“That Was Hammond’s Mistake”

Jurassic Park’s Exploration of a Moral Question

Timothy Brown

In a matter of hours Paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant had been confronted with living breathing dinosaurs, and faced living breathing children. He wasn’t sure which made him less comfortable. Businessman John Hammond was relentless in his pursuit of making a baby dinosaur, and over lunch Grant had barely managed to avoid an argument with him about it. Paleobotanist Ellie Sattler was relentless in her insistence that she and Grant needed to start a family, and as she tried to get Grant to ride in the same vehicle as the children he had barely managed to avoid an argument with her. Grant was a digger, and he wanted to dig up dinosaurs in Montana. Or at least try to. For his troubles Hammond had promised Grant’s dig would be fully funded for a further three years, but as Grant rode through the enormous Jurassic Park gate in a lovely and glorious electric Ford Explorer, he wasn’t sure he would ever dig for dinosaurs again.

The 1993 film Jurassic Park proved to be groundbreaking. Dennis Murin’s pioneering use of photorealistic CGI left audiences mesmerized by what they saw. The Digital Experience DTS soundtrack made use of high-fidelity digital audio that left audiences awestruck by what they heard. With all these technical achievements, one might be tempted to relegate Jurassic Park to the status of a bright and loud 90’s summer blockbuster. But as the previous speculative peek into the thinking of Alan Grant hinted, dismissing Jurassic Park as being merely a sensory assault would be a mistake. With Steven Spielberg directing, David Koepp went to work adapting Michael Crichton’s book into the critical screenplay. The result was thought-provoking, with depth and nuance as it explored this question: is it right for man to make a living thing? While the film explores this question through narrative, we will also use speculative peeks into the thinking of Alan Grant and philosophy to explore this question. And while we shouldn’t need concrete moats or motion sensor tracking, exploring this question is still no weekend excursion, but a serious investigation!

Grant sat back in his seat following the disappointment of not seeing a Dilophosaurus. In Montana Hammond had gone out of his way to not tell Grant anything about Jurassic Park, but as they had flown to the island it became clear that ‘rock star’ Chaotician Ian Malcom already knew much about Hammond’s ‘little science project’ and disapproved. Malcom though seemed to be unaware that Hammond had already obtained dinosaur genetic material, manipulated it in many ways, and produced what Hammond called a ‘baby dinosaur’. As the Explorer followed its path automatically, Grant’s mind turned to the lunch discussion he had just been a part of. Malcom had rebuked Hammond for what he had done, and Hammond claimed Malcom would have no objection to his bringing back an extinct species of condor. Malcom claimed this was different. At any rate, Hammond was clearly displeased when Grant had not agreed with him about bringing dinosaurs to life. Who knows how long the lunch discussion would have continued if Hammond’s grandchildren had not arrived, and their arrival had only reminded Grant that Ellie wanted him to agree with her about having children. Now Grant was in Jurassic Park with various dinosaur species, and with what Ellie had called a ‘species’ of child! As Grant rode he was convinced he didn’t want to start a family, but open to the possibility that he did want living dinosaurs.

As Jurassic Park explores the question of making a living thing, it does so by simultaneously considering Hammond’s bringing dinosaurs into the world, and Ellie’s having a child. Grant is confronted with both in different ways throughout the film. While making a dinosaur and making a human are quite different, they are however similar in that they are moral actions. Philosophy has been addressing questions of morality for millennia! Plato spoke to Euthyphro about piety, Aristotle wrote regarding virtue, and Thomas Aquinas considered the pursuit of good. Later, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and countless others wrote on moral matters as well. With what philosophers have written on morality seeming as extensive as two million lines of computer code, it may feel like one would need a Thinking Machines supercomputer to use philosophy to examine the moral question explored in Jurassic Park. Or even a guide whose voice is as clear as Richard Kiley’s.

As Grant stood before the Triceratops he was speechless. He had seen a gas-powered Jeep with the Jurassic Park paint scheme and wondered why it was out there. Then he saw why. He bolted out of his moving vehicle, trying to resist the urge to run. As he walked away from the vehicles the others joined him. Tim quickly picked up his questions where he had left off without missing a beat. Lex had pretended to fall but wouldn’t let go of his hand as he tried to help her. Grant wondered why these kids were acting this way! Suddenly he arrived. The Triceratops was his favorite dinosaur when he was a child, and now that she was in front of him she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. The whole experience pulled him back to his own childhood and he suddenly remembered what it was like to be a child. Hammond had assured him in Montana that his ‘biological preserve’ would capture the imagination of children, but it had already made an impact on him. He now remembered how Lex and Tim perceived the world, and why they were acting the way they were. As a scientist Grant was well aware he was not thinking objectively in the least, but how could he be when he felt like a child again.

