Year: 2022
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: The characters Ozymandias and Rorschach from Watchmen seem to represent opposite sides in the debate in philosophical ethics between consequentialists, who believe that the ends sometimes justify the means, and deontologists, who want us not to think in terms of ends and means at all. This chapter shows that the attitude of both Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons toward both consequentialism and deontology in Watchmen is profoundly negative. The ultimate target of the comic's critique is authoritarianism, the idea that anyone should set themselves up as a guardian of society. Superheroes serve as the images of power and authority in Watchmen ; the ideologies that the heroes pretend to follow are rationalizations of that power; and the corruption of the superheroes serves as a critique of both power and its rationalizations. Utilitarianism gets its motivation from the basic instinct that pain is bad and pleasure is good.
Source: Wiley eBooks
Author: J. Robert Loftis
Language: English
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4391624956