To add to the update regarding "moral duty", I think the phrase "moral duty" is a little misleading. For one, I think it's a social responsibility to help your fellow man, be it serving jury duty or swimming out to save a drowning person (assuming you can manage). However, to claim social responsibility would require social interaction. Superman does not socially interact, he merely jumps in and jumps out during times of crisis. This is the reason why I don't believe in a "moral duty". For one thing, morals is such a quagmire of undefined blob that it's difficult to talk anything about it. For another, I question Superman and his understanding of morals...period.
Now, we come to the line at which one should stop. Should you give the beggar a dollar so he can spend it on drugs or put money into a rehabilitation system to turn them into productive members of society? Not all "problems" have such a clear cut answer, and when it doesn't, it's a social responsibility to act in a democratic way...in as much as the system allows, is it not?
Taking it back to Superman, this is an entity that doesn't stick with the easy questions, and thus drags himself into the moral/reason quagmire. Yet, instead of admitting the difficulties surrounding the "problem", he instead thinks (and I do emphasize thinks) he has a solution. A solution that, unfortunately, writers are too dumb to realize isn't a workable one.
But, see, this then turns into a meta problem. It's not that Superman doesn't have the super intelligence to think up a good solution, it's that humans don't. How can a mere human write super intelligence when humans cannot possess it and thus think of the solutions? Even Sherlock Holmes wasn't above making mistakes, so how can anyone possibly hope to write a character that is infallible? And if the character is fallible, then how can it be superhuman?
The problem, in the end, lies in that what the writers are trying to write is impossible for a mere human to understand, much less engineer and construct into the fabric of literature.
no subject
To add to the update regarding "moral duty", I think the phrase "moral duty" is a little misleading. For one, I think it's a social responsibility to help your fellow man, be it serving jury duty or swimming out to save a drowning person (assuming you can manage). However, to claim social responsibility would require social interaction. Superman does not socially interact, he merely jumps in and jumps out during times of crisis. This is the reason why I don't believe in a "moral duty". For one thing, morals is such a quagmire of undefined blob that it's difficult to talk anything about it. For another, I question Superman and his understanding of morals...period.
Now, we come to the line at which one should stop. Should you give the beggar a dollar so he can spend it on drugs or put money into a rehabilitation system to turn them into productive members of society? Not all "problems" have such a clear cut answer, and when it doesn't, it's a social responsibility to act in a democratic way...in as much as the system allows, is it not?
Taking it back to Superman, this is an entity that doesn't stick with the easy questions, and thus drags himself into the moral/reason quagmire. Yet, instead of admitting the difficulties surrounding the "problem", he instead thinks (and I do emphasize thinks) he has a solution. A solution that, unfortunately, writers are too dumb to realize isn't a workable one.
But, see, this then turns into a meta problem. It's not that Superman doesn't have the super intelligence to think up a good solution, it's that humans don't. How can a mere human write super intelligence when humans cannot possess it and thus think of the solutions? Even Sherlock Holmes wasn't above making mistakes, so how can anyone possibly hope to write a character that is infallible? And if the character is fallible, then how can it be superhuman?
The problem, in the end, lies in that what the writers are trying to write is impossible for a mere human to understand, much less engineer and construct into the fabric of literature.