Green Lantern and Philosophy E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 437

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

The first look at the philosophy behind the Green Lantern comics--timed for the release of the Green Lantern movie in June 2011 The most recent Green Lantern series--Blackest Night--propelled GL to be the top-selling comic series for more than a year, the latest twist in seven decades of Green Lantern adventures. This book sheds light on the deep philosophical issues that emerge from the Green Lantern Corps's stories and characters, from what Plato's tale of the Ring of Gyges tells us about the Green Lantern ring and the desire for power to whether willpower is the most important strength to who is the greatest Green Lantern of all time. * Gives you a new perspective on Green Lantern characters, story lines, and themes * Shows what philosophical heavy hitters such as Aristotle, Descartes, and Kant can teach us about members of the Green Lantern Corp and their world * Answers your most pressing Green Lantern questions, including: What motivates Hal Jordan to be a Green Lantern? Does the Blackest Night force us to confront old male/female stereotypes? What is the basis for moral judgment in the Green Lantern Corps? Is Hal Jordan a murderer? Whether you're a new fan or an elder from Oa, Green Lantern and Philosophy is a must-have companion.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part One : Will and Emotion: The Philosophical Spectrum

Chapter 1 : The Blackest Night for Aristotle’s Account of Emotions

Color-Coded Morality

Finding the Perfect Mean: A Job for Golden Lanterns?

The Rainbow of Emotions and the Prism of the Will

John Stuart Mill’s Green Approach to Emotion and Reason

Triumph of the Will

Chapter 2 : Flexing the Mental Muscle: Green Lanterns and the Nature of Willpower

The Ghost in the Lantern

Action Theory Comics

Will: Rebirth

With Great Will Comes Great Willpower

The Muscle in the Mind

The Rainbow Connection: Willpower and Emotions

Willpower: The Ultimate Strength

Chapter 3 : Women Are from Zamaron, Men Are from Oa

Is Reason Unreasonable?

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

Who’s Afraid of the Zamarons?

What’s a Zamaron to Do?

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

The Things We Do for Love

Part Two : Emerald Ethics: It’s Not All Black and White

Chapter 4 : Will They Let Just Anybody Join?: Testing for Moral Judgment in the Green Lantern Corps

Sinestro: Evil Is in the Eye of the Beholder?

Jack T. Chance: Doing What Needs to Be Done?

Laira: The Strength of One’s Convictions?

The Alpha Lanterns: Who Gets to Enforce “Justice”?

The Thin and Thick of It

Chapter 5 : The Greatest Green Lantern: Aesthetic Admiration and the Praiseworthy Hero

The One-Sided Hero of Bold Action

The Normal and Extraordinary Practices of Superheroes

Hal Jordan, the Rash and Resourceful

Sinestro, Fallen from Heroic Stature

Kyle: Graphic Artist and “Corps Conscience”

Not “the Greatest,” but a Pretty Damn Good Green Lantern

Chapter 6 : There Should Be No Forgiveness for Hal Jordan

The Destruction of the Green Lantern Corps

Did Hal Want to Kill His Friends?

Hal Had Control, but Did He Have the Will?

Hal’s Greatest Failure: The Triumph of Fear over Control

Chapter 7 : Morality, Atonement, and Guilt: Hal Jordan’s Shifting Motivations

Why Do Heroes Do What They Do?

Lantern Be Good

Fallen from Grace

Turn to the Dark Side

Questioning our Heroes

Part Three : I’m with Green Lantern: Friends and Relationships

Chapter 8 : Hard-Traveling Ethics: Moral Rationalism Versus Moral Sentimentalism

Hal Jordan and Rational Morality

Why Hal Needed Ollie

Parallax and the Dangers of Moral Rationalism

Oliver Queen and the Moral Sentiments

Your Ward Is a Junkie: The Problem with Our Sentiments

Why Ollie Still Needs Hal

What Is This, Green Arrow and Philosophy?

Chapter 9 : “I Despise Messiness”: The Plato-Aristotle Debate in the Troubled Friendship of Green Lantern and Green Arrow

Some Monsters Are Human

Plato’s Vote for Censorship

Aristotle’s Vote for Expression

Hard-Traveling Heroes—and Comics Creators!

Breaking Up Is the Hardest Thing

A Lasting Legacy

Chapter 10 : Can’t Live with ’Em, Can’t Live without ’Em: Green Lantern, Relationships, and Autonomy

Doing Your Own Thing

Sins of the Autonomy Corps?

