Which is the best ethical approach in Captain America: Civil War?

Submitted for IB HL Philosophy Coursework (philosophical analysis of a non-philosophical stimulus), 2000 words

Stimulus

Tony Stark: There’s no decision-making process here. We need to be put in check! Whatever form that takes, I’m game. If we can’t accept limitations, if we’re boundary-less, we’re no better than the bad guys.

Steve Rogers: Tony, someone dies on your watch, you don’t give up.

Tony Stark: Who says we’re giving up?

Steve Rogers: We are if we’re not taking responsibility for our actions.

[…]

Sharon Carter: Even if everyone is telling you that something wrong is something right. Even if the whole world is telling you to move … it is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye and say, “No, you move.”

Captain America: Civil War (30:05-33:40), Anthony & Joe Russo, Marvel Studios, 2016

Analysis

The stimulus shows Steve Rogers (Captain America) and Tony Stark (Iron Man) disagreeing on whether it is right for the Avengers to sign the Sokovia Accords, a framework restricting the autonomy of ‘enhanced’ individuals from fighting large-scale threats, as their involvement often seems to lead to widespread ruin. Questions of practicality aside, this essay deals with their differing philosophical viewpoints. Rogers’ view is focussed on his duty – he feels that his superhuman status comes with a responsibility to protect those who cannot defend themselves from those with the power to harm them. As someone who was bullied, he sees it as his duty to stand up to bullies on any scale, and so disdains any limitations on his ability to fulfil this duty. By contrast, Stark’s approach is more pragmatic. He is affected by data detailing the sheer extent of damage caused by the Avengers, and so is willing to accept such restraints in order to maximise net well-being. This raises the philosophical issue of whether such decisions should be made with a more consequence-oriented or a more duty-oriented approach. I will show how Rogers’ deontological instincts are a proxy for Kant’s moral philosophy, and illustrate Stark’s contrasting view with reference to ‘utilitarianism’. Hence, I will demonstrate the advantages and difficulties of each approach, concluding that neither extreme is sufficient by itself, and that the most ethical solution requires a fusion of the two.

In his ‘Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals’, Kant distinguishes between two types of ‘imperatives’ – that is, two distinct senses of the word ‘ought’. The first is the ‘hypothetical imperative’, of the form, ‘One ought to do X, if one wishes for Y’. For instance, ‘One ought to exercise, if one wishes to be fit’. He argues that all imperatives framed thus are dependent on certain conditions – they are instrumental, and therefore amoral. There is no obligation to exercise if one has no desire to be fit. Instead, he is concerned with the second type: the categorical imperative. These take the form, ‘One ought to do X’. There is no conditional clause on which such an imperative is dependent, meaning we have a duty to fulfil them regardless of consequences; they remain imperatives regardless of whether they enable us to achieve some desire. ‘One ought to respect one’s parents’ is such a statement: it is not done to gain something, but out of an intrinsic sense of duty (Jones, Cardinal, & Haward, 2006). He thus claims that an action is only moral if it is prompted by a recognition of our duty; as he says, “An action done from duty has its moral worth, not in the purpose to be obtained by it, but in the maxim according with which it is decided upon” (Kant, 1785). Steve Rogers abides by a Kantian set of values. He does not contest the assertion that the involvement of the Avengers has led to chaos; nor disagree with an earlier contention that their strength may have invited the challenge of many threats. He simply says, “You don’t give up”. His concern is with a potential future in which he cannot fulfil this duty – the categorical imperative, “One ought to help those who need it”.

His view stands in contrast to Stark’s more pragmatic view that “We [the Avengers] need to be put in check”. He is willing to sign up to the Accords even though they restrict his ability to decide when to take action against transgressors. Thus he would be unable to act even if prompted by a recognition of duty. This is acceptable to him because he is less concerned with making the ‘right’ choice than making the ‘best’ choice, in terms of maximising overall happiness. Therefore we can identify his philosophy with ‘utilitarianism’, the normative ethical theory first proposed by Jeremy Bentham. It is derived from the principle of psychological hedonism – that humans seek to maximise pleasure and minimise pain. It follows, he argues, that any sensible moral system must accomplish these goals, at the level of both the individual and the community: psychological hedonism implies ethical hedonism. As Bentham stated, “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as determine what we shall do” (Bentham, 1789). Stark might make the case that utilitarianism has an advantage over other normative ethical theories in that it is quantifiable; unlike Rogers’ deontological approach, utilitarianism enables one to quantify how moral an action is using Bentham’s ‘utility calculus’. By considering a number of factors (including the intensity, duration, certainty, fecundity and extent of pleasure/pain), we can choose the course of action that maximises the pleasure/pain ratio.

However, Rogers might criticise the unsentimental nature of Stark’s view: it is too cold and calculating. He would view it as too impersonal and unconcerned with more important factors, such as duty. To the utilitarian, if in deciding between two actions, they produce the exact same level of pleasure and pain but one involves breaking a promise whilst the other doesn’t, those actions have equal moral worth. This clashes with our intuitive moral sense, and is a flaw of utilitarianism; suggesting that at least some element of deontology is required. Furthermore, Bentham’s calculus fails to take into account the quality of pleasure. Robert Nozick proposes the idea of a “pleasure machine”: a machine (guaranteed to work) that could stimulate the brain to feel the most pleasure conceivable, with no corresponding pain (Nozick, 1974). The natural extension of Stark’s argument is that the most moral endeavour would be to try and get as many people as possible into the pleasure machine. This is the result of the ‘calculating’ utilitarian view, Rogers would argue, as Nozick does; but this is not a desirable outcome: it limits us to a man-made reality, a mere simulation; and it prevents the possibility of organic growth into dutiful and virtuous individuals. Therefore Nozick argues that most people would not choose to enter the machine. This undermines the view that pleasure is the “sovereign master” determining human nature and morality.

