence and manipulability throughout the operation to get his employees to blindly follow his orders. A great example of this is when one of Billy's employes, Shiyuan Deng, overheard a conversation where he said, “let's put up a cabana for $50,000 and see if anyone buys it” (FYRE). Like any normal person, she started to question “do you even have a cabana to sell? Because im a little concerned you're not thinking about that before you are putting it live on the site for someone to buy” (FYRE). Deng's opinions, along with everyone else on their teams, was completely disregarded as the $50,000 tent went up for sale. No one thought to question was Billy was doing, even though they morally and ethically knew it was wrong. Another extremely important Ethical Trap throughout the movie is rationalization. Once employees realized that the concert was going to be unsuccessful, they began attempting to come up with illogical ideas. And although many of Billy's actions and thoughts can be classified as illogical, there is one in specific which stand out. When Keith, the pilot and logistics manager, begins to assess the maps and design for the upcoming festival he begins to notice several problems. The list continued to grow but Billy would not stop chasing his goal and was on top of Keith to find a solution. Keith slowly came to the expert conclusion that he “didn't think it was possible to fit over 1,000 people on the island” (FYRE). This response however did not satisfy Billy, so Keith “had made a plan to get a cruise ship” (FYRE). They no longer were thinking rationally and thought an impossible task could be pulled off in such a short period of time. In their minds, anything was better than the situation at hand and were genuinely able to rationalize anything to themselves.

The Fyre Festival gives many great examples of the several Theories of Ethics and ethics traps discussed throughout class. Utilitarianism is clearly practiced by Billy as he has flexible moral guidelines and acts on moral actions that produce the greatest net pleasure. Billy distinctly illustrates the opposite of deontologist beliefs for the shortcuts and lies he takes to achieve his goals. He unarguable gets the outcome he desires the majority of the time, but he lacks the proper means to get there. This idea of doing anything to achieve success also relates to the ethics traps depicted throughout the film. Following orders applies throughout the entire movie as Billy established a power structure where he delegated roles and centered everything around himself. Rationalization does as well given the rationalization of illogical ideas