Autonomy Recharge: Having It Both Ways

Not Quite Star Sapphire

You Never Walk Alone

Part Four : With This Ring, I do Swear: Power, Duty, and Law

Chapter 11 : The Oaths of Soranik Natu: Can a Doctor Be a Green Lantern?

First, Do No Harm

Welcome to Oa, Poozers

What Should We Do When Our Oaths Conflict?

The Dark Side of Green: Natu’s Story

Is Half a Lantern Better than No Lantern at All?

Not a Dream, Not an Imaginary Tale—But a Real-Life Problem

Chapter 12 : Crying for Justice: Retributivism for Those Who Worship Evil’s Might

Cry for Definition!

No Debt Shall Escape My Sight

It’s Not about Me—It’s about You

Wait—Maybe It’s about the Rest of Us!

All Together Now: “Justice!”

Who Should Cry for Justice?

Chapter 13 : Hate Crimes as Terrorism in Brother’s Keeper

I Shouldn’t Have Kissed Him

Hurt One of Us, Hurt All of Us

Extraordinary Crimes, Extraordinary Procedures

“This Isn’t Just about Terry”

Chapter 14 : The Ring of Gyges, the Ring of the Green Lantern, and the Temptation of Power

“Now Suppose There Were Two Such Powerful Rings”

Who Guards the Guardians?

“No Evil Shall Escape My Sight”

“You Have Never Understood Us”

“Understand, Hal’s Not Evil . . .”

“To End Evil”

Part Five : Don’t Tell Krona: Metaphysics, Mind, and Time

Chapter 15 : All for One and One for All: Mogo, the Collective, and Biological Unity

Carving Nature at Its Joints

Tales of the Philosophy Corps

“Soft”-Traveling Heroes

Hierarchy: Rebirth

Into the Wild Green Yonder

Chapter 16 : Green Mind: The Book of Oa, the Lantern Corps, and Peirce’s Theory of Communal Mind

Planets and Insects and Math—Oh My!

All for One . . .

. . . And One for All

The Book of Oa: An Incomplete Truth

Room for Error?

The Spirit of the Corps

Chapter 17 : Shedding an Emerald Light on Destiny: The Problems with Time Travel

Hera, Give Me Strength

The Savage Time

In Blackest Night

Back to the Future

In Brightest Day

Part Six : Can Green Lantern Make a Boxing Glove He Can’t Lift?: Powers and Limitations

Chapter 18 : Another Boxing Glove?: Green Lantern and the Limits of Imagination

Why Can’t He Make a Square Circle?

See No Evil, Make No Evil

Seeing Giant Boxing Gloves

When Boxing Gloves Won’t Do

Making Impressions Stick

Chapter 19 : “Beware My Power”: Leibniz and Green Lantern on God, Omnipotence, and Evil

Absolute Perfection

Perfection in Action

Creating a World from Scratch—a User’s Guide

Hey, Wait a Minute—Did You Say “the Best of All Possible Worlds”?

Crisis on Infinite Possible Earths

Omnipotence, Schmomnipotence

Chapter 20 : Magic and Science in the Green Lantern Mythos: Clarke’s Law, the Starheart, and Emotional Energy

Do You Believe in Magic?

The Social Side of Spellcasting

Trying to Rule the Unruly

Vessel of Chaos: The Starheart

The Color of Willpower

Guardians: Scientists or Sorcerers?

