# Your morality as a Super **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 11, 2011, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971 "2011-04-11T16:58:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/21 "2011-04-11T20:41:51Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > A world in which Superman exists and yet has events like the Khmer Rouge and Rwanda is one in which Superman has no claim to moral authority. Precisely. \*So wait, you have god-like powers and you’re busy catching burglars and thieves, but allowing genocide, horrible oppression, torture and induced famine because you think you shouldn’t involve yourself in the affairs of nations? Which is the greater evil here, Kal-El? How much harm will you allow because you’d rather pick on lone, inconsequential criminals??? You’re not a Hero, Kal-El, you’re a fucking Hobbyist.\* ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/22 "2011-04-11T20:46:24Z")
_I am created Shiva, the Destroyer. Death, the Shatterer of Worlds._ Oh, yeah. They wouldn’t even have to be all _that_ evil. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/23 "2011-04-11T20:50:58Z")
I think super or not, I would only kill if there was no other choice. ---
**Author:** ![Vihaga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Vihaga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vihaga)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/24 "2011-04-11T21:12:30Z")
The problem is how far you are willing to go. Who goes up against the wall? The grunts who did the killing for an oppressive regime? The people who stood idly by? The ones who profited even if they never killed anyone? What about the the guy who led a bloody uprising against a worse regime, but still espouses policies that are draconian against, say, women, because his people are highly religious and wouldn’t tolerate it otherwise? Do you kill all of the fundamentalists? Those who didn’t speak out against them? There is eventually a point at which upholding your justice is no different from inflicting your will on everyone, and I think once you’ve started it’s probably hard to stop. “With great power comes great responsibility” sounds just as good as “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I could see how someone would be reluctant to start, knowing themselves and probably knowing better than anyone when and if they could stop. It’s an interesting question. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/25 "2011-04-11T21:24:17Z")
> [@Vihaga](#): > > The problem is how far you are willing to go. Who goes up against the wall? The grunts who did the killing for an oppressive regime? The people who stood idly by? The ones who profited even if they never killed anyone? What about the the guy who led a bloody uprising against a worse regime, but still espouses policies that are draconian against, say, women, because his people are highly religious and wouldn’t tolerate it otherwise? Do you kill all of the fundamentalists? Those who didn’t speak out against them? > There is eventually a point at which upholding your justice is no different from inflicting your will on everyone, and I think once you’ve started it’s probably hard to stop. > > “With great power comes great responsibility” sounds just as good as “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I could see how someone would be reluctant to start, knowing themselves and probably knowing better than anyone when and if they could stop. > > It’s an interesting question. Another interesting question is what will the other governments of Earth do once you start toppling regimes based on the fact that you don’t like them. Roll over? Seems unlikely. I expect that there may be at least two or three nuclear-armed regimes that are going to start working on _Kill the Virtuous Busybody_ plans. As for toppling folks like Qadhafi: Which of y’all are willing to set themselves up as new ruler of this realm? Because somebody’s gotta do it, and a policy of killing rulers you don’t like is going to result in nobody being willing to take on the job, unless they’re already plotting to off you. Since when am I the non-crazy voice in fantasy threads? How did that happen? ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/26 "2011-04-11T21:30:07Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I’d go after dictators and such; people who have enough power as to be beyond the law. Yeah I’d compose a list of fascists and Republicans to take out. Removing evil is the same thing as doing good, yes? 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Vihaga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Vihaga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vihaga)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/27 "2011-04-11T21:31:27Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Since when am I the non-crazy voice in fantasy threads? How did that happen? No kidding. I’d be hiding under my desk if I didn’t still have work to do. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/28 "2011-04-11T21:37:27Z")
> [@rachelellogram](#): > > Yeah I’d compose a list of fascists and Republicans to take out. Removing evil is the same thing as doing good, yes? 🆒 :: pretending not to see smiley :: Not at all. ---
