Comments on: Spider-man and Morality

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 17:05:01 +0000

Maybe I wasn’t very clear. Obviously, it’d be worse for Peter to beat the guy up than it was for him to stand and watch. But other factors would, presumably, be different between those two cases than the doing/allowing distinction. For instance, Peter’s motivation would likely be different — and a person’s motives, plausibly, do figure into a moral assessment of their actions. What I’m claiming is this: the doing/allowing distinction is not morally significant. I’m not claiming that every case of doing is morally the same as every case of allowing.

By: sacha

sacha — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 17:59:09 +0000

Wow. I never really thought Kierkegaard’s love life could be a perfect metaphor for a hollywood movie. Well done. On the other hand, at least from the feeling I got from the movie, the conjunction isn’t going to be a very happy one. It seems to me that the argument form of the movies so far is guaranteeing what the premise of number 3 is going to be: a) Don’t want to hurt the ones I love b) Do you have eyes for God’s sake? Look at her! Conclusion: Hot girl ends up in harms way.

By: roger

roger — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 17:52:01 +0000

Actually, I thought Spider Man 2’s main philosophical jones centered around the arch-Kierkegaardian relationship between Spidey and the woman he loves—who he feels that he must convince he doesn’t love, shades of Regina, because the pull into the ethical realm of marriage would interfere with the realm of faith (belief in himself as Spiderman). Notice how the Spidey powers decline as he is pulled into the human world. Of course, since the realm of faith isn’t really outlined beyond the ethical, this doesn’t quite work the way it works in Kierkegaard—which is perhaps why the two realms (faith and ethics) can happily conjoin in the end. Or maybe that is Hollywood.