The concept of violation, especially when directed at a particular individual, raises tough questions of morality. When considering the film "Death and the Maiden," many issues are presented that foster discussion of these topics. The story itself is based on the reality of overwhelming and experienced pain and mental distress, and how these in turn lead to the inability to achieve self-esteem, mental safety and most of all, happiness. In such a situation though, the ability to make rational decisions and rely on one's own moral code and rational morality is in serious jeopardy (if at all possible.).
Our rational morality is grounded in the concepts of rational reflection, personhood, rational self-consciousness, self-esteem and individuality. It uses the ideas of fairness and freedom to construct moral limits, policies and ideals of how a civil society should be constructed and then carried out. The limits and ideals that are laid out by this should promote and protect the ideals of equal opportunity for fulfillment of personhood and the achievement of well-being. They should also be concerned with the right to equal protection and security, especially from anything that is dangerous to us physically or mentally. Without these rights, happiness cannot be felt and as Kant says all men have the need for happiness and are, by nature prone to act in any means that wil achieve it. From The Categorical Imperative, "Yet there is one thing which we may assume that all finite rational beings actually make their end, and there is therefore one object which may safely be reguarded, not simply as something that that they may seek, but as something that by necessity of their nature they actually do seek: This object is happiness. The hypothetical imperative, which affirms the practical necessity of an action as the means of attaining happiness, is assertoric." Humans, by nature must seek the things that make them happy.
