The Avengers - How Do We Know What's Right and Wrong? | Renegade Cut 

"Not everyone can do what a spider can" You cheeky...squeezing that joke in there....ok it made me chuckle

“...someone like Kant, or even Spider-Man...”

Amazing video. I just finished a course on Ethics where we covered all these ethical theories and this was a great cherry on top to the semester. You just earned yourself a patreon.

"The key assumption in normative ethics is that there is only one ultimate criterion of moral conduct - whether it is a single rule, or a set of principles. As with a scientific theory, a normative ethical theory must be consistent, or else it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. But all normative ethical theories have a lot of holes that cannot be filled, leading some to speculate that there can't be any standards of ethics... But it IS better to own a flawed textbook, than to give up on the study completely. Humans, super or otherwise, are doing their best with what they have. Hopefully, we'll all figure it out eventually." :) Yep. Or, in other words: Vision: "Humans are odd. They think order and chaos are somehow opposites, and try to control what won't be... But there is grace in their failings. I think you missed that." Ultron: "They're doomed." Vision: "Yes... But a thing isn't beautiful because it lasts. It's a privilege to be among them."

i guess you could say Kant kan't take kant-sequences or kant-text into the kant-flict

I feel as though it isn't possible to have a moral philosophy that utterly disregards consequence. That simply defies all notion of what "morality" is, the ranking of actions as better or worse than one another *based on how they effect the people* (and sometimes animals or other creatures) *around you.* I've never encountered a moral theory that actually avoids this basis, even if it claims to. Kant, for all his talk about the irrelevance of consequence, ultimately concedes that his beliefs are based on the notion that society cannot stand if its members do not follow universal duties; in other words, he is concerned with the *consequences* that he thinks will befall us if we do not heed those duties. As a bit of a utilitarian myself, the question of "When do the ends justify the means?" is generally answered by an additional category I adhere to, the idea that certain actions have varying levels of benefit and harm, "good" or "bad." For instance, if all but one person on Earth were viscerally uncomfortable with the existence of that last person, and would all feel happier if he were to die, the small increase in their utility does not justify the murder of that one man. The only thing that justifies killing, by this logic, is the threat of other deaths being caused by that individual. That said, the main moral problem that I continue to struggle with is the very definition of utility, benefit, harm, and so on. For instance, is it moral to stop other people from eating unhealthy food? If a person really, truly does not care whether consuming junk food will shorten their lifespan, can you still claim that doing so is "bad" for them? In short, whether an individual can judge for themselves what "benefit" or "harm" means with regard to their own lives is a big ethical question for me.

It looks like you had fun making that opening :P

Thanks for this episode! A familiar context to frame some complicated ideas.

I could use this to teach a class. Have you ever been a teacher?

Kant: If you help bad people to do bad things, you cannot justify your actions. Also Kant: You need to help bad people accomplish their goals otherwise you are bad.

To be honest I very long time want to see this kind of video....IT WAS FANTASTICK. Thank You.Honestly, I have to admit that I have a very nihilistic idea of ​​morality ... But I hope that we will really find one answer to this question one day. Perhaps the problem is that any kind of standardized or honestly speaking, any embodiment of moral absolutism is doomed to create "cracks" in which the antithesis of this principle is formed and which is developing in it by nailing this decree. Projections of the natural transformation of the evolution of errors ... The revelation of cosmic laws in ordinary commutative speeches and their inevitable dominance over such a tiny and imperfect creation as man ... Excuse me, I was carried away. As always, happy for your video. And as always, it's strange that there are so few comments. At the time of writing this text they are three .... Thank you again

Just to point out Tony now understands he can't make all the decisions, that's why he supports the accords.

Note the tricky think with deontic ethics is that context of acts help constitute what acts are (what sort of thing you are universalizing over) and part of that context might actually be the consequence (for example easily foreseeable ones). So for example putting out your right arm forward can't be universally affirmed because sometimes that would involve punching an innocent in the face, but things like putting your right arm forward are just not the sort of act you consider universalising over (putting your arm forward when there is and isn't someone's face in the way are different acts). For a more salient example, Kant believed you could justify capital punishment (indeed it may be required), but not presumably murder, so he took it you could universalize one kind of killing motivated by one set of motives and procedures, and not be endorsing another kind of killing done under a different set of procedures and motives. However if you can do that why can't you make all kinds of fine distinctions (like between stealing for personal gain versus stealing to feed your starving family), which is one of those ways the line gets blurred between deontic and other normative ethical systems.

Excellent video, as always. Is there a particular superhero who follows the normative ethics proposed by Bernard Gert? If there is, I'd really like to read that.

