Superheroes and Killing

This blog is an analysis on why it seems to me that superheroes killing is perfectly fine, and potentially positive. I believe this contention must be addressed on two levels: the ethical question (IE if this situation was a real situation would it be ethical to kill) and the metafictional question (IE is it better for the story for them to kill).

So for the former, obviously there is no universally agreed on "moral" or "immoral". That said an ethical system that says killing is NEVER justified seems wholly outside mainstream thought, and any system which argues such a system seems inconsistent with simple thought experiments.

Obviously, if morality is wholly relativistic or nihilistic, then it is inconsistent to claim an act is "immoral". If morality is socially constructed or arbitrary constraints then it seems self-evident no act will be universally immoral. Such is also the case in any form of consequential ethics system, where the morality of a system is determined by it's effects. Famously the Utilitarian answer to the trolley problem is to sacrifice one person to save 5 people, and in fact to not do so is outright immoral as it is sacrificing many for one.

In order for the ACT of killing itself to be problem-atized, one requires a form of deontological ethical system, where the morality of an action is determined by the nature of the action itself, at least in part.

That's fine, however to have a deontological rule against killing consistently is to say it is never acceptable under ANY circumstances to kill, which would be highly outside normal intuitive range and against conventional popular culture, where very often the protagonist generally designated hero kills. My intuition here is to give examples, but it is honestly hard because there is simply so many examples, both of western culture and my own culture, where killing is deemed perfectly acceptable, even a vital act, for the hero. This ranges from magical girls and colorfully suited sentai heroes blowing up monsters of the week, shonen warriors often brutally defeating minor henchmen of the main villain until the arc villain is defeated, medieval fantasy heroes slaying orcs and goblins by the hoard, science fiction heroes blasting alien monsters, video game protagonists making their way through hoards of enemy per level and so forth. To put it bluntly, it's hard for me to reconcile the idea that superheroes killing removes their heroism, somehow makes the work dark and gritty, when a magical girl manga for teen girls in the 90s has the heroine slice the head off a monster on-panel in the first chapter (That's not even getting a 1% of the stuff that's in Sailor Moon, if SAILOR MOON is way darker then a series, then no I'm not gonna consider it even remotely dark). As such to keep such a deontological rule for anyone outside superheroes is to necessitate to view vast swaths of fiction's heroes as anti-heroes at best.

Now granted, generally it seems that the opposition to the act of killing it itself, but to the superhero killing, as a form of relational ethics. It is ambiguous to me, whether this is from an in-universe perspective, that it is wrong for a person in the superhero role to kill if they were real, or from an out of universe perspective, that the superhero archetype should not kill as literature. As such I will try to address both points separately.

Now, as you might imagine, it's difficult to talk generalities when there exists such differences in superheroes....for the purpose of hypothetical I will discuss two hypothetical superheroes, The Cape and The Cowl. The Cape has been granted by some source godlike power to shape the world but has a psychology comparable to a human. The Cowl is a vigilante and exists within a normal human framework. These two are expies of Superman and Batman fairly obviously, though these can also be used for comparison for most heroes of their nature.

The Cape is the symbol of hope for his world, a benevolent demigod. It is fairly obvious that realistically speaking such an entity is outside the bounds of humanity to punish should we desire too, but morally speaking should such an entity obey the rules of humanity? Let us assume for the sake of this hypothetical that The Cape does wish to obey the morals of humanity. In the DC Universe, Superman follows human morals, particularly because he views himself as an (adopted) human but moreover because he views himself as above no one. He has no special immunity to the law, regardless of how easily he could infringe it. So in our hypothetical let us say The Cape is subject to the laws and morals of humanity.

What could be extrapolated from this? Obviously it would be seen as immoral and moreover illegal for The Cape to use lethal force on a normal human, even a vile one. Best case scenario this would be considered a crime of passion, worst case it would be murder legally. That seems fine to state, that the Cape should not use their godlike power to kill those that pose no effective threat to them. But then this logic seems to be applied to entities that equal the Cape or even exceed them. This is in contradiction to both law and precedent. Most legal systems in the world recognize "self-defense law", allowing for the use of force up to and including lethal force in the case of self-defense and also generally have laws allowing for the use of force, again up to and including lethal force in the case of protecting innocents from those who would willfully and deliberately harm them. The Cape might be a demigod, and not need fear threats from human threats, but should they come across a villain who seeks to kill them or perish trying, or should they come across a villain who seeks the death of innocents willfully, any civilized legal system in the world would refuse to convict The Cape should he require lethal force to protect his life or the life of innocents.