Contributors: Tales of the Philosophy Corps

Index: The Book of Oa

The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series

Series Editor: William Irwin

South Park and Philosophy

Edited by Robert Arp

Metallica and Philosophy

Edited by William Irwin

Family Guy and Philosophy

Edited by J. Jeremy Wisnewski

The Daily Show and Philosophy

Edited by Jason Holt

Lost and Philosophy

Edited by Sharon Kaye

24 and Philosophy

Edited by Jennifer Hart Weed, Richard Davis, and Ronald Weed

Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy

Edited by Jason T. Eberl

The Office and Philosophy

Edited by J. Jeremy Wisnewski

Batman and Philosophy

Edited by Mark D. White and Robert Arp

House and Philosophy

Edited by Henry Jacoby

Watchmen and Philosophy

Edited by Mark D. White

X-Men and Philosophy

Edited by Rebecca Housel and J. Jeremy Wisnewski

Terminator and Philosophy

Edited by Richard Brown and Kevin Decker

Heroes and Philosophy

Edited by David Kyle Johnson

Twilight and Philosophy

Edited by Rebecca Housel and J. Jeremy Wisnewski

Final Fantasy and Philosophy

Edited by Jason P. Blahuta and Michel S. Beaulieu

Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy

Edited by Richard Brian Davis

Iron Man and Philosophy

Edited by Mark D. White

True Blood and Philosophy

Edited by George Dunn and Rebecca Housel

Mad Men and Philosophy

Edited by James South and Rod Carveth

30 Rock and Philosophy

Edited by J. Jeremy Wisnewski

The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy

Edited by Gregory Bassham

The Ultimate Lost and Philosophy

Edited by Sharon Kaye

Spider-Man and Philosophy

Edited by Jonathan J. Sanford

Copyright © 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

Chapter opener art by Forty-Five Degree Design LLC

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and the author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

For general information about our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at [phone], outside the United States at [phone] or fax [phone].

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com.

ISBN 978-0-470-57557-4 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-00327-5 (ebk.); ISBN 978-1-118-00328-2 (ebk.); ISBN 978-1-118-00329-9

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

No Gratitude Shall Escape Our Sight

We would like to thank some of our personal Guardians for helping to make this dream a reality. Eric Nelson and Connie Santisteban of Wiley gave us our rings and our batteries and taught us the most important oath of all: Don’t miss deadlines! Though they granted us this power, Bill Irwin taught us how to use it and gave invaluable advice on the constructs we developed. Finally, we thank our fellow members in the Philosophy Corps for their dedication to the mission; we hope none of them become Red Lanterns because of us!

Jane would like to thank Caitlyn Pascal and Dawn Wintour, who got her started reading comics back in the day. Mark would like to thank Jeff Peters, whose love of Green Lantern helped to reignite Mark’s green flame after many years away from the Corps.

Finally, we would like to thank all the amazingly imaginative and intelligent creators who have powered the Green Lantern mythos for all these decades: Mort Finger, Art Nodell, Julius Schwartz, John Broome, Gil Kane, Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams, Marv Wolfman, Joe Staton, Alan Moore, Len Wein, Dave Gibbons, Steve Englehart, Gerard Jones, Ron Marz, Judd Winick, Peter Tomasi, and, of course, Geoff Johns. Without them, Green Lantern would just be a run-of-the-mill hero with sparkly jewelry; because of them, Green Lantern is a legend. This book is dedicated to them.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the Corps!

We admit it: If we could be any superheroes, we’d like to be Green Lanterns. Why Green Lanterns, you ask? First, there’s the vast array of vivid and compelling characters who fill the pages of the Green Lantern comics: Hal, Kyle, John, and Guy, of course, but also Alan Scott, Arisia, Ganthet, Soranik Natu, Kilowog, Katma Tui, Salaak, Mogo–even Sinestro.1 They’re so different from one another, and yet they seem like folks we’d like to know—and would very much like to join. (And not to brag, but we look quite good in green.)

And then there’s the concept of the Green Lantern Corps itself, an intergalactic police force composed of members from different species on different worlds who all have to get along with one another and work together to ensure peace and order in the universe. The United Nations only needs to worry about different countries and humans getting along—the Green Lantern Corps needs to worry about different planets and species! Each member of the Corps has a unique set of values and way of life, but they all swear to fight evil, putting aside their differences to further a common goal.

But more than anything, it’s the rings. The power of a Green Lantern ring inspires a sense of possibility and wonder the first time you read a comic or see one on the big screen. Anyone who dreams of how to make the world a better place can imagine ways to make that dream come true with a Green Lantern ring. Given enough willpower, a Green Lantern can make the ring do whatever he or she can imagine. And each Lantern’s constructs reflect his or her personality, from Hal Jordan’s simple boxing gloves to John Stewart’s architecturally sound structures to Kyle Rayner’s artistic flights of fancy.

With these fantastic concepts and characters, the philosophical questions just flow. How do all the Green Lanterns work together? What limits does justice place on the use of a Green Lantern ring? Can a Green Lantern do literally anything at all? What roles do willpower and imagination play when a Green Lantern uses the ring? What do the differently colored corps reveal about the nature of our emotions, and how should emotion affect a Green Lantern’s judgment and decisions?

