K Andrew Dershem

Great Responsibility K Andrew Dershem

Superheroes are more popular than ever before. We seem to have an endless appetite for their thrilling adventures and most of us have fantasized about what it would be like to have such uncanny abilities ourselves. If you could become invisible, would you use this gift to help others - or to help yourself to whatever you wanted? If you were incredibly strong, would you flex your muscles to enrich yourself or to protect people in need? In many ways, comic-book stories are hard to take seriously. Epic tales of heroes and villains with fantastic powers seem far removed from our everyday lives. If we look more deeply, however - behind the capes and the diabolical plots to conquer the world - we can see ourselves reflected in these larger-than-life characters. The moral questions that heroes are forced to confront can help illuminate real-life controversies and ethical concerns. Ethics provides us with principles that help us think more clearly about right and wrong. Great Responsibility will introduce you to fundamental concepts in the world of ethics, using popular characters from the Marvel and DC universes to illustrate these ideas. (The book features brief biographies of all the major figures who are discussed.) We'll tackle thorny questions like, What's the source of ethics? How do we make moral decisions when we have conflicting values and obligations? What does it mean to be a "good" person? Can we truly be held responsible for our choices? What is justice, and what does it require of us? Is this your first foray into moral philosophy? Fear not! Explanations are clear and concise and the use of confusing jargon has been kept to a minimum. Those who want to dig deeper will find thought-provoking questions, synopses of essential ethical ideas, tips for thinking critically, and profiles of influential thinkers from the history of philosophy.