Hence, Rogers rejects this purely utilitarian view, and chooses instead to subscribe to the Kantian ethical theory outlined earlier. However, this view is also flawed. A consequence of the Kantian framework is that if certain duties are categorical, then such obligations are demanded of all rational beings under all circumstances. As such, the categorical imperative must obey the principle of universalizability: “I should never act in such a way that I could not will that my maxim should be a universal law.” (Kant, 1785). It might be argued that formulating the categorical imperative in this way leads to unacceptable outcomes. For instance, it suggests that we have a duty not to never tell lies: if the maxim that lying is permissible were to become a universal law, then nobody would ever trust anybody else’s word; and so, it would be impossible to deceive someone through lying. Thus, we have a contradiction, meaning that lying cannot be permissible in any circumstances. The flaw Stark would point out is that there are some situations in which lying is justified: indeed, Rogers’ love interest, Peggy Carter, was a spy for an intelligence agency – and repeatedly has needed to lie; for example, about her whereabouts so that she could track down a dangerous, stolen weapon to prevent that enemy causing harm. If anything, most would regard this as moral, but Kant suggests that it nonetheless violates the categorical imperative. His view is that one has a moral duty to never lie: expected consequences are irrelevant to the moral worth of an action. Rogers could point out one could refuse to answer, which is consistent with the categorical imperative. But he must concede that his Kantian view means that lying is immoral – even if it were necessary to save lives, as in that example.

So, it is clear that just as we earlier established that pure utilitarianism is defective and needs at least an element of deontology, that the purely deontological approach is similarly in need of a greater emphasis on consequences. Especially considering the deaths attributed to the Avengers – which brought about the political will for the Sokovia Accords – the purely duty-centric view that rejects out of hand that system of checks and balances is not viable. But Stark would go on to argue that it is not just that they have a difference in the weighting of their values: he might too make the argument that Kant’s ethics fail on their own terms – for instance, by raising the point of conflicting duties. That is – particularly as a superhero – a scenario might plausibly arise in which one must choose between breaking a promise and telling a lie. Kant’s ethics are unable to prescribe the course of action that ought to be undertaken in this situation: the categorical imperative binds us both to avoid lies and keep promises. Since the categorical imperative can be formulated in terms of the principle of universalizability, it is thus impossible to circumvent the issue by ranking which duties take priority.

Perhaps – although Kant himself did not make this argument – Rogers would instead claim that we can change how we formulate our maxims. That is, Kant’s outline requires us to determine the maxim that underlies some action; to determine if that maxim could be a ‘universal law’ that governs all rational actions; and finally, to determine if we could rationally will that it does. This is the outline that shows that lying is not morally permissible – the maxim ‘tell lies’ leads to a contradiction if recast as a universal law. If however, the maxim were instead, ‘tell a lie if it will save lives’ or ‘tell a lie in order to avoid breaking a promise’, then it would pass the test of universalizability: hence, Peggy lying about her whereabouts, or lying in order to keep one’s word would be morally permissible.

However, this argument is not an adequate response – it only highlights another flaw in the Kantian framework: the ambiguous definition of what our maxim truly is. After all, it is easy to manipulate the maxim that supposedly guides my actions such that it will meet the criteria of the categorical imperative. For instance, the maxim ‘steal for personal gain’, if cast as a universal law, would mean that the very concept of private property would become void, and so stealing would become impossible. Since its universalisation leads to a contradiction, stealing is thus immoral. If, however, the maxim were ‘steal for personal gain, if one’s name has six letters or fewer’, then the same contradiction is not reached; and so if someone whose name has six letters in it stole, acting in accordance with this maxim, then it is not in violation of the categorical imperative. This is a fundamental flaw of Kantian ethics.

Thus it has been shown that both utilitarianism and Kant’s deontology both fail on their own terms. They can only be salvaged if combined with each other. Indeed, this is the lesson implicit within the movie from which the stimulus is taken: the dogmatic adherence of Stark and Rogers to their respective moral framework is the cause of the titular ‘Civil War’. Instead, the right course of action with respect to the Sokovia Accords is that taken by another character – ‘Black Widow’. She initially sides with Stark, suggesting the importance of pragmatism which she identifies with the utilitarian focus on outcomes and consequences. At a key moment, however, she allows Rogers to escape instead of capturing him. Although it has emerged that Kant does not provide an unambiguous prescriptive structure delineating all our duties, it is nonetheless clear that some deontology is needed, rather than the purely rational utilitarian calculation; and Black Widow’s actions best concur with this understanding, as she is prompted by her sense of duty towards her friends. Hence it is her situational philosophy of moderation which is the best ethical approach; not Stark’s pure utilitarianism nor Roger’s pure Kantianism.

Bibliography

Bentham, J. (1789). An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.

Jones, G., Cardinal, D., & Haward, J. (2006). Moral Philosophy: a guide to ethical theory. London : Hodder Education.

Kant, I. (1785). Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.

Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Basic Books.

Result

Raw & Moderated Mark: 22/25 (Grade 7)