Until recently, Green Lantern has been somewhat of a second-tier superhero. None of the characters who have donned the green ring are as well-known as DC Comics’ “big three” (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman), and despite Kyle Rayner’s Nine Inch Nails shirt in his first appearance, none of the Green Lanterns have the outcast, antihero, angsty appeal of Marvel’s X-Men. But with movies, an animated series, and a prominent place in major DC crossover events, Green Lantern is beginning to shine. Sadly, none of us can wear real Green Lantern rings—but whether you’re a new fan or an elder from Oa, you’re welcome into the Philosophy Corps as we plunge fearlessly and honestly forward.2

NOTES

1. You will no doubt notice the absence of Itty in this book. The truth is, all of us here love him, so much so that every chapter seemed to focus on him, so we had to institute a “no Itty” rule out of fairness to the other characters in the Green Lantern stories, like Hal and Sinestro. (Look for Itty and Philosophy: Size Doesn’t Matter soon after the volumes on Doiby Dickles and G’nort.)

2. What color, you ask? Philosophers still can’t agree on the true nature of color, much less a color for the rings!

PART ONE

WILL AND EMOTION: THE PHILOSOPHICAL SPECTRUM

Chapter 1

THE BLACKEST NIGHT FOR ARISTOTLE’S ACCOUNT OF EMOTIONS

Jason Southworth

Since 2005’s Green Lantern: Rebirth, writer Geoff Johns has told a series of stories leading up to Blackest Night, introducing to the DC Universe a series of six previously unknown color corps in addition to the classic green: red (rage), orange (avarice), yellow (fear), blue (hope), indigo (compassion), and violet (love).1 The members of each corps see the emotion they represent as the most important one and believe that acting out of that emotion is the only appropriate way to behave. The Green Lanterns, on the other hand, represent the triumph of willpower or reason over emotion and seek to overcome and stifle these emotional states.2

The conflict between the various lantern corps, while providing an interesting series of stories, also sets the stage for thinking about one of the most long-standing questions in ethics: What role should emotion play in moral reasoning?

Color-Coded Morality

With the exception of the Indigo Lanterns (who don’t speak a language that can be translated by a Green Lantern power ring, much less your average comics reader), the representatives of the new color corps all make the case that acting out their sections of the emotional spectrum is the only way to achieve justice. Let’s consider the ways these Lanterns make their cases for a morality driven by a single emotion.

The first of the new color corps to make itself known to the DC Universe was the Sinestro Corps. Led by the renegade Green Lantern after whom it takes its name, this corps embodies the yellow light of fear. Since the days when he was a Green Lantern, Sinestro has argued that people do the right thing only when they fear the consequences if they don’t. It was this principle that led Sinestro to force the residents of his home world, Korugar, to live in fear of his wrath.3 While this might seem extreme, Sinestro has shown us time and time again that fear is a strong motivator. For instance, when he decided that the Green Lanterns needed to change the Laws of Oa to allow Lanterns to kill, he was able to make the Guardians so afraid that they did as he wished.4 When discussing Sinestro’s motivations, some may say that while he wants others to act out of fear, he holds himself exempt from this standard. But a closer look shows that Sinestro’s turn to fear came from his own fears of a prophecy relayed to him by Atrocitus, which said that Korugar would fall into a state of chaos from riots and a violent coup if nothing was done to prevent it.5

Like the Sinestro Corps, the Violet Lantern Corps was started by a long-time Green Lantern villain, Star Sapphire. Actually, Star Sapphire is not a person, but an alien gem that possesses the person desired most by Hal Jordan; more often than not, that person is Carol Ferris (his sometimes employer and love interest).6 Let’s set aside the fact that violet light is powering a person whose name refers to a blue gem—and whose costume is pink—and move on to a discussion of the Violet Lanterns’ emotional focus. Violet Lanterns, just like John Lennon, will tell you that love is all you need. The leaders of this corps, the Zamarons (a group of female former Guardians), appear to believe that the only appropriate way to reason is to act on one’s feelings of love. For instance, the Guardian Scar says that “to believe that love will save the universe is naïve and irresponsible,” to which Queen Aga’po of the Zamarons responds, “That is your misguided, and dare I say it, irrational opinion.”7 Scar’s claim is deemed irrational because she used something other than love to arrive at it. The goal of the corps is clear: to “wield the violet light energy of love” and “convert all to their way of light.”8 They are so committed to this conversion that they go as far as to kidnap members of the Sinestro Corps and imprison them until they come to see (or are brainwashed to see, according to Green Lantern Arisia) the way of the Star Sapphire Corps.9 When reasoning means acting out of love, rather than intellect or some other emotion, there doesn’t seem to be much room for compromise.

