Throughout A Clockwork Orange the violence in the narrative has to be given sufficient dramatic weight so that the moral delemina it poses can be situated in the right context. It is essential that Alex is seen to be guilty of extreme violence against society. Therefore when he is eventually transformed by the State into a harmless "reformed" citizen, one can reach a meaningful conclusion about the relative rights and wrongs of this action. If we did not at first encounter the teenage delinquent Alex as a brutal and unremorseless thug it would be all too easy to agree that the State is involved in a worse evil in depriving him of his essential freedom of choice between good and evil. It must however ultimately appear that it is unacceptable to transform even vicious criminals into compliant biological machines.

Within the film the mindless/remorseless violence is located in space by Kubrick's beautifully framed shots and tightly controlled tone, stripped of moral judgement and satirised by the films stylized poise. There is a profound conflict between chaos and reason, with reason residing in Kubrick's camera. The style becomes the substance and is consequently more enlightening given this fact.

Emerging from the "treatment", Alex is not only deprived of the capacity to choose to commit evil. As a lover of music, he has responded to the music (used as an emotional stimulant) which has accompanied the violent programs he has been forced to view. A chemical substance injected into his blood induces nausea while he is watching the films, but the nausea also comes to be associated with the music. It was not the intention of the State scientists to induce this side effect; it is purely an accident that from now on, he automatically reacts to Beethoven/Mozart in the same condition to that of rape or murder. The State has succeeded in its primary aim; to deny Alex free moral choice, which, to the State, means a choice of evil. However it has also added an unforeseen punishment.

"The gates of heaven are closed to the boy, since music is a figure of celestial bliss. The State has committed a double sin: it has destroyed a human being, since humanity is defined by freedom of moral choice; it has also destroyed an angel."
~ ~ Anthony Burgess

The genes load the gun, but the environment pulls the trigger.

In the contemporary era following the completion of the Human Genome Project, the convergence of genetics with an ultra-Darwinian worldview has reached a new zenith. The notion proposed is that not only the origin of species, but nature in addition to inanimate matter is determined by natural selection. In the respect of human individuals and their multifarious behaviours are concerned the suggestion resides with genetic determinism. Every activity and thought process is the product of the compulsive drive that our genes have to survive.

The specter of this a human condition is counteracted, however, by biologists, palaeontologists and sociologists who argue against the extreme meta-narratives elaborated in ultra-Darwinism. Exclusive emphasis on DNA as a justification for evolutionary and developmental processes is one-dimensional and inert.

At the fundamental level the debate between ultra-Darwinism and pluralistic sociology is about primacy: does it reside essentially with genes? Or in the whole organisms? Stable principles remain elusive. It seems apparent that Science, on questions of evolution cannot reach a truth or conclusion. Additionally biology, in the higher levels of complexity requires an open dynamic, rather than closed static interpretations.

Before modern genetic science, freewill was primarily the prerogative of the Church. Pelagius argued that humans are responsible for their actions, be they good or evil. The Church viewed this as a dangerous position since it minimised the role of God and the power of the Church. Currently the Catholic Church regards humanity as responsible for its own decisions and can reject God if it so chooses. St. Augustine said, "God who made us without our consent cannot save us without our consent."

However the question of free will may well centre around biology rather than theology or philosophy. That our world is mechanistic and can be predetermined to an extent is a proposition forwarded by many researchers. Free will, has been classically defined as the capacity to "do otherwise." The paradox of free will phrased in the language of science states that if our appearance/personality/behaviour are controlled by genes that we have inherited, and we live in a physical environment that can be measured and calculated, freedom of will may be an illusion generated by a brain created by the interactions of 30,0000 genes. We may think we are choosing; in reality, we could not do otherwise than we do. Could it be that our biological make-up limits our ability to make choices?

It is possible that the will – the soul – emerged through the evaluation of physiological mechanisms? Therefore the paradox of determinism and free will may not only be resolvable in theory, it might even be reduced in status to an empirical problem in physics and biology.