Arbitration and Ethics

Ethical Dilemma of a Superhero : SpiderMan

SUBMITTED BY:
Abhishek Meena
IVTH YEARVIITH SEMESTER
2012-03
NALSAR UNIVERSITY OF LAW
HYDERABAD

Why to be a Superhero?

Is it right that Great power means great responsibility too?

In the movie Spiderman (2002), in one of a very famous scenes Peter Parker's (who is actually
the Spiderman) Uncle Ben a very famous character in Spidermans universe said to him that
with great power comes the great responsibility.
Now, let us put ourselves in the feet of Spiderman, as a teenager you just came to know that you
are an extraordinary human being but because of this fact you have to use you power in public
good by giving help to others, it is obvious that as a teenager most of us would not understand
the concept of common good and will try to use it for personal gains.
In the end of the movie also, Peter talks about his power saying, This power is my gift, my
curse. Do you think Peter Parker is morally obliged to serve others by being a superhero?
Now, according to some this will be a consequentialism concept, it is an approach regarding
morality in which, only outcome can derive the justness or the wrongfulness of a particular
action.
Now, according to the consequentialist approach, it can be argued that Peter Parker is a moral
obliged to be Spider-Man because the outcomes of this decision will result in the greatest good.
But if we look at the non-consequentialist point of view then we will see that it can be argued
that Peter Parker was also a talented scientist, so by becoming a good scientist and fulfilling his
duties towards his country will also result in greater good. May be becoming Spiderman is
above any other duties which Peter Parker owes to his country
The idea of great responsibilities that come with his great powers has a foundation on the
ideas of sacrifice himself for other people, an unconditional love for the individuals.
It is obvious that we as normal people do not face situations like Spiderman does in his life
where he has to fight a super human villain to save the citizens of the country. But, if we live
this kind of life then we will realize that each successive day, we will likely find ourselves
understanding issues of how we protect those who are close to us and how to help those who
makes a cry for help to focus on the greater good and doing all this a very sociological developed
conscience of the mind.

Morality v. Selfishness

Now another important question which comes in the mind is that what if Peter Parker decided to
use his powers for selfish purposes or, even maybe he can use them for doing more bad things
like committing crimes of robbery, or he may wants to rule the city by overthrowing the
government? So, Why Be a Superhero? Why Be Moral?1
Now, we are again back to the main problem of the whole discussion which is why Spider-Man
does what he does why does he helps the citizens and why is he so, morally driven. By morally
driven I mean why does Spiderman does not charge the people for his services like other
professionals charge the people for providing their services to the public like engineers, lawyers
etc, In most of the situation the Spider-Man have to help strangers, although there are some
situations in which his loved one or the people who he really cares about need saving.
As far as his origin story is concerned, there is a deterministic element to his motivations. Both
in the original comic series and in Spiderman2 film, Initially when Peter got these super power,
he used his super human powers for buying a car by winning a wrestling match, but after
winning the organizer cheats him by giving him very less money, after this a thief comes to the
office and robs the organizer, but Peter refuses to stop him, a clerk in the grocery store also asks
for Peters help in stopping the thief but he refuses to help also, and all this was because the
organizer cheated him before.
Now, when Peter was coming back to home and he saw that the same thief who he refused to
stop has killed his uncle Ben because his Uncle was trying to stop the thief and in process he got
killed. Now because of the guilt of not doing any action and not being able respect his Uncles
morality, Peter finally took vows to help the citizens and chooses the path of his Uncles morality
by becoming Spiderman.
However, there are also some other version of the same story where events are little bit different
than those which were in movie uncle Ben is not killed by the thief but irrespective of that due to
the popularity, fame he was getting and treated like a celebrity as Spiderman was the reason
1 Essay by C. Stephen Layman
2 Spiderman(2002) film directed by Sam Raimi

behind him becoming Spiderman and fought crime. In this parallel universe everybody knows
Spiderman is Peter Parker. Although in this universe morality have no part to play but the
dilemma of morality is now being replaced by the dilemma of selfishness or selfish motive
which Spiderman has, as now true hero of justice uses his power for his own personal gains
Another example of parallel stories of Spiderman which can be seen here is in comic series3 in
which Peter parker is not bitten by the Spider and three other character i.e. Flash Thomson, Betty
Grant and John Jameson from the same series are bitten by the spider on which scientists were
working on these people subsequently become Spider-Man.
But in all of the three cases the Spiderman of their universe failed in fighting against crime
because they were not doing this for helping others but for their own selfish desires and out of
three storylines in two of the storylines the Spiderman got killed.
By this can be easily derived that without morality a superhero can never fight crime and can get
success in his motives.
This morality is the only reason why we are seeing Peter Parker as the only successful
Spiderman without any moral basis Spiderman cannot push himself till his full potential nd can
never change the condition of the society which is present now.
Now, to see from where this morality came into the story then we have to look further deep in
Peters life. By looking at the character of Peter Parker we can see that he is a very good person
both in the heart and outside, why is it so because he was raised by such good guardians. We can
see in one of the iconic scenes, the example of how Peters Uncle and Aunt raised him and used
to teach him about selflessness and responsibility towards the society. In this iconic scene Peters
uncle be says With great power comes great responsibility. This is a very power statement
which gives a powerful realization in mind
In the end I would like to say that the question why superheroes fight crimes and help people is
because they choose the path of morality now, why they choose the path of morality is because
there are different-different incidents occurs in most of the superheroes story which compels
them ethically and morally to become a superhero who fights crimes, the main reason behind this
is that they are raised with surroundings where ethics and morality are given very much
importance otherwise there are also many superhuman who are not superheroes but are
Supervillain a total opposite of a superhero, and why a Supervillain is like this again for the same
3 What If? series of comics. In What If? Vol. 1, No. 7

reason as superheroes but the situations in which they were raise we totally opposite to that of a
Superhero and in some cases morality and ethics were nowhere in the surrounding in which they
were raised, best example which could be taken in this case is of Sandman which gave his debut
in Spiderman 3 (second sequel to the original film).
Now, perhaps in the final conclusion I can say that a person does think that he has all the power
to make his own decision by free will and choice but in reality surrounding plays a lot of part in
ethical decision making.

Bibliography

1. SpiderMan comics....................................... What if comics

2. Spiderman Movie......................................... by Sam Raimi
3. Essay on Spiderman..................................... C. Stephen Layman