The rage of the Red Lanterns is grounded in a belief that great injustices often go unpunished. The founder of the Red Lantern Corps, Atrocitus, experienced a life filled with such injustices. The Manhunters, the Guardians’ initial attempt at an intergalactic police force, concluded that the only way to prevent chaos from consuming the universe was to destroy all life—this led to the murder of all but a handful of people in Atrocitus’s space sector.10 Atrocitus and the other survivors of the massacre attempted to enact justice (or vengeance) on the Guardians for what they had done, and the Guardians responded by imprisoning them. From these experiences, Atrocitus now sees emotionless reasoning—the decision process of the Guardians—as responsible for the destruction of his home world.

Rage is all that Atrocitus feels after centuries of imprisonment, and it alone compels him to act. By his reasoning, emotions other than rage are bad, as they are likely to lead to passivity in the face of injustice by causing us to be concerned with the consequences of our actions. When Atrocitus is reborn as a Red Lantern on Ysmault he blames the Guardians for their sins, which “stretch back eons.”11 All he has left is rage, “the red light [which] is violent action with no consideration for consequence. It is uncontrollable.”12 Atrocitus’s rejection of other emotions can be seen in his interactions with members of the other corps; for instance, he rejects the power of hope, saying to Blue Lantern Saint Walker, “You wield coalesced hope. Empty prayers. Disembodied faith.”13

Perhaps the most surprising emotion that one might advocate as the proper impetus for action is avarice. Larfleeze, the only Orange Lantern (except for Lex Luthor’s brief stint in Blackest Night #6–8, 2010), explains his commitment to greed, talking to himself in Green Lantern, vol. 4, #39 (March 2009). Speaking about the Controllers, the creators of the Darkstars (an earlier alternative to the Green Lantern Corps), he says, “They want to protect the universe their own way. You can’t protect anything that big! You can only protect what you can hold.” Larfleeze’s point seems to be that ownership motivates people to protect things, a common point made in discussions of private property.

Another strange case is that of hope. The Blue Lantern Corps was founded by Ganthet and Sayd in the hopes of preventing the Blackest Night.14 Given the involvement of these well-spoken former Guardians, you might wrongly expect that they make the reasoned case for hope’s importance. Unfortunately, all we are told is that hope is the most powerful emotion, and that those who wear the blue ring are the saints of the universe.15 These aren’t really arguments, but assertions. These Lanterns don’t have an argument for hope being the most significant emotion—instead, what they have is hope that it is. Similarly, these Lanterns never give reasons why they think they will succeed in their goals; instead, they speak of hope that they will.

Despite not being able to give reasons for the supremacy of hope, the Blue Lanterns still try to dominate the other corps. When Hal Jordan asks Ganthet if he created the Blue Corps to replace “us,” meaning the Green Lanterns, Ganthet responds, “No. To aid you.”16 This suggests that the Blue Corps see a place for the two corps to coexist, but then they immediately try to talk Hal into leaving the Green Lanterns for their corps. Additionally, within the first few pages of our meeting the first Blue Lantern, Saint Walker, he uses his ring to soothe the anger he senses in another Green Lantern from Earth, John Stewart.17 In the end, it seems that while the Blue Lanterns aren’t openly hostile toward the Green Lanterns, hope still tries to dominate the green light.

Finding the Perfect Mean: A Job for Golden Lanterns?

While the representatives of the various color corps are able to make convincing cases for the moral significance of their emotions (or at least hope for that significance), philosophers stop short of defending the relevance of a single emotion over all others. Beginning with Plato (circa 428–348 BCE) and Aristotle (384–322 BCE), philosophers have argued that our emotions interact with reason when we engage in moral deliberation.