**Author:** ![Otara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a88e4f/32.png) [@Otara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otara)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/29 "2011-04-11T21:49:30Z")
I dont see why they’d need to be killed. Dropping them off at Western countries would often do the job, along with destroying any significant WMD’s etc. Otara ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/30 "2011-04-11T21:56:38Z")
> [@Roland\_Orzabal](#): > > Being certain about this for any given person, of course, would require objective omniscience that nobody has. We’re discussing superpowers. The literature in this field includes examples of both telepathy and precognition, so it is possible that the superpowered individual in question could be objectively certain of these things. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2011, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/31 "2011-04-11T22:58:48Z")
In the general case, yes. The world is big and complicated, and even superpowers cannot foresee all ends; having a general policy of no killing and limited violence lets you more easily reverse a decision if you find out you were wrong. It also gives you room to escalate if someone does try a “Get rid of the meddler.” plan as mentioned up-thread. Plus, if you have a staunch reputation for no lethal violence, and it just so happens that members of a government’s black bag team just start disappearing one day, people are less likely to pin it on you. ---
**Author:** ![Cornelius\_Tuggerson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Cornelius\_Tuggerson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cornelius_Tuggerson)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/32 "2011-04-12T15:32:52Z")
Morales shmorales, when do I get to pause time and punch holes in people? ---
**Author:** ![what\_do\_I\_type\_here](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a5b964/32.png) [@what\_do\_I\_type\_here](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/what_do_I_type_here)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/33 "2011-04-12T15:54:06Z")
I’ve never seen the word ‘super’ used as a noun before. Is that A Thing or did the OP make it up? ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/34 "2011-04-12T15:59:55Z")
> [@what\_do\_I\_type\_here](#): > > I’ve never seen the word ‘super’ used as a noun before. Is that A Thing or did the OP make it up? It’s at least twenty years old. I think the only comic-book universe that doesn’t use it occasionally is DC, as I can easily imagine heroes there not wanting to imply that they were part of Superman’s posse unless they were. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/35 "2011-04-12T16:39:59Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > A world in which Superman exists and yet has events like the Khmer Rouge and Rwanda is one in which Superman has no claim to moral authority. I would be an intervening bastard and I figure I’d probably get to enjoying it, God help me. > > “With great power comes great responsibility” means more than stopping muggers. It should mean improving the lives of all mankind. This. And if one had Superman’s suite of super-powers, it shouldn’t be all that hard to improve the lot of mankind as a whole. X-ray vision to locate the world’s stockpiles of conventional and nuclear weapons, heat vision to fuse their mechanical and/or electronic workings, super-speed and super-strength to grab them all up and throw them into the sun…a Superman could end war as we know it, which would be a big step forward in the welfare of humanity right there. And he could scoop up a Qaddafi or two and dump them at the front door of The Hague, which would encourage other dictators to be, if not benevolent, then at least a little less malevolent. Superman could also deal with climate change by creating an asteroid belt somewhere inside Earth’s orbit that would be just dense enough to reflect just enough sunlight to balance out the effect of our increasing quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. There’d still be many problems in our world that a Superman would not be able to solve, that simply need to be resolved politically. But if there really were a Superman, then while he certainly deserves to have a life, same as the rest of us, his day job should be saving and improving the world to the extent that his powers are applicable to the task. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/36 "2011-04-12T16:52:06Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > This. And if one had Superman’s suite of super-powers, it shouldn’t be all that hard to improve the lot of mankind as a whole. X-ray vision to locate the world’s stockpiles of conventional and nuclear weapons, heat vision to fuse their mechanical and/or electronic workings, super-speed and super-strength to grab them all up and throw them into the sun…a Superman could end war as we know it, which would be a big step forward in the welfare of humanity right there. And he could scoop up a Qaddafi or two and dump them at the front door of The Hague, which would encourage other dictators to be, if not benevolent, then at least a little less malevolent. > > Superman could also deal with climate change by creating an asteroid belt somewhere inside Earth’s orbit that would be just dense enough to reflect just enough sunlight to balance out the effect of our increasing quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Both of these are bad, IMO. For the first, you’ve got Superman strengthening his monopoly on power, setting himself up as de facto dictator of Earth. For the second, you’ve got Superman “fixing” solar energy in when the problem is thermal energy out. We need that solar energy, you know - it’s the reason we have food to eat and oxygen to breathe, and rather vital to the operation of a number of forms of renewable energy. ---
**Author:** ![Marc\_Xenos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Marc\_Xenos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marc_Xenos)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/37 "2011-04-12T17:09:57Z")
Is proficiency in a martial arts considered a super power? I think so, because in teaching martial arts, you don’t just learn how to go out and trash some bozos (Tae Kwon Leep ~ The Frantics). Mental conditioning to control your power is every bit as important as learning the power, itself. And even then, you still can’t help getting cocky. The better you get, even if you don’t go out and pick fights, you tend to set yourself up to draw them, just to exercise your power, with supposed legitimacy since the only people who’ll pick it up are “bad guys”. Yeah, for me, there’s a number of limitations to my use of my “super powers”. Criminal penalties, I can only use the amount of force necessary to remove the danger. Civil penalties (and those are scarier), that I have an obligation to protect my attacker from my own superior skills. And my own intellectual reticence to cause death unnecessarily, whether or not someone “deserves” it. Because, once you’ve pulled the trigger on someone, you realize how easy it is to kill. I said, intellectually, because I can’t help believing sometimes that there ARE people who “need killin’.” And if there were no external restrictions, I don’t think I could ever force myself to allow some people to live, no matter that I SHOULD. Nope, with no one to answer to, but myself, I could always find some reason to justify the worst things capable. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/38 "2011-04-12T17:13:16Z")
> [@rachelellogram](#): > > Removing evil is the same thing as doing good, yes? 🆒 To a degree. More to the point, it’s the kind of good that someone with combat-oriented superpowers could actually do. Sure, promoting women’s rights or ending famine are good too - but how does the ability to punch through a tank help you do things like that? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/39 "2011-04-12T17:19:50Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Both of these are bad, IMO. For the first, you’ve got Superman strengthening his monopoly on power, setting himself up as de facto dictator of Earth. For the second, you’ve got Superman “fixing” solar energy in when the problem is thermal energy out. We need that solar energy, you know - it’s the reason we have food to eat and oxygen to breathe, and rather vital to the operation of a number of forms of renewable energy. 1. Superman’s got enough power already to do whatever he wants to whomever he wants. All he’s doing here is making it harder for others to engage in wholesale killing. 2. Remember how practically all life on earth ended after Krakotoa’s eruption? Me either. ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971/40 "2011-04-12T18:03:22Z")
I fully admit, if I woke up tomorrow, and I had all the power of Kal El, I would probably end up a villain. I wouldn’t start out that way, but I’m sure that’s where I would end up. My plot arc: Imagine a small country in the Caribean… milldy corrupt, pitifully poor. They have a natural disaster. A tsunami, or a hurricane that overwhelms the government (such as it is) and folks are getting ready to die by the buttload. I swoop in, save folks, shore up walls, drain water away, and do all the usual stuff that a Super Man would do in that situation. But I also know that I would be hard pressed to not step in, and “fix” the corruption issue. And really, the only way to do that would be to appoint myself leader. I can use my amazing powers to make this tiny nation great… wealthy, stable, and prosperous. And as long as I’m doing all that, why don’t I reward myself a bit? I could go for a harem (assuming I don’t have the Superman Sex issue) of _willing_ women. I’m sure that would anger some. And I may as well have my own palace. Sure, not everyone on Tristania has a mansion, but more than adequate housing is the norm… I should have a bit better than that. After all, it’s my work doing this, isn’t it? YEah, you can see where this is going. That neighboring country is being menacing? They are threatening to restrict our trade routes? _flies off into the sunset, with onimous music playing_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-morality-as-a-super/577971.md?page=3)