Given superpowers, becoming a superhero seems like the most ethical choice, but is it? I’ve been wondering lately, and here is my platform to espouse said wonderings. And before we get any further, I have read most of Superheroes and Philosophy, and while I’m sure it in part inspired my ramblings, my ideas here aren’t based directly off anything from that book, but I also didn’t go and check before writing just to keep myself pure. So if I overlap with what someone said in there, let me know in the comments.
To be fair, I did not consider the "hover" option. Holy crap, that's awesome.
Here’s how it started, there’s this question philosopher types like to ask when trying to talk people into corners. You find yourself driving down the road in a very expensive suit/dress worth at least $1,000. You see a car has gone off the road into a river. Do you dive into the river to save a total stranger knowing it will ruin your outfit? Most people will answer that they’d try to save the person, but what if you were asked to give $1,000 to help save someone dying continents away? Ethically, the situations are the same: it costs you personally $1,000 to save a stranger’s life either way. However, we all have the option to give $1,000 to charity right now. Most of us don’t. The faraway person doesn’t carry the same sense of urgency as the person drowning right in front of you. For some reason, I’d never thought about applying this idea to superheroes, but it makes a lot of sense.
This is essentially what superheroes do, right? Every time Spider-Man botches his real job to help others he’s costing himself money to help others. But does that really make any sense? I know the adage, he has power so he ought to help, but is it really ok that it costs him so much money? We have this weird distaste of people being paid for good deeds, but at the same time whenever there are doctors, soldiers, fire-fighters, police, etc. involved in a superhero caper, the hero is always quick to say, “Don’t thank me, I’m not the real hero here, these folks are the REAL heroes!” The real heroes being the people there getting paid. Even typing it, “getting paid” does seem somewhat diminutive, but I still can’t figure out why. If you’re good at something, especially helping others, I see no reason not to financially incentivize that passion. Couldn’t Peter Parker do even more good if he was just paid to be Spider-Man rather than having to find time to make rent AND patrol the streets?
Can't argue with a union.
The concept has been trotted out before in books like Heroes for Hire and Capes, but each in slightly different ways. In Heroes for Hire, the good guys were getting paid to take specific cases, but I never felt like they’d say no to helping out in an emergency. And I also feel like (though my memory may be faulty) that there was usually at least one scene where another hero righteously chastises them for taking money for their services based on the solid ethical principle of “well nobody else does it.” Think different, dude. Then in Capes, heroeing is a 9-5 job. You clock in, you clock out, you go home. Again, never got the sense they’d avoid actual emergencies, but it was the same as a doctor or a policemen. You might step up in a moment of crisis, but you’d still yield to the on-duty paramedics when they arrived at the scene. One of the hot new specialties in medicine is Emergency Medicine. Whereas other types of doctors have to be on call from time to time, designated ER specialists clock in and clock out. They still work insane hours, but you get my point. And do the other doctors give them crap about never taking call? Yes, they probably do, but hopefully you at least see my point.
Then I start thinking about whether or not being a superhero is the best thing you can do with your powers, but I’ve literally already written that column, so I’ll just let you go there and read that.
Eventually this line of thinking takes me back to Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, because if you’re going to make a point, why not really make it, right? In both those books, some of the main heroes aren’t heroes for any
Nothing weird here. Perfectly normal behavior.
personal gain, but more because of borderline insanity. Both books paint pictures of people on the edge, driven beyond all reason to do something stupid and dangerous, but who are at the same time aroused by the thrill of it all. It’s an interesting argument, but borders more on the psychological as opposed to the philosophical. At the end of the day, no one really cares if they’re pulled out of the river by someone who should have been getting counseling, all that matters is that you’re out of the river. The psyche evals will have to wait for another day, unless Timmy gets tired of doing job evaluations and is up for a challenge.
So I have no answer. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with heroes getting paid, especially considering the high cost they pay to help us, but I can’t deny that there is something off about the whole idea. Have I just been brainwashed by years upon years of comics’ heroes who want no reward or am I missing some key piece of the ethical puzzle to make this all fit? Help me iFanbase, you’re my only hope.
Ryan Haupt wears $1,000 suits in the hopes that someone needs saving, hasn’t happened yet but here’s hoping. Here him wearing a suit on the podcast Science… sort of.
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A couple of things came to mind while reading this.
In regards to paying for passion, what about college athletes? They aren’t paid but their services are highly valuable and lucrative for others.
Also how are we truly compensating people whose job requires a willingness to die in the commission of it? We only give current military personnel a decent wage because its all-volunteer; during the draft era the pay and benefits were substantially lower because we didn’t haven’t to pay them. In fact shirking on your national obligation was a crime punishable my imprisonment. If Spiderman and Superman are for some reason intrinsic to their personalities forced to operate for the good of their communities then why pay them for it? A moral argument doesn’t even work with the real “heroes” we do have.