While Aristotle saw emotions as significant, he understood them very differently than do the members of the color corps, and this understanding is integral to his moral philosophy. For Aristotle, morality is all about becoming a particular kind of person—someone with a well-rounded character and the practical wisdom to recognize the right thing to do in any situation. Aristotle recognized that emotions have a strong influence on our actions, and, realizing their power, he thought carefully about the best way to harness them into service of the good. Emotions are not individual character traits, but rather exist on a series of spectrums. For any emotion, there are two extremes—an excess of the emotion at one end and a deficit of it at the other. In between is just the right amount of that emotion, which Aristotle called a virtue, and the goal of those striving to be good people is to harness this just-right amount of emotion.18

Aristotle thought that the key to achieving the proper amount of each emotion is reason, which gives moral agents the guidance needed to temper their emotions and to use them in service of the good. Without reason, agents will act in service of their own appetites, controlled by their passions rather than by a desire to do good.19 Reason is the cool, unemotional component of our psyches that can carefully assess each situation and determine how much of each emotion is called for. Consider this analogy from Plato: Just as a general is the person in charge, directing his soldiers who do the legwork, so reason should direct the emotions, which provide the motivating force for the action. Just as with the general and the soldiers, both reason and emotion are essential, but the person, like the army, will function well only if reason is in charge.20

Let’s think about this in terms of an example: the virtue of courage, which is the perfect midpoint between the extreme emotions (or vices) of foolhardiness and cowardice. It is good to act decisively in the face of fear, while running away from battles you are capable of fighting is cowardly and charging headlong into situations you can’t handle is foolhardy. Reason tells us when we can handle a frightening situation and when the wise action is to back away. In other words, acting from either extreme is intemperate. Once you are able to use reason to consistently hit the sweet spot—the “Golden Mean”—you possess the virtue of that mean, in this case, courage.21

For Aristotelians, the first mistake made by all of the color corps is that they are all acting in excess, something even the characters recognize about one another. Take the following exchange between Atrocitus and Sinestro in Green Lantern, vol. 4, #36 (January 2009):

Atrocitus: You believe fear to be the most powerful force in the universe? Fear is inaction. Fear is hiding away. Fear is cowering and begging. Rage is action. Rage is spilling blood.

Sinestro: Rage is uncontrollable.

Both observations bear out when we look at the Green Lantern comics. The beings Sinestro and his corps instill with fear are unable to act; even Green Lanterns can’t use their power rings when they are afraid. Meanwhile, Atrocitus’s rage makes him unfocused. He is so busy fuming and fighting that he misses several opportunities to do what he has set out to do—kill Sinestro and the Guardians. Similarly, the Violet Lantern Fatality removes her former enemy, Green Lantern John Stewart, from battle in an attempt to show him love and forgiveness; however, this renders Stewart unable to save his fellow Green Lanterns, whom he cares for deeply.22 Fatality’s single-minded devotion to love prevents her from recognizing that other elements and emotions are at play. Fatality’s focus on love to the exclusion of all other considerations enrages Stewart and causes him to reject her, because it resulted in his failure to help people he cared about.

The Rainbow of Emotions and the Prism of the Will

The second mistake made by the members of the color corps, if we follow Aristotle’s account, is that by acting out of a single emotion, they fail to see the interrelation of emotions and the unity of the virtues. According to Aristotle, if you have one of the virtues, then you have them all, and his explanation for this involves reason and judgment. In order to always hit the Golden Mean between emotional extremes, you must possess prudence, or right judgment. Without prudence, while you might still occasionally hit the Mean, you do not fully possess the virtue. With right judgment, you will always reason your way to hitting the mark, and if you have reason enough to do this for one of the virtues, then you have reason enough to do it all of the time (although this will take some practice).23

Aristotle is obviously correct that emotions are interrelated, something the color corps fail to acknowledge. On an intuitive level, we can see the interrelation between emotions in the lives of several of the corps’ leaders. In the case of Atrocitus, love for his family and his species, along with hope that the Guardians would be brought to justice, led to the development of his rage. In the case of Sinestro, love for his home world and avarice about being the best Green Lantern led to his use of fear to keep his home world free of crime.

Looking at the color corps stories as allegories, we can also see plenty of evidence to suggest that reason alone is not sufficient for moral decision-making. The most significant evidence for this is that the primary hero of the stories, Hal Jordan, invariably puts on one of the rings of the new corps in order to defeat the enemy he is facing. When fighting the Sinestro Corps, Hal puts on several yellow rings. When fighting Larfleeze, it is the combined use of the blue and green rings that enables him to defeat the Orange Lantern.24 While these moments are exciting for fanboys, we can also see that it is only when the emotions are channeled through the will or reason of the green ring that Hal can win the day. Similarly, throughout the Blackest Night miniseries, we see that the new Black Lanterns (the reanimated corpses of fallen heroes, villains, and loved ones) can be injured only when they are attacked by a Green Lantern’s light combined with any other color of the emotional spectrum. Again, it seems that reason and emotion are both needed, although ultimately emotion is subservient to reason, as Aristotle recommended.

