Money Heist- Ethical Subjectivism

Money Heist- Ethical Subjectivism

Money Heist is an original Netflix crime series that was first aired in 2017. In the film, a very knowledgeable man, some prefer the term genius, Sergio Marquina, recruits a group of eight people, all experts in different fields, to carry out a heist in the Royal Mint of Spain. They plan to enter the Mint in disguise and take hostage of the people present in the building and make their own money for eleven days while taking care of the hostages (Mandal, 2). They then plan to finally escape free while maneuvering through the police efforts to track them down. The members of the heist all take up corded city names to mask their personal information. Tokyo is a runaway robber who narrates the story, Raquel Murillo, who is initially a part of the police department until she becomes part of the heist in season 3, Berlin, a jewel thief, Denver and his father Moscow who are miners, and Nairobi, a prowess in counterfeit and forgery (Mandal, 2). According to the professor, the heist is for a noble cause, that is, the less privileged in the society fighting back for their denied and misused rights. The film’s dilemma, therefore, lies in whether the professor’s claim and way of expressing them are right, and by what grounds we use to judge these motives. The paper tries to explain these questions through the theory of ethical subjectivism.

Ethical subjectivism states that ethical propositions hold moral truths, and the truth or falsity of these truths are only determined by individual attitudes (Richard, 20). This is also in line with moral relativism which implies that moral propositions can be adjusted depending on the situation at hand. In this case, the professor and his crew rob the Bank of Spain to unmask the evil ingrained in today’s society. In season two the professor explains to Raquel Murillo, the inspector who is after the perpetrators of the heist, that when politicians and other high profile figures steal from the people it is not considered theft (Garcia, 370). However, when individuals like him do the same thing, it becomes a national concern. According to the moral subjectivism theory, the professor’s view is justified when we consider the grounds with which he organizes this heist; resistance.

The coordinators of the heist make sure to not compromise any of the hostages’ lives, which builds on the ethical grounds on which the heist is done. To highlight their aim of the heist as resistance, the professor makes it clear that they are not to harm any of the hostages, which would tarnish their name as murderers. For a gang of members who are willing to implement the biggest heist in the history of Spain, they sure are patient with the hostages. Here and there some of the hostages try to make their escape but there is no use of excessive force and torture. Arturo, one of the hostages tries to fight back, and amid the tussle, he gets shot by the police’s snippers (Mandal,10). The coordinators of the heist make sure that he fully recovers from the bullet. They make urgent demands to the police, to allow in a medical team. This shows that the main aim of the heist was to show opposition towards the corrupt forms of government that are in place. They are not robbers. They could have easily executed characters such as Arturo who almost cost them the heist. They even lose some of their team members, but no hostages are lost. They are human enough to provide the hostages food, water and even take care of the old hostages and one pregnant woman who is also a part of the hostages.

In the same line of thought, the professor, Sergio Marquina, makes it clear to them that they are not murderers but only a group of people who want to take back what was taken from them. He was raised as an ailing child in the hospital, and spent his time, reading a lot of books, precisely his wide knowledge. Sergio’s father was forced to rob a bank to pay for his son’s treatment but then ended up being killed in the heist. In the first season of the series, Sergio explains how his father was denied all means to save his son by the people who had the chance to. He was therefore pushed to the wall, to plan a robbery without putting anyone else in the hospital. The heist is, therefore, Sergio’s will to avenge his father’s death and to also take back the pain that the lesser people in the community felt as trailed through impoverishment with the corrupt systems of government in place.

Society might however see this through the eyes of moral absolutism, that an action is either wrong or right regardless of the circumstances that lead to it (Leone et.al, 21). Other skeptics may argue that the professor did a morally right thing but in the wrong way. However, if we look keenly into the structure of the current leadership, there is no way in which the lower class can speak against the evil of their political systems. These people have money and power, and will always find ways to escape their wrongdoings. Even the court systems that are supposed to be grant fairness and justice for the less fortunate, are now easily corrupted by the more powerful. There is no way out for these kinds of people, and this precisely why the professor decides to take the bull by the horns by strategically and meticulously organizing the heist. The reaction of the people of Spain is also one indicator that the heist was necessary. They are in support of the heist. They relate to its motives. We even see police inspector Raquel Murillo, who was once on the side of the government, becoming a part of the heist.

Conclusion

The drama series showcases a different face of crime. Crime with totally different motives. It completely changes viewers’ definition of what is right or wrong, and by what extend can one cross into the other. It would be hard and illogical to ignore all these views that the series tries to put forward, by deeming it as entirely wrong because of how we have been taught to explicitly see theft as wrong. It shows the extreme measures we are supposed to go to get our demands heard.

Work Cited

Double, Richard. Metaethical subjectivism. Routledge, 2017.

García-Mainar, Luis M. “Reality matters: Transnational realist crime film and television in Spain.” Studies in Spanish & Latin American Cinemas 16.3 (2019): 363-381.

Leone, Luigi, Mauro Giacomantonio, and Marco Lauriola. “Moral foundations, worldviews, moral absolutism and belief in conspiracy theories.” International Journal of Psychology 54.2 (2019): 197-204.

Mandal’s, Shri Vile Parle Kelvani. ‘The Resistance’–An Anarchist insight on Alex Pina’s Money Heist. Diss. Government of India Best College 2016-17, University of Mumbai, 2016.