Discussion Questions for Minority Report
1. Is the world of Minority Report a world with or without free will? If there is free
will, is it dependent on the existence of a “minority report”? If there is no free
will, is the lack of free will due to determinism or fatalism.
2. Are the people from the Precrime Division the only ones who can have free will?
Is free will dependent on knowing the future that the Precogs have foreseen, i.e.
can you change your future only if you know what your future was supposed have
been?
3. The Precogs are described as “pattern recognition filters”. Can the Precogs really
see the future?
4. Is it logically possible to both see the future and change the future?
5. Is it logically possible to both see the future and have free will? Does the problem
for free will go beyond the normal problem of determinism?
6. Before Witwer catches the ball going down the chute, was it true that the ball was
going to drop?
7. Is it justifiable to punish people for crimes that they would have committed, but
didn’t?
8. Is it justifiable to punish people for crimes that they did commit, if determinism is
true and it was impossible for them not to commit the crime?
9. Is it justifiable to harm some innocent people (like Anne Lively, the Precogs and
John Anderson) for the greater good of the society (e.g. for a low murder rate)?
10. Should personal freedoms be sacrificed for the sake of security? Is the answer a
matter of degree? If it is a matter of degree, where do you draw the line? What
side of the line is Minority Report?
11. Would you rather live in a world with a Precrime Division and the risk of being
convicted of a murder that you didn’t commit (and perhaps would not have
committed), or in a world with a significant murder rate and the risk of being
murdered?
12. Is Lamar a moral or an immoral man? Were his actions moral or immoral?
13. Is John a moral or immoral man? Were his actions moral or immoral?
14. Why was Precrime disbanded? Should it have been?
15. Is it an inherently bad idea to try to predict and prevent murders?
16. If an agency was able to reliably predict and prevent (at least some) murders, how
should the potential murderers be dealt with?
17. How did Lamar’s idea for John to kill Leo Crow become part of John’s future? In
other words, did the Precogs predict it because it was going to happen, or did it
happen because the Precogs predicted it?