Morality and Heroism: A Philosophical Look at The Avengers

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The Avengers, directed by Joss Whedon, is a story of five superheroes coming together to save the world. The last big battle scene takes place in New York, where a big portal has been opened and is letting out thousands of aliens that start terrorizing all of New York. Loki is the villain of the of the movie, who wants to take over Earth. While the five superheroes (who are known as the Avengers) are fighting off Loki and his alien army, The government decides to try and bomb New York. The bombing would have killed thousands of innocents if it weren’t stopped by the Avengers. In the end, the Avengers took down Loki and his army, saving New York and the world. The stimulus made me think about the philosophical question “Is it moral to kill …show more content…

My question stems from the “The trolley problem” which gives a person the imaginary option of pulling a lever to save five people from an oncoming trolley and killing one person or letting the trolley go and kill the five people saving, that one other person. Another way this dilemma is set up is: say you were walking on a bridge with a fat man and you saw that a trolley was coming below you and was about to hit five people but, you knew if you pushed this fat man off the bridge to block the trolley then you could save the five people at the expense of the fat …show more content…

and that we should not give into any “special priorities to ourselves or those dear and near to us.” (para.2). Therefore we should instead “...transcend our our narrow, natural sympathies, and aim to promote the greater good of humanity as a whole or even the good of all sentient beings.” (para.2.). This being brought to attention, I can see where some might argue how, the government from the stimulus has their own agenda’s due to the fact that, the people who make up the government most likely, have loved ones they needed to protect. one could argue that because of this reason the act of bombing New York becomes immoral in the eyes of a utilitarian because, the government from the stimulus was not thinking of the greater good for the rest of the world but, were only thinking of themselves. furthermore, I would argue that it’s hard to really do anything without self- interest coming into play. I would also argue that the one of the biggest reasons that government was created was to protect the people who sought to be governed by it. At the end of the day the government was just doing one of the many things it was built for: making the hard decisions no else really wants to really

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