Obviously something being legal does not make it moral necessarily and as discussed above there is no universal agreement on the moral. Yet if one wishes to have a coherent moral philosophy, even without a unifying logic, one must at least have the capacity to give AN answer to a moral question, and a moral philosophy that suggests that in the case where The Cape MUST choose between using lethal force to kill a combatant who is willfully attempting to destroy The Cape and the entire human populace, versus allowing himself and the world's population to perish that the latter is the more moral option seems to fly completely against any common sense.

I should note that this is not controversial for Superman in particular. Superman has used lethal force before. In the Death of the Superman arc, he used lethal force to kill Doomsday though he himself died in the attempt (technically neither really died, though Superman had at least the intent to kill to protect the world). Perhaps Doomsday isn't considered because the sapience of the creature is called into question (though Doomsday possesses at least some sapience and the higher order of animals of comparable intelligence like apes and elephants have some rights under the law). However such can not be said of Darkseid, who is possessing of an intelligent and awareness far surpassing humanity. Yet in the event Final Crisis, Superman cancels out the vibrations of Darkseid's strings, not just killing him, but erasing him from existence. Though he would eventually return, this was clearly force well exceeding lethal. Superman was started in the Golden Age as a character that didn't even mind if a criminal died.

I must admit a bias to my own intuition. If it can be said that intelligence and wisdom are keys in determining morality, such as when killing would be justified, it would seem to me that The Cape, gifted with a super-intelligent and a greater wisdom and awareness of the cosmos would have an ability to greater determine when to kill with greater ability and with a greater ability to explain and justify their reasoning then any human, or indeed depending on the extent the whole of humanity. This to me is why the morality of The Cape can seem alien. Assuming morality is existent, The Cape gifted with intellectual capacities beyond humanity would have a greater ability to understand it and a greater ability to express it.

Let us turn to The Cape's compatriot, The Cowl. The Cowl is a vigilante who fights human crime on a more even level. While easily stronger in capacities then the average criminal, they can still pose a credible threat to them. They are gifted with no superhuman abilities.

Obviously The Cowl can not simply become immune to the law as The Cape could potentially be. Some of the philosophical problems with The Cape do not apply to The Cape. The Cape is obviously subject to the laws and morals of humanity. The very fact that they are characterized as a vigilante, designating them as acting outside the laws that they would normally be bound too, shows that they would normally be subject to the laws.

If The Cowl existed in the real world (and honestly several do....there are actually street level heroes that wander around), is it legal for him to kill?

Well let's start by saying, if The Cowl is acting outside the law anyway, then saying that shouldn't kill because it's illegally not only isn't technically true (because it is legal in certain circumstances) but also philosophically untrue because the law is driving their actions. If they are acting within the law, then the law allows killing in certain circumstances anyway so obviously it's not because they are breaking the law.

So why doesn't The Cowl kill? Generally the reason given is either pragmatic in nature or psychological in nature. Obviously these can be both sub-divided ad infinitum into more and more specifics however it's important to register that in neither case are we talking anymore about what is moral in the broad, rather talking about the specifics of the individual.

What this means is that it is not wrong for all vigilante heroes to kill, just that specific individuals have a personal reason, pragmatic or psychological to not do so, a rule that can't be universalized by definition.

In general, "killing" as an action can neither be generalized as being immoral or illegal, as there are clear exceptions where it can be both moral and legal to kill an opponent. In the real world, should superheroes exist demanding that they kill does not seem to be "holding them to a higher standard" as that would imply there is something inherently morally wrong with the act of killing itself, which is inconsistent. Demanding that they not kill instead would seem to penalize them arbitrarily for something that would not be viewed dis-favorably if done by a non-superhero. In our real world, there exists soldiers and police who are forced to kill in the line of duty and this does not seem problem-atized.