I don’t think it’s OK how college athletes get exploited for the profits of others. Really not even sure how that type of scenario might apply to superheroes.
“Also how are we truly compensating people whose job requires a willingness to die in the commission of it?”
We’re paying them money. Jobs can be dangerous, some people actually like that danger, others don’t have a choice and that’s just the job they have. I’m again not sure how that’s relevant to whether or not payment of any sort is deserved.
I guess if it’s OK to exploit college athletes is also OK to exploit superheroes, I just don’t necessarily agree.
I guess my point was that we have a market that rewards work a certain way, as you say its monetary. But how we define work is important. Many would argue that college athletes are partaking in a hobby. Just because someone profits from college sports doesn’t necessarily mean that the athletes should be paid. They are more akin to interns or volunteers hoping to score full-time jobs than professionals. I disagree with this point of view but that’s an argument that has been made.
One could see superheroing as a similar hobby. No one makes or asks Spiderman to do what he does. Therefore he shouldn’t expect or be granted compensation for it. Maybe if Spiderman went on strike he would be better able to prove his worth.
Avengers Academy has been dealing with this issue since 14.1. It has been really interesting, though of course the guy to come up with the idea is a sociopath.
Though the idea isn’t to pay heroes, it’s for heroes to use their powers to solve greater problems.
Yeah, I remember that issue now. It was good.
Spider-Man is usually demonized in the press despite his good deeds. Super Heroes being paid then makes them and their actions the responsibility of another organization or government, which might not always be the most desirable option. There is also the issue of then being forced to share their identity with group who finances them. Not a good idea.
We are also talking about characters who live in worlds with Super Villains and challenges that no one else can tackle, so clearly becoming a Super Hero is the morally right thing to do.
The charity analogy doesn’t work for me. If I saw someone in trouble and I was able to help, I wouldn’t be thinking about my clothing. Charity is a completely different scenario, many of us DO donate. But beyond that, providing a donation that will ideally help put food on the table of the needy or fund cancer research is a bit of a different situation than helping the person who is drowning right in front of you.
Also, do you think the cop who is off duty and witness a terrible crime isn’t going to do anything? Do you think all cops and fireman are doing it for the paycheck? just seems cynical
The answer to your question is literally in the article.
Sorry Ryan, must have missed it. but nevertheless we disagree. Heroes are good even if they aren’t getting paid, especially in a fictional super hero universe. If Superman recieved a monartary reward evertime he saved somebody it would kind of downplay the altruism of the character. The whole idea is these are people who do it for no other reason but to fight the fights others cannot.
I never said they wouldn’t continue being good, I’m wondering if they DESERVE payment for the good that they do, even if they didn’t want or expect any payment in the first place. Altruism is a tricky concept, and I admitted in the article that the concept of getting paid does seem to diminish the heroic act, but why it does so is not clear. The idea of doing good just because it’s good is tautological and doesn’t give me much intellectual satisfaction.
i think they would demand payment after a while. Ego and inflated self importance would come into play because of the humanity. Like i mentioned below about the athletes, you see them start to get “corrupted” by the ego/hype/fame machine. Without some sort of larger religious like sense of duty or devotion, human nature is hard to fight. I guess that was my larger point.
i’ve wrestled with the idea of selfless superheroes and how they can contradict human nature. After a while, you’d want LeBron’s endorsement deal, or the reality show, or the women, or the power to make governments or armies to do your bidding. How long can you stay selfless, when you have the power to take and do whatever you want?
A superpower makes you into a ‘god’ and i’d think an inflation of ego, self importance and corruption of power would take over no matter how hard you’d fight it. I dunno if being “on-call” to help out would be the top of your list when you’ve got all that power.
But then there are characters like Booster Gold who have dealt with the idea of endorsements.
That’s why I liked Dr. Manhattan’s solution to it all. “I’m basically a god, so I’m going to go be a god somewhere.”
Some heroes would never take an endorsement deal. It would undermine Batman’s self-created mythos, it would make Spider-Man feel guilty, even though his whole shtick is assuaging his own guilt. I would think the simplest solution would be to just use your powers to be better than LeBron but do it secretly and hope they don’t start testing athlete’s for superpowers.
yeah thats a good one about Dr. Manhattan, but that character is kind of enlightened don’t you think? Not many heroes can claim that.
You should either do something you love, or do it for money to survive. As long as people get rescued and are safe at night, it shouldn’t matter how it’s done. It could work like the Initiative in Marvel, people are recruited and trained and payed for their time and services. Of course then you would run into the same problems as normal cops and firefighters. Maybe it could work like a volunteer group, they’re compensated for their efforts, and they have someone to answer to if and when they make mistakes.