Well, that's second of recent RC episodes, that I'm taking notes of. Thanks. :)

I think you do a great job here illustrating the problems with Utilitarianism.

Do one on daredevil

I can't wait for your video on Thanos

I'd say Spiderman's adherence to the categorical imperative is loose at best. He gives the impression of a kid trying to do what's right without exactly having a fully delineated code, more following his intuition (spidey sense). Though the categorical imperative of not using his powers for any kind of selfish purpose is definitely baked into the character by the whole Uncle Ben thing. On another note, utilitarianism is the worst and it seems like the MCU is going to address that fact with Thanos.

Cool logo

Aw, I was hoping we were gonna analyze all of the avengers' philosophies.

I kind of see Spider-Man more as a consequentialist, of the Peter Singer variety, than anything else. The notion that one ought to act to reduce suffering where one can, a la the "drowning child" thought experiment, strikes me as more in line with Spider-Man's "great power, great responsibility" world view than Kant's does. After all, Kant, while certainly believing in the good of benevolent actions and their necessity for building a decent character, was against mandating other-regarding actions in that way; his philosophy is more about doing no harm than it is about preventing harm.

I have never thought much of the Marvel movies, but your analysis shows so many depths that I'm thinking the writers hired actual philosophers. Great work! Did you use any sources for this video, apart from the cited philosophers? I'd like to read more on these topics

In terms of Kant how would he square the idea Spiderman is fine on using tech from Stark who's fortune is built on weapon manufacturing? You could argue I guess that Stark has decided to pay for that by doing "good" (which is fine because that's his own deal) but Spiderman is still benefiting from the original immorality of that act.

13:31 So high me was right, Clont did do 911

Deontological ethical theories account for context a lot more than you let on here. I would read a neo-Kantian like Christina Korsgaard before jumping the gun on that

Is there spoilers for infinity war?

It really bugs me how Spider-Man gives a baby talk version of Uncle Ben's famous line. "When the bad things happen, they happen because of you." Tom Holland is so cute uwu let's make him talk like a literal baby. Ugghh

My only problem with this video is that you claim that Tony and HULK were part in the creation of Vision when it was Bruce Banner.

oof you got me til the end I'll admit, but Tony isn't narcissistic. For starters its a legit personality disorder that affects people irl and tony doesn't fit the characteristics that would give him NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) in the slightest. He doesn't think he is the best and tony Stark does work with others, legit Bruce banner he is working with in the clip you used, and he works with other people in other parts of that movie. He typically only works alone (when it comes to protecting earth) because of his established anxiety and ptsd, which causes paranoia that makes him believe he is alone in his efforts to prevent another New York, it sucks that the mcu writes everyone to be dismissive of the dangers in space (until it was too late aka infinity war) but his actions are not selfish it's self isolationist and neurotic I'm kinda miffed that you still have a very obvious bias against iron man, because if you didn't I feel like you wouldn't say he had NPD. just one example for why he isn't narcissistic, one characteristic is inflated ideas of self worth, you said he was a genius and it's canon that he agrees, but it stops there he doesn't think he's better than anyone on his level (see Helen Cho, Peter Parker) and in fact encourages their science surpassing him (also in Age of Ultron) It kinda sucks that you obviously dislike iron man and I'm not going to tell you to stop or whatever (you prob won't even see this comment) but you are legit missing out on one of the best written well rounded characters in the mcu

I view the Captain America & Avengers films through the lens of role ethics; in which morality is derived from a person's relationship with their community. But the question arises, can a community create ethical roles? For Churchill; “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” Can a democracy create ethical rules? Yes, for Iron Man in the end. While he flaunts society’s rules, he eventually is bound by them to fit in his role. In Iron Man’s storyline democracy works. With Captain America’s story thread, democracy is a failure; democratic institutions are riddled with foreign spies & authoritarians. The only worthy nation in CA’s view is not a democracy but a monarchy, Wakanda. The CA storyline leads to favoring the benevolent dictator; where a wise leader can quickly be succeeded by a demagogue like Erik Killmonger. Captain America’s anti-democratic storyline fits the slant of the alt right where the democratic process is demeaned & the brutal strongman is advocated.

kant-sequences im sorry

Why does tony get to make that decision: Because he has a god complex. TBH I think if we got rid of Tony there would have been a lot less death

6:34 Lying is not wrong.

Tony and Clint are both cancelled.

I dont caaaare

The MCU is too simple a unvierse. They don't think about half the things you do in relation to this question. Batman v Superman is literally all about this question. Analyse that instead.