But perhaps this is wholly the wrong angle, and the real objection instead comes from the metafictional approach. "The superhero should not kill" is not a statement of the philosopher but the artist in this case. Obviously it can not be an ontological statement that the construct of the archetype of the superhero does not kill because there are a pletheora of examples of characters universally regarded as Superheroes who kill. Off the top of my head

1: Superman (as mentioned above)
2: Wonder Woman: Killed Maxwell Lord in Infinite Crisis and the half-demon monster Grendel
3:  Doctor Fate: Has killed many evil magicians and once punched an entire planet into the sun
4: Numerous Green Lanterns have killed before such as Guy Gardner killing a member of the Sinestro Corps
5: Black Canary: Killed Everyman
6: Starfire: Killed the Gordanian Slavers that took her as a slave
7: The Spectre: Regularly kills, as the embodiment of God's Vengeance

So obviously it is not an ontological statement that the superhero can not kill, unless the individual is claiming that all these entities are not superheroes. Rather it seems to be a claim that the superhero should not kill.

This should immediately be noted as an aberration. There is no other heroic archetype where it is claimed that the archetype should not kill entirely.

This is not derived in any way by the predecessors of the superhero. If we look into the distant past, the mythological heroes of ages past, would slay monsters and villains purely as a matter of course. The Pulp Heroes of the past such as The Shadow would also regularly kill criminals. In fact I read one speculation that the reason the Golden Age Batman switched from using guns and killing criminals to not doing so was so to distinguish him from The Shadow.

To demand that the Superhero Archetype must REQUIRE the lack of usage of lethal force seems to require reason. Perhaps one can argue that the Superhero archetype should be a moral example to follow. I actually would agree, and would extend this argument to many other heroic archetypes. And to me that is actually the way which wanting the Superhero Archetype to not kill is not only not more moral, but it actually less moral.

As established above, it almost universally agreed that there exists some circumstances in which to kill is morally justified, and in the case of protecting the lives of innocents may prove even necessary. If this is accepted then to instruct people away from necessary action for the purpose of arbitrarily limiting the actions of heroes to an irrational set of actions seems irresponsible.

If it is accepted that superheroes are a modern mythological hero, a larger then life heroic entity designed to provide moral instruction, it is of even greater importance that they be allowed to show how to handle morally difficult situations such as the trolley problem, where one must choose between the life of the individual and the lives of the many, often a far easier version of the trolley problem where the individual is not blameless but directly the cause of the danger to the many.

I must admit a particular bias here. I sense a western conception of the eternal, iconic that confuses me and that I do not understand the appeal off. There seems a conception that the ideal fiction is of such archetypal nature that they exist as pure archetype. In other words the most "pure" Superman is one that is the perfect hero.

But the difference between archetype and character is change. The Archetype exists outside space and time as ideal form. The Character, is the individual changing in response to the movement of space and time who at different times will resemble different archetypes. While there is something to be said of creating a character that can resemble the archetype, who can have such a potency that they seem to become universal, it is antithetical to the nature of story if they can not leave the bounds of the pure Archetype.

There seems to be a great disturbance at deviating the superhero too far from their starting point, that they become a different character wholly. One of my bottom 5 superhero stories, and one that is fairly uncontroversial is the Spider-Man story "One More Day". OMD represents to me this problem in abstract. OMD was made because Spider-Man had transitioned from a Nerdy Teenager with secret powers, to a happily married adult who recently had his powers revealed and then he was reverted to the original. And here is where my bias probably comes in, this attitude is something I really detest, that things must remain the same and can not change, as it would inevitably with time. If you watch anime or read manga, especially ones that aren't the most popular ones, you will notice villains die and the heroes age at the same rate or faster then then actual series comes out. If I'm honest, I wish comics would do the same. I wish things changed naturally, that society would be shaped by these demigods, with their godlike technology, magic, intelligence and capacities. But so long as series are so tied to the status quo that a major villain can't even die, then this will never happen. As long as the stories of superheroes are so limited in their capacity to actually change that their world that they can't even permanently win the battle with one of their villains, then their impact on their world will remain limited to such a degree that the world can not change naturally.

In Conclusion: Both philosophically and artistically, their is no rational reason that the superhero should not kill.