"Man of Steel" and Utilitarianism. A Philosophical Perspective (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Other, grade: 2,3, University of Koblenz-Landau (Anglistik), course: Imag(in)ing Justice: Law, Rights, and Ethics in Popular (Visual) Culture, language: English, abstract: The main goal of this paper is to show how the film "Man of Steel" and the utilitarianism are deeply interconnected and how ethical dilemmas are taken up.

The goal of utilitarianism is to weigh the consequences of each committed act precisely and to select the course of action that leads to the greater amount of happiness and satisfaction for the greater number of people. However, this often ends in moral dilemmas, such as in Man of Steel. The question of the righteousness of the characters' actions in this film keeps cropping up and makes the viewer reflect on whether Superman's actions are morally justified.

With this in mind, I presume that the principle of utilitarianism runs like a golden thread through the entire film, and that almost all characters in Man of Steel embody an attitude to utilitarianism, be it the protagonist Clark Kent himself, his stepfather Jonathan Kent, or the antagonist General Zod. I want to argue that the question of whether Superman should reveal himself to society and how to weigh the pros and cons of this issue plays a very important role in the film and represents the morality of each character.

I will analyze the movie in this regard in this paper, proving how Man of Steel deals with these issues and shows that the message is not the demonstration of pure action, but the study of the morality of the characters, the possession of superpowers and the question of when they are to be used.