This seems like an obvious enough thought experiment there is probably a literature on it, but I have not found any: how much vacation would it be ethical for a superhero to take? The kneejerk reaction seems to be first none. Assuming even one life saved per hour, he’d be “killing” a handful of people even going on a date (beyond or assuming away a bare psychological minimum for sanity or cetera). The next kneejerk reaction is that the first one is nuts. Thoughts/references?
And despite involving superheroes, I am seriously interested.
As long as we’re talking psychologically human superheroes rather than, say, aliens with perfect ethics and unlimited willpower from the planet Krypton, this seems equivalent to the problem of maximizing worker productivity (adjusted if necessary for the type of work). There’s a substantial literature on that.
I think you have one extra assumption. I do not assume that said superhero wants to sacrifice his life to the greater good, but I do assume he is willing to chip in in a more reasonable way. To be as vague as possible, saving zero people and saving the maximum possible without a spare hour to eat cake on his birthday are both unacceptable, and I suspect the answer to how much he would want to work is closer to the middle than either extreme.
My question is how blameworthy it is to not be at the extreme of self-sacrifice.
Someone like you or me in every other way but who happens to save the life of one or two other people upon whom he happens to stumble per week seems almost certainly ethically superior to us. Assuming he wants to take advantage of his gift to a degree he would consider reasonable upon rational reflection and still have a life, how could he decide with more precision how much to work?
I suspect we can do better than just assuming 40h/wk.
My question is how blameworthy it is to not be at the extreme of self-sacrifice.
The underlying point is that, from a consequentialist point of view, you shouldn’t care how self-sacrificing a superhero is but rather how effective they are in fighting crime and saving people—which is to say how good they are at their job. Reality doesn’t grade for effort. If Batman decides to work twenty-hour days because he feels guilty about anything less, and a week later he falls asleep at the wheel and the Batmobile drifts into the path of an oncoming cement truck, he may have been very praiseworthy by some deontological standard but in practical terms he didn’t do much for Gotham.
It’s still a little more complicated than “how many hours should they work?”, though. Superheroing’s an inherently reactive sort of enterprise—traditionally a superhero doesn’t just go out whenever they want to rough up gang members, but rather shows up when e.g. a guy in a koala mask with a ray gun is robbing a bank—so I expect skilled on-call professionals like trauma surgeons or datacenter admins might be a better model than, say, factory workers.
That seems like a false extreme to me, but I might have misspoken. Lets say he decides okay, I could work 85 hours a week and suffer no loss in productivity, but I am unwilling to work more than 40h. He still benefits the world more than any but 0-100 (I bet someone curing something might win, but still, few...) people. Is he ethically blameworthy or praiseworthy?
Warning 2: Although indeed a character in the story faces this issue, I don’t recall anything particularly surprising or insightful about it in the story. Which, for the avoidance of doubt, I don’t regard as a defect: the purpose of Worm is to tell a particular story the author wanted to tell, not to conduct a careful philosophical investigation into the civic responsibilities of superheroes.
(Worm does have a thing or two to say about the civic responsibilities of superheroes, I guess, but most of it isn’t said specifically through that subplot. After all, pretty much all its characters are superheroes/supervillains.)
This seems to have two mostly-orthogonal components to consider, both of which don’t seem like things we can actually discuss:
First, the possibility that not-working-constantly may make the superhero more productive, and have other benefits which ultimately cash out as productivity. This is an empirical question, so it makes no sense to discuss it for superheroes.
Second, the extent to which one is obligated to sacrifice one’s own non-inclusive wellbeing for others. Some people are roughly consequentialists, others are psychopaths, and there is no way to argue our way out of the disagreement—disagreements about values are settled by negotiation or by debellation, not by argument.
And this applies as much to superheroes as to the rest of us.
Thanks for the reply. I was trying to avoid the former and examine the latter. Take the word “psychopath” and divide it by a pretty big number and I think I’m with you, at least a little, until the “and.” Are there no arguments for it, or just none as helpful as social solutions iyo?
Basically while they had room for funding the Against Malaria Foundation was saving a life for roughly 2000$ via distributing bednets in Africa (numbers from memory).
Most people do earn less than 2000$ per hour but some people do earn that much and essentially have the ability to rescue a life per hour worked without superhero powers.
This seems like an obvious enough thought experiment there is probably a literature on it, but I have not found any: how much vacation would it be ethical for a superhero to take? The kneejerk reaction seems to be first none. Assuming even one life saved per hour, he’d be “killing” a handful of people even going on a date (beyond or assuming away a bare psychological minimum for sanity or cetera). The next kneejerk reaction is that the first one is nuts. Thoughts/references?
And despite involving superheroes, I am seriously interested.
