Action movies should be perfect vehicles to show virtue, at least according to Aristotle. In his “Poetics,” he indicated that drama is the imitation of the deepest kind of action, action that proceeds from moral character. The first three films of the “Bourne” franchise are actioners in this sense. Together, they are about one great action, a flawed man becoming a good and a great man.
Prudence and ‘The Bourne Identity’
The queen of the cardinal virtues is prudence, because it’s the virtue by which human beings can know, in a practical way, how to do good. While it’s as common to associate prudence with evil masterminds and cowards as with good and wise people, prudence really has nothing to do with evil. Evil is self-destructive; smart evil people just destroy themselves cleverly. Socrates and Plato say that the only real evil does is to the doer’s soul. The Bible states: “The wicked fall into their own nets.”In “The Bourne Identity,” a practical man becomes truly prudent by seeking good and avoiding evil. It begins with the title character floating unconscious in the Mediterranean Sea. Upon being rescued, he has no memory of who he is. He’s pursued by the police as he attempts to retrieve his identity. He ultimately discovers that he was a black ops agent, who has assassinated dozens of targets while working for a CIA program called Treadstone.
This discovery creates a crisis: If amnesia doesn’t change a person’s moral character, Bourne will probably return to his old life. However, his final revelation proves the most critical: He had a change of heart before he lost his memory. A rejection of evil, though not remembered, has set Bourne on a new trajectory.
Bourne exemplifies prudence because his actions are ordered toward the good, whether the lower good of self-preservation and self-defense early in the movie, or the higher goods he comes to embrace, such as preserving and defending the lives of the innocent. While bloody, the final confrontation at the movie’s end illustrates his pursuit of higher goods, most importantly his intention to relinquish his former life as an assassin. To do this, given his inability to remember his past, he needs more knowledge, and the only way to get it is to meet his evil former employer under very dangerous circumstances.
All of his actions require not only the intention to do good, but also the know-how to accomplish it. Classical and Christian authors, from Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas, have written many lists of what these “sub-virtues” or parts of prudence are. Bourne exemplifies many, such as his quick thinking when he’s called upon to defend a family against a sniper with a much better gun, perfect lines of sight, and a stronger position.
“Circumspection,” the awareness of dangers and how to address them, is the unassuming name of the virtue that inspires the action sequence near the beginning of the movie: Bourne, about to be arrested in a U.S. Embassy, incapacitates his would-be captors, then calmly and deliberately escapes from a group of soldiers.
Justice and ‘The Bourne Supremacy’
“The Bourne Supremacy” opens with a debate about prudence and resolves itself by means of the next cardinal virtue, justice. Justice is a virtue that is about relationships with other human beings. It can be summed up in Aristotle’s “giving to others their due.”At the beginning of “The Bourne Supremacy,” Bourne and his girlfriend Marie are attempting to escape from an assassin. They begin to argue while fleeing. Bourne maintains that their future is predetermined: They must continually fly from and fight against the organization that is pursuing them. “We don’t have a choice,” he says. Marie counters: “Yes, you do.” Immediately after this, Marie is shot. Bourne and the viewers never learn what she was going to suggest.
Nevertheless, the rest of the movie is about Bourne making good choices. Since they are choices having to do with others, the film is fundamentally concerned with justice.
Moreover, the plot is initialized by the injustices perpetrated by CIA director Ward Abbot, who orders the assassination attempt on Bourne to cover up his own corrupt activities. The two strands of Bourne’s pursuit of justice and Abbot’s of injustice weave around each other through the whole movie. As Bourne learns more about his past life, he finally remembers his first kill for Treadstone, and the two strands are resolved. On one hand, Bourne’s pursuit of justice occurs on multiple levels. On the other, Abbot gets his just desserts.
The principles behind Bourne’s choices are nothing if not of prudence and justice. One notable example occurs when Bourne has CIA officer Pamela Landy in his crosshairs, ready to retaliate for Marie’s murder. However, before he shoots, he realizes that he might be mistaken about whether Landy was involved. He quickly pivots to a different plan that involves gathering more information. Whether it’s right or not to take justice into one’s own hands, it’s surely unjust to take an innocent life while trying to do so.
Fortitude and ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’
The “Bourne” films confirm one thing: the heroic and admirable nature of fortitude, which is the willingness to encounter danger as long as it is right to do so. “The Bourne Ultimatum” particularly revels in this virtue. The word “fortitude” comes from a Latin word meaning both “bravery” and “strength.”
The movie features a fight scene in Tangier. It’s the longest and one of the most brutal in the series, and therefore, in addition to Bourne’s incredible physical abilities, it requires incredible perseverance and patience.
The scene helps viewers consider the interconnectedness of the cardinal virtues. Prudence, justice, and fortitude are connected hierarchically. Prudence dictates the aims both of justice and fortitude, and taking risks, the arena of fortitude, is only virtuous if the goals are just. Bourne pursues and fights only for the sake of a prudent and just motive: saving his friend’s life.
Finally, the movie ends with Bourne showing magnanimity, the crowning part of fortitude. His aim turns out to be not only learning more about his past, but also performing a great deed for the public good: exposing the illegal and immoral activities of a corrupt government organization. While doing so, he refuses to kill an assassin who had tried to kill him.
Virtue Strengthens, Evil Weakens
While Bourne’s material disadvantages are overcome and play an important part in the viewers’ delight, it’s more important to realize how much the movies make of Bourne’s one advantage: his virtues. The Bourne movies set up virtue in a high-pressure laboratory experiment: one man against a well-connected, wealthy, all-seeing organization with almost endless advantages. All the advantages, that is, except virtue.While the protagonist possesses an incredible array of skills and abilities as an assassin, it’s undeniable that he becomes more powerful as he begins to renounce this life. Once merely an instrument, a mere “asset” of the CIA sub-organization Treadstone, he triumphs over the CIA and all its resources because he decides to live virtuously. In spite of his former employers’ repeated assumptions, his decisions and actions can’t be predicted because they are the actions of a free moral agent.
Nothing is more predictable than evil. That’s the way that Bourne is almost always a step ahead of his enemies. He knows the kind of treachery they will attempt. He’s familiar with their reliance on manpower, technology, and procedures over prudence and reason.
Bourne, on the contrary, repeatedly risks his life for the right to live according to prudence and reason. In doing, so he fully accords with Aristotle in his great work on the virtues, the “Nichomachean Ethics.” Aristotle indicates that no happiness is possible without living according to reason, and that living according to reason isn’t possible without the virtues.
The Bourne movies are excellent vehicles for thinking about and learning about human virtue. Of course, they have been praised for their acting, plots, cinematography, and fight choreography. Their realism has also been highly touted. Perhaps their realism exists because they are informed by a deeper reality: the principles that perfect human beings.