It is important to consider how we can know the right thing to do independent of our preferences or feelings. How we can ground morality in something objective. Malcom tried to do this when debating Hammond over lunch, when he claimed nature had selected dinosaurs for extinction. The understanding was of course that Hammond should not have made dinosaurs, because no one should work against nature. Now, we can only speculate what Malcom specifically means by his highly-personified ‘nature’. He is no more specific than Mr. DNA was regarding how Jurassic Park geneticists had interrupted cellular mitosis. Regardless, Malcom was clearly trying to present to Hammond something objective, to which they could both point, and from which they might both discover moral truths. While quite different in particulars, this approach is not altogether different in principle from what Thomas Aquinas attempts by his Natural Law theory. Aquinas understands ‘nature’ to more-or-less refer to what a natural thing is. He finds that what a thing is will determine what actions make it be what it ought to be, and what actions make it be what it ought not to be. In Aquinas’ theory, it is right for a thing to pursue what it ought to be, and wrong for it to pursue what it ought not to be. Here then, the ‘nature’ of a thing is something that is objective, and something from which we can reason, to arrive at moral truths. From these truths man can develop ordinances of reason to guide his desires and actions, which are called ‘laws’. This is a rather simple sketch of Aquinas’ Natural Law theory, but serves as an example of how philosophy can help us explore the moral question of Jurassic Park. With that discussed, rest assured we do plan to have dinosaurs on this dinosaur tour!

As Grant began to climb the tree he was thankful he was alive. Thankful Lex was alive. Hopeful that Tim was. He had no idea what had happened, really. They were headed back to the visitor’s center having not seen any dinosaurs other than the Triceratops, and then everything just stopped. Even though the fences were electrified with 10,000 volts, the Tyrannosaurus Rex had walked right through them. Grant was astounded at the size of the creature. As he had watched the T-Rex grind the overturned Explorer into the mud, with Lex and Tim inside, he had launched out of his vehicle, this time without it being in motion. Somehow he had been able to get Lex out, and they were able to repel over the paddock wall as the rain poured down. But Tim was still in the Explorer high up in a tree. Lex was terrified of being abandoned again by an adult, and all he could do was assure her that he was not going to do that. She climbed into a stormwater drain as he climbed the tree.

While Jurassic Park uses narrative to explore the moral status of bringing a child and dinosaur into the world, it also puts children and dinosaurs in opposition with one another, most vividly at the T-Rex paddock. Grant previously had two questions to decide on, but here Grant is presented with one: the children or the dinosaurs. It is at the T-Rex Paddock that Grant commits to the children, against the dinosaurs. For the rest of the film Grant becomes more like a parent, and less like a Paleontologist. The clearest indication of this is his discarding the Velociraptor claw as he protects the children in the tree. His choice at the T-Rex Paddock also represents more than choosing children over dinosaurs. It represents choosing law over tyranny. Man can choose to moderate his desires and actions by conforming them to laws, or man can be a tyrant with unmoderated desires and actions. It should not be lost on us that in the film Jurassic Park the most prominent child is named Lex while the most prominent dinosaur is Tyrannosaurus Rex, for in Latin ‘Lex’ means ‘Law’ and ‘Tyrannosaurus Rex’ regards a ‘Tyrant King’. Grant’s choice of the children over the dinosaurs more deeply represents choosing Law over Tyranny. It represents man not being so preoccupied with whether he could, that he doesn’t first stop to think whether he should.

The helicopter ride home was very different than the ride to Jurassic Park. Grant was very different. Ellie was beaming at the sight of the children beside Grant, and as he looked at them he smiled. Hammond though was crestfallen as he stared at the mosquito encased in amber on his cane. In his book Grant had postulated that dinosaurs had turned into birds, though Tim had expressed this was obviously false. Regardless, while in Jurassic Park he had repeatedly acknowledged that he would have to change, and as he looked out the window and saw a bird, he came to the realization that he had changed. Yes, he was still not machine compatible. But Grant was now convinced that Hammond should not have made dinosaurs, and open to the possibility of starting a family.

In 1993 perhaps no one was faced with the option of actually bringing to life an extinct species, but today they are. News reports have circulated about modern companies attempting in reality what Hammond’s InGen attempted in fiction, with apparent success. Not success with dinosaurs, perhaps, but with other animals. And so Jurassic Park’s moral exploration is very much relevant today. As is the question of Law versus Tyranny, as man considers what he ought to do and what he can do. As we have seen here, philosophy can help explore the question of whether man should bring back to life a long-extinct species of animal. It can also help explore whether genetic manipulation guarantees us that any attempt to bring back an extinct species would result in some totally new animal being introduced. And it can of course help explore many other topics related to this as well. Space does not allow for any in-depth exploration here, but we can be sure that an in-depth exploration of questions like this is greatly needed. And we can be sure that such an exploration should spare no expense.

Having spent around a decade as a Professor in Academia, Timothy Brown (Ph.D., Philosophy of Religion) currently serves as the Instructor at Timotheus Academy, offering learners from around the world content committed to the pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. He has contributed to several Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture volumes, including Disney and Philosophy, Indiana Jones and Philosophy, and the much-anticipated The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy.