The Spidey Rescue Dilemma

Introduction

 

When Spider-Man (2002) came out, I was a Marine deployed to Okinawa, Japan. My friends and I watched the movie in the barracks. I thought the ending was strange and stupid. Spider-Man saved Mary Jane (MJ) before the cable cart full of people, mostly children (see clip below). To my surprise, mt friends all agreed about saving MJ first. I was shocked that I was alone in thinking the right thing to do is sacrifice a loved one in order to save the many. One of my friends even said, "I wouldn't care how many people it was, I'd save my wife or mom over them." MJ is super hott with charming personality, but Spider-Man/Peter Parker, cannot choose Mary Jane over the cable car full of people. That is not superheroly. Spider-Man needs to make the super decision and save the group of people before saving MJ. 

When a person dies, all their loved ones suffer. When a person dies young and or tragically, the suffering is usuallu intensified. On average, more people dying will produce more total suffering. How many suffer when a cable car or people, mostly children die? How is that comparable to MJ dying? Why is Spider-Man a hero? Spider-Man and utilitarian philosophy can teach us how to judge the value of different lives.

(Watch the first 30 seconds below if you don't remember the scenario.)

 

Spider-Man makes the wrong choice but he learns from it!

If you remember the movie well or are more interested in the philosophy, skip to the next section.

In the movie, Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, turned into a power hungry schizophrenic after under going an enhancement experiment. His greed for power turned him to recruit Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Osborn, makes an appeal to Spider-Man's emotions after capturing and sedating Spider-Man. Spider-Man refused Osborn, and Osborn concludes their fighting will, "Cause the deaths of countless innocents in selfish battle... ...again and again and again until we're both dead. Is that what you want? Think about it, hero."

Spider-Man didn't think about the innocent lives yet. Instead, he set out to stop the Green Goblin and save the people of New York City.

Osborn, debating with himself as the Green Goblin, decided they should educate Spider-Man. He told himself, "Instruct him in the matters of loss and pain. Make him suffer. Make him wish he were dead... And then grant his wish... First, we attack his heart." This is Spider-Man's biggest flaw, his heart and his attachment to the people he loves.

At the climax of the movie, the Green Goblin put Spider-Man into a Trolley-like-Problem by making Spider-Man the cause of other people's deaths. The Goblin said:

"This is why only fools are heroes. Because you never know... ...when some lunatic will come along with a sadistic choice: Let die the woman you love... ...or suffer the little children. Make your choice, Spider-Man... and see how a hero is rewarded... We are who we choose to be. Now, choose!"

Osborn was teaching Spider-Man that he was wrong to reject his partnership. Spider-Man even fell for the trap and made the wrong choice. He saved MJ first. Luckily, because it is a Spider-Man movie, he saved everyone too. But his lesson wasn't learned. Spider-Man took a beating from Osborn. Right before Osborn finished him, he threatened Spider-Man with a slow death to MJ. Of course, this fueled Spider-Man to defeat Osborn and save the day, once again.

I want to neglect the idea that Spider-Man's attachment to MJ saved the day because it gave him the strength to defeat Osborn. Maybe it's true, or maybe he would have been better prepared to fight without a Trolley-like-Problem in front of him. Let us ignore this and focus on what Spider-Man learned.

At Osborn's funeral, Spider-Man came to the conclusion, "No matter what I do... ... no matter how hard I try... ... the ones I love will always be the ones who pay." This is why Spider-Man cannot choose MJ. Having that attachment and love for MJ or anyone else, puts Spider-Man into situations where he will have to risks larger quantities on life. This creates more targets to protect, and less opportunity to save the people in need. By having loved ones, Spider-Man knows he will choose them over the innocent lives of random people. He also knows that more people will suffer and die because of his attachments. He can only stop so many deaths, crimes, and villains. This is why Spider-Man has to reject MJ and distance himself from his loved ones. At the end of the film, Spider-Man understands and states it best,  

"Whatever life holds in store for me... I will never forget these words, 'With great power comes great responsibility.' This is my gift. My curse. Who am I? I'm Spider-Man."

A Brief Description of Utilitarianism

 

Utilitarianism is an ethical philosophy that guides how a person should best behave. Utilitarianism takes into account the consequences of everyone involved in a situation. There are multiple types of utilitarianism.

 

Utility is an idea for measuring worth or value. The founder of utilitarianism Jeremy Bentham described utility as:

 

"That property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness ... [or] to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered."

 

For Spider-Man's purposes, utility of victims will be measured by how much potential they have for their current life expectancy. I will call this type of utility Potential Life Utility (PLU). The scale will all be relative, but an average human beings will be a 1.0 on the scale. The higher value a person has, the high positive value they will hold. The lower potential a person has will take them closer to zero and or put them into a negative value. Someone like Jesus of Nazareth might have a value in the positive billions while a Stalin might have a negative value in the millions. A surgeon who saves multiple lives a day, might have a value in the thousands. A middle aged Average Joe who gives homeless people a few buck here and there is a positive 1.0. A younger average Joe would have a higher value. An older Average Joe would lose value as they age.

 

The Spidey Rescue Dilemma

The Trolley Problem is a very played out thought experiment in philosophy and psychology, but it is fitting for superheros, especially Spider-Man. I am coining a new thought experiment, The Spidey Rescue Dilemma. The new problem presents Spider-Man (a superhero) a choice to save MJ (a loved one) or a group of random unknown people.

 

Green Goblin is holding two cables. At the end of the first cable MJ is hanging for her dear life. At the end of the second cable is a cart with numerous random unknown people. In The Spidey Rescue Dilemma, Spider-Man can only rescue one of the two cables, see image below. He either saves MJ or the random people. Who should Spider-Man save?

Who Should Spider-Man Save

 

It depends on the people. Sometimes MJ, but most times the random people.

If all lives are created equal, they do not stay equal throughout life. The potential matters. An average child's life has countless more potential than an average elderly person. A fertile young woman's life has countless more potential than an old sterile violent sociopath. Race and socioeconomic status are huge problems and different types of utilitarianism have different measures and or accounts for those factors and discrimination. Being of superhuman powers, Spider-Man found an undisclosed solution that fits any readers morals.

 

Spider-Man has to consider the consequences of all people involved: himself, MJ, Green Goblin, all the random people, and everyone who will suffer and or benefit from any of the people involved's death. If MJ is an average Joe, she'll almost never be saved unless the cable is full of violent criminals or terminally ill patients with dementia.

For MJ to have a higher potential life value (PLV) she has to be pretty extraordinary. She makes Spider-Man happy and Spider-Man saves a lot of people. That will gain her a substantial amount of value. How devastated would Spider-Man be if he was responsible for MJ's death? Would that be more or less than the devastation of a cart full of random people? This is why Spider-Man needs to follow utilitarianism. He needs to be confident that his actions produce the greatest consequences for everyone involved. That will keep him mentally healthier and focused on his goal.

In theory, an all knowing god or computer could assign any person a real time PLV. In math terms, it would be easy to calculate. Save the group with the highest combined value. But Spider-Man won't have all knowing knowledge or even enough time to make good calculations.

 

Spider-Man needs to adopt a defualt rule to always save as many people as possible. But when Spidey has an opportunity to gather information about potential victims and make an estimate, he should consider the following. These are valid criteria. The criteria Spidey could estimate in the heat of the moment I will highlight in lime for easier estimates and pink for possible but unlikely estimates.

• The amount of suffering a person's death will cause.

• The remaining life expectancy of a person.

• How old a person is.

• What a person contributes to society.

• What a person takes from society.

• How much pollution a person causes.

• The amount of natural resources a person uses.

• The amount of violence a person creates.

• The amount of abusiveness a person creates.

• The amount of suffering a person creates.

• The potential a person has to redeem themselves. 

• The positive influence a person has.

• The negative influence a person has.

Spider-Man should always save the group with the highest combined PLV. Most of the time he won't know the PLV, and he should save the highest quantity of people possible. When he has information about the potential victims, he should calculate a quick estimate and save the people with the highest estimated PLV (ePLV).

If Spider-Man is at a hospital, he could see with the random people in the cart are patients or medical staff. Medical staff would have a lot higher combined values. MJ might be worth one medical professional, but unlikely two or more. MJ could be worth multiple patients, depending on how old and sick the patients look.

If Spider-Man was near a school, or children were involved, I doubt MJ is worth a child's PLV, certianly not more than one child.

What if the PLVs are equal? Although all knowing calculation would be unlikely to produce equal values. If Spidey's ePLV produced equal values for MJ and the random people, saving MJ for selfish reasons could be justified. 

 

Which Heroes Have the Highest PLVs?

 

This gets funner the deeper I dive. Do vigillantes who kill higher rated have higher PLVs than vigilantes who do not kill? 

 

Punisher and Dexter Morgan type characters kill their oppositions and get them off the streets. Is getting bad guys off the street permanently significantly better than locking them up with a chance to escape and or continue to influence violent crimes?

 

Sidenote: The serial nature of comics and superhero adventures creates an incentive for heroes who do not kill and villains who do not die and or spawn greater predecessors. Ignore that storytelling necessity, superheros live in worlds that appear to get more dangerous over time. This may or may not be true, see Economics of Gotham for an example of misleading points of view.

There are a lot of reasons why killing villains could and couldn't be better for society as a whole. My hunch is that permanently removing violent villains would produce a higher utility to society because it would be a disincentive for new villains and the chance of escaping would be zero, which is very important for comic book stories, villains alive always escape. But I acknowledge that the positive modeling of nonviolence could be a better solution to violent crime and utility for a society.

What do you think? Leave a comment below with your best argument and evidence.

Are Heroes Positive?

I doubt it. Heroes do not prevent villains, heroes actually accelerate the grow of villains. For this reason, I think heroes have a negative PLV. They produce more pain and suffering from the consequences of their actions than they prevent.

This might be even more true for heroes, like Spidey or Daredevil, who refuse to kill violent criminals, like Kingpin. 

Should a Utilitarian Vigilante Kill Negative People

Probably.

Unless another intervention like castration was as effective as death, euthanizing negative people by definition of the utilitarian scale would produce more utility for everyone else. If a vigilante started to systematically castrate/euthanize the worst people, society would achieve great utility from less violence, fear, and suffering from unsafe areas.

Most people would have a positive PLV. If we think about a bell curve, I'd guess it would take several, even more, standard deviations to get into negative PLVs. So that would put a very small population of society into negative PLVs. The people without potential, causing great violence and suffering, would be the only people in this Utilitarian Vigilante's (UV) sights.

If 1% of people were negative, I wouldn't recommend the UV targeting all of them. I would recommended the most negative people out of thousands and millions of people, the worse 0.01% of people.

The problem is how are the negative PLVs measured? We need an all knowing source. Positive values are easier to measure because people aren't trying to hide them. Negative attributes take place out of sight, behind closed doors, and in the shadows. So how and who can calculate a negative measure of a person with accuracy? I have a story idea that contains a super AI computer, a tech genius,  and a deadly psychopath with a strict moral code. Story in progress as of Dec 2022.

 

Concluding Thoughts

Heroes would never be able to know or accurately estimate PLV, so they should use whatever information they can gather to measure quick ePLVs to decide who to save. They should, by deaul,t save as many people as possible most of the time. And yes, we didn't need a thought experiment of ethical philosophy to figure that out.

I'm sure readers have already thought of the Minority Report or A Clockwork Orange. How could we trust such a system or government to do the right thing? How we would prevent a Kingpin type villain from abusing this power and using it for personal gain? Although I doubt a system like this could ever be accurately measured and or implemented.  If it was in place, I'd argue it would motivate even higher PLVs from its citizens. Maybe even a perpetual better world would arise each generation until an ideal utopia. 

Use The Spidey Rescue Dilemma to evaluate your heroes and villains, consider their PLV to speculate on whether they make their world a better or worse place. If they don't make their world a better place, why don't they change their philosophy?

Go where your mind wanders and wonder about the potential value of life. Let me know in the comments how many average Joe's you'd save over MJ?