As long as we’re talking psychologically human superheroes rather than, say, aliens with perfect ethics and unlimited willpower from the planet Krypton, this seems equivalent to the problem of maximizing worker productivity (adjusted if necessary for the type of work). There’s a substantial literature on that.
I think you have one extra assumption. I do not assume that said superhero wants to sacrifice his life to the greater good, but I do assume he is willing to chip in in a more reasonable way. To be as vague as possible, saving zero people and saving the maximum possible without a spare hour to eat cake on his birthday are both unacceptable, and I suspect the answer to how much he would want to work is closer to the middle than either extreme.
My question is how blameworthy it is to not be at the extreme of self-sacrifice.
Someone like you or me in every other way but who happens to save the life of one or two other people upon whom he happens to stumble per week seems almost certainly ethically superior to us. Assuming he wants to take advantage of his gift to a degree he would consider reasonable upon rational reflection and still have a life, how could he decide with more precision how much to work?
I suspect we can do better than just assuming 40h/wk.
The underlying point is that, from a consequentialist point of view, you shouldn’t care how self-sacrificing a superhero is but rather how effective they are in fighting crime and saving people—which is to say how good they are at their job. Reality doesn’t grade for effort. If Batman decides to work twenty-hour days because he feels guilty about anything less, and a week later he falls asleep at the wheel and the Batmobile drifts into the path of an oncoming cement truck, he may have been very praiseworthy by some deontological standard but in practical terms he didn’t do much for Gotham.
It’s still a little more complicated than “how many hours should they work?”, though. Superheroing’s an inherently reactive sort of enterprise—traditionally a superhero doesn’t just go out whenever they want to rough up gang members, but rather shows up when e.g. a guy in a koala mask with a ray gun is robbing a bank—so I expect skilled on-call professionals like trauma surgeons or datacenter admins might be a better model than, say, factory workers.
That seems like a false extreme to me, but I might have misspoken. Lets say he decides okay, I could work 85 hours a week and suffer no loss in productivity, but I am unwilling to work more than 40h. He still benefits the world more than any but 0-100 (I bet someone curing something might win, but still, few...) people. Is he ethically blameworthy or praiseworthy?
Among other fictional examples, the character of Panacea in Worm (and several wormfics) faces this issue.
Thanks, I’ll google that.
Warning 1: Worm is really, really, really long.
Warning 2: Although indeed a character in the story faces this issue, I don’t recall anything particularly surprising or insightful about it in the story. Which, for the avoidance of doubt, I don’t regard as a defect: the purpose of Worm is to tell a particular story the author wanted to tell, not to conduct a careful philosophical investigation into the civic responsibilities of superheroes.
(Worm does have a thing or two to say about the civic responsibilities of superheroes, I guess, but most of it isn’t said specifically through that subplot. After all, pretty much all its characters are superheroes/supervillains.)
Oh thanks for that. Will use.
This seems to have two mostly-orthogonal components to consider, both of which don’t seem like things we can actually discuss:
First, the possibility that not-working-constantly may make the superhero more productive, and have other benefits which ultimately cash out as productivity. This is an empirical question, so it makes no sense to discuss it for superheroes.
Second, the extent to which one is obligated to sacrifice one’s own non-inclusive wellbeing for others. Some people are roughly consequentialists, others are psychopaths, and there is no way to argue our way out of the disagreement—disagreements about values are settled by negotiation or by debellation, not by argument.
And this applies as much to superheroes as to the rest of us.
Thanks for the reply. I was trying to avoid the former and examine the latter. Take the word “psychopath” and divide it by a pretty big number and I think I’m with you, at least a little, until the “and.” Are there no arguments for it, or just none as helpful as social solutions iyo?
I am reminded of this.
See, I KNEW there was a literature ;)
More seriously, John McCarthy.
[EDITED to add:] Note the link at the end saying “solution” which has McCarthy’s own proposal.
I don’t think the issue is much different than normal people donating money for betnets.
I couldn’t find betnets on google but I assume its something like prediction markets, and I fail to see any connection.
That said, yes, I am hoping to learn something beyond superhero ethics :)
Sorry, typo should be bednets.
Basically while they had room for funding the Against Malaria Foundation was saving a life for roughly 2000$ via distributing bednets in Africa (numbers from memory).
Most people do earn less than 2000$ per hour but some people do earn that much and essentially have the ability to rescue a life per hour worked without superhero powers.
Ah, yes, that’s the kind of situation that would be the next step in the thought process.
Exit: looks like someone beat me to this .
Worm addresses this in a somewhat round about way: Cnanprn’f srryvatf bs vagrafr thvyg sbe rirel ubhe gung fur fcraqf qbvat guvatf bgure guna hfvat ure cbjref gb urny crbcyr jrer n znwbe pbagevohgbe gb ure zragny oernxqbja naq fhofrdhrag vzcevfbazrag va gur Oveq Pntr.