OK, this thread is not, perhaps, as weighty as many that grace this forum. Noentheless, I believe GD is the correct home for it.
A six-hour road trip over the weekend leads to all sorts of interesting conversations. One that came up this time was: if you could have three superpowers, what would they be? No limit to any particular fictional universe; Superman, Buffy, and a Jedi all qualify - but “Superman” isn’t a choice: flying is one, super strength a second, and so forth.
Being the remarkable stick in the mud I am, I began to explore out loud how one might make a living, ethically, with these powers. For example, suppose I chose Professor Xavier’s mind-reading ability. I could clean up at the World Series of Poker… but that is clearly unethical. Your opponents don’t know you can read minds, and they would refuse to play if they did know.
On the other hand, taking a few of Superman’s powers would mean I could get my PGA card and rival Tiger Woods’ performance every year. Since I would be using my abilities out in the open, I reasoned, that might be ethically permissible.
The question was unresolved, and so I put it to you: is there an ethical difference between those two situations?
Of course, an obvious side conversation concerns the “Spiderman charge” – ‘With great power comes great responsibility’. One could argue that someone gaining these powers has an ethical obligation to fight crime, save the helpless, and so forth, rather than winning a Masters’ Event. I don’t agree with this: Peter Parker lives a life far too dramatic for my taste.
Does the “Spiderman Charge” hold water? Must a person subsume their own lives, limit their own career and personal opportunities, to crusade for the forces of good, simply because they have such power?
Not much different from doping. It gives you an unfair advantage and would therefore be considered unethical by whoever cares about such things.
The only way I can see to make a living off your superpowers would be to offer them up as public service for sale, and then be compensated at the fair market rate. Elastigirl could charge $20 per cat stuck in a tree.
Jeez, can’t you just play the license plate game like the rest of us?
I’m a little torn on the ethical difference. Certainly, a significant portion of the world-class poker player’s success is based on “mind-reading” in the sense of tells, pysch-outs, etc. All you’ve done is extend that to a perfect skill. On the other hand, theoretically anyone can build the small “m” mind-reading skills with enough practice, whereas actual telepathy remains your sole province.
Actually, now that I think about it, I’m struggling to find any ethical way to use telepathy for personal fortune.
I think the two situations could be different, depending on how you handled them and the origins of your powers. In either case, it’s possible for you to take advantage of your powers by deceit or non-disclosure. Either of these would be unethical. Let me run a series of questions by you so that we can be on the same page:
Where did your powers come from? Did you subject yourself to a process that could be comparable to a performance enhancing drug (like Spiderman or or Captain America)?
Are you human?
Are you from another planet or galaxy?
Are you able to turn your powers on and off?
Do you have a secret identity?
If so, have you disclosed this to the other competitors and the relevant bodies?
As you say yourself, if your poker opponents are aware of your mind-reading powers, they’re likely to refuse to play against you. Similarly, if you’re getting a hole-in-one every shot with your super-accuracy, people are pretty soon going to realise you’re unbeatable and refuse to play. If you try to cover it up by artificially limiting your powers but still winning whenever you feel like it, well that’s just as bad as the undetected mind-probing.
I think the best way to make a living with a superpower would be to take invulnerability and get a job as a stuntman.
How so? Tiger Woods comes to his ability by reason of his genes and his practice. Ultimately, his physical ability to hit the golf ball is why he wins. In this scenario, MY physical ability would be why I win.
Doping is not per se unethical. It is unethical only because the rules forbid it – the people that run the sport do not want to have their athletes risking long-term damage to their bodies. (And is doping even a concern in golf? I’ve never heard of golfers having to pass drug tests… is there even such a rule?)
Well, my own goal was to live a normal life while still leveraging these powers into something useful. Hiring out would advertise their existence.
I am not sure how this creates a relevant difference, but for the moment let’s stay within the framework we discussed in the car. There were wishes involved. So let’s say there’s such a thing as magic (or incredibly advanced technology indistinguishable from magic) afoot that created these powers in response to a wish.
I’m me, post-wish being granted. I don’t picture these as “turn-on, turn-off” UNLESS the power is naturally like that. Xavier doesn’t read minds unless he tries, but Superman is ALWAYS strong. Naturally, he can choose how much strength and control to extert in a given situation.
Precisely what I’m trying to avoid.
A good question. I suppose I could enter a poker tournament and say, “Now, just in the interests for full disclosure, I can read minds.” Would that transform my mind-reading into ethical behavior?
Are there any superheroes that had the ability to heal others? Because that one would be nice to have. In fact, it’d be pretty hard to see how any use of it would be totally unacceptible.
