Superhero Thought Experiments: Comic Book Philosophy

Description

"What if there's an alternative universe with a different moral code? What if we are being deceived by an evil genius? Examining the deep philosophical topics addressed in superhero comics, this entertaining book reads plot lines for the complex "thought experiments" they contain and analyzes their implications as if the comic authors were philosophers. In doing so, authors Chris Gavaler and Nathaniel Goldberg--a comics expert and a philosophy scholar, respectively--find that superhero comics often depict philosophical thought experiments more fully than philosophers do, and with surprising results. For example, René Descartes briefly worries that we are being deceived by an evil genius, but Marvel Comics explores this concern--and its consequences--over decades. Similarly, in a few paragraphs philosophers Terry Horgan and Mark Timmons imagine a "moral twin earth" with deviant morality, while DC Comics dedicates multiple comics to different moral twin earths in which readers see multiple deviant moralities play out"--