Or…consider setting yourself up as a ‘faith healer’ in the Church of the Invisible Pink Unicorn, or maybe the “Godless Secular Humanists.”
Ha. Just imagining the reaction of certain bible thumpers to the sight of that makes me smile.
Well, some supreheroes are born with their powers, some got them by accident, and some (like Captain America) got them by choice. I’m not sure how the categories break down, but it seems to me that those who got the powers voluntarily are ethically the closest to athletes who take performance enhancing drugs, especially if they conceal their abilities.
So I don’t think the other participants could insist that you not use all of your powers. That makes it a little tougher. They would have to accept a player whose abilities are qualitatively different from theirs.
Understood.
As long as your disclosure is genuine (no making it seem like you are joking. If you are accepted into the game with your extra-abilities, you aren’t cheating. There might be some sort of duty of the sort you mentioned earlier (power implies the duty to fight crime **and ** not profit from your powers) but at the moment, I don’t think so.
I think the mistake you’re making is in framing it in terms of competitions with other people. That’s always going to raise ethical issues.
Just think about it in terms of a job, where you offer yourself out for hire, using your specialised skills, and with full disclosure. For example, if you take Supe’s super-strength and x-ray vision, toss in Comic Boy’s super-magnetism powers, and you’d have quite a package that you could hire yourself out for specialised construction work, bomb disposal, and whatnot.
Take Supe’s micro-vision (not sure if that’s a different power from X-ray), Marvel Girl’s telekinis, and Supe’s heat vision, and you might have a good package for micro-surgery.
Note that as a bonus, niether construction workers nor surgeons wear spandex.
There are many. For example, Elixir of the X-Men is capable of altering human physiology at the genetic level, though at the moment he can only heal. I don’t see why it would be unethical for him to charge a small fee (or alternatively, be paid by the government for his time) for just standing in a hospital and healing anyone who comes in.
But I think that’s the root of the ethical problem: lack of disclosure. You can’t simultaneously keep it secret, and yet earn money from it in an ethical fashion. Full disclosure will resolve the problem in most instances.
For instance, if you challenge Tiger Woods for a pot, and don’t tell him about your super-accuracy, you’re cheating. If you challenge Tiger for the same pot, tell him about your super-accuracy, and he takes you on, no ethical problem. Maybe he doesn’t believe you, maybe he takes it as a challenge, maybe it’s an ego thing for him - doesn’t matter what his motive is. So long as you’ve given full disclosure and he’s free to choose or refuse, no ethical problem.
As for the normal life thing - suppose you take the micro-surgeon package I suggested. You might get a good rep in medical circles, and maybe get asked on the occasional talk-show, but I can’t see Dr. Doom pounding on your door. Just live a nice boring 9-to-5 routine, go to work, earn money, come home, put the cat out at night, and you’d likely have a quiet life.
Plus, based on your comments about spandex, I’m guessing the papparazzi won’t be after you for shots of the beautiful bod?? :eek:
The problem there is full disclosure. I don’t believe I could lead a normal life if I were advertising – AND PROVING – that I had these sorts of abilities. I, and my family, would be a target for cranks, for research, for all sorts of drama that I’m trying to avoid. Even if I were to use my new-found powers on the PGA tour, I would deliberately keep myself from winning every event… I’d finish in the money, but not so much as to be noticed as a superstar… say, a Rory Sabbatini or a Chad Campbell as opposed to a Tiger Woods. A don’t think that non-golf fans even know who Chad Campbell IS… perfect, in other words.
But isn’t one of the basic principles of an athletic competition that you will try your hardest to win? Throwing a match for your personal financial benefit is a type of cheating. Now, this isn’t a “BlackSox” type of cheating - you’re not throwing games for a bribe. But, you’re intentionally not playing at your best so that you can stay on the circuit and make money off it over the long run.
And more to the point – what, precisely, is the ethical dilemma in winning at competitive sports like this? Granted, no one else can do it. But who else can equal Lance Armstrong’s ability? Who can run like Walter Peyton? Who can hit the net like Michael Jordan did? Why is it ethical for them to profit in competitive sports from their genetic gifts (enchanced by practice) but not me to profit in competitive sports from my gift? We all didn’t start on the same playing field. I’m 5’10" – sixteen hours of practice every day from the time I was nine, and I’d still never be Michael Jordan.
So what is the ethical distinction between the two cases?
I’m not sure I agree. In poker, I might spend the first part of a tournament deliberately raising junk hands to create an impression, and then benefitting from that misapprehension of poor play in the latter stages. In the boxing ring, I might deliberately let my arms drop a bit as though I’m tiring, in an effort to entice my opponent to come after me and get clobbered. Those are valid, tactical moves that simulate weakness in order to gain an advantage.