Aristotle’s account of the role of emotions in ethics is not just an indictment of the single-minded emotional approaches of the new corps, but also of the Green Lantern Corps’ exclusive focus on will over emotion. Going back to the example of courage, you will recall that acting with no fear is considered vicious. As a person accustomed to thinking of Green Lanterns as heroes, this should shock you. After all, Hal Jordan, the quintessential Lantern, is prone to saying that he’s not afraid of anything. But Aristotle is clear: If an individual literally has no fear, he can’t be a good person. Consider also that the new third law in the Book of Oa forbids physical relations and love between Green Lanterns, implying that Green Lanterns are often required to ignore these feelings when making decisions.25 For Aristotle, will alone isn’t enough, since it is simply a prism through which emotion needs to be filtered in order to get to right action.

John Stuart Mill’s Green Approach to Emotion and Reason

Aristotle gives us good reason to reject the single-minded emotional approaches of the color corps. Does agreeing with Aristotle on that point mean that we must adopt his specific approach to morality, especially his claim about the unity of the virtues? Since this would require us to see the Green Lantern Corps in a negative light as well, it is a good thing that the answer is no.

Another option, more sympathetic to the Green Lantern Corps, can be found in the moral theory known as utilitarianism. Rather than focusing on a range of emotions from the outset, utilitarianism begins with the belief that the right action is the one that maximizes happiness and minimizes suffering for everyone impacted by it. Morality, in this view, is focused on producing good consequences and avoiding bad ones. John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), one of the founders of utilitarianism, advises us to achieve this goal by approaching moral decisions from the perspective of a “benevolent, disinterested spectator,” concerned equally for everyone’s well-being, with no special consideration given to one’s own preferences or to the interest of loved ones.26 It was in an attempt to develop such disinterested spectators to police the universe that the Guardians created the robotic police force, the Manhunters.

Many criticize utilitarianism as being too far removed from human emotion, requiring the evaluator to be a detached observer. If this criticism sounds familiar, it is because it is often leveled against the Guardians as well (in fact, Atrocitus did so earlier in this chapter). So common is this criticism that Mill takes the time to specifically address and respond to it. He argues that the important thing is not the motivation for action, but merely the result, which makes sense if all you are concerned about is consequences. Many people will do the right action for emotional reasons, and that is not a problem in this theory, since the important thing is that good consequences be maximized. Mill thinks the most reliable way to get that result is through dispassionate reason, but he recognizes that there is more than one way to achieve the goal and advocates using whatever method necessary to get there.27 It was the failure of the Guardians to account for emotion in the programming of the Manhunters that led the robot police force to attempt to wipe all life from the Vega system; it’s also what led them to create the Green Lantern Corps. They realized that the best candidates to police a universe full of emotional individuals are beings who understand emotion but strive to overcome it, as Green Lanterns do.

Where the Guardians fail is not in being detached observers, as Green Lanterns like Guy Gardner often argue; rather, they fail in their assumption that they are, in fact, wholly detached. The Guardians, like all other species in the universe, are emotional beings, even if they wish they were not. Often, they make big decisions out of fear. As Sinestro points out, the decision to approve lethal force against Sinestro Corps members was made out of fear.28 Likewise, when they agreed to let Larfleeze keep his orange ring so long as he stayed in the Vega system, it was because they were afraid of having the power at large in the universe.29 On the lighter side of the emotional spectrum, Ganthet and Sayd made it clear that Guardians are capable of emotion when, out of hope, they left to form the Blue Lantern Corps.30

Mill acknowledges that even the best utilitarian will have other motivations besides utility: “Ninety-nine hundredths of all our actions are done from other motives, and rightly so.”31 However, he cautions that good agents will be aware of the impact of these other motivations and guard against them when engaging in moral decision-making, where they can be detrimental. The Guardians are great at manipulating the emotions of others for positive consequences (for example, by exploiting Larfleeze’s desire to kill a Guardian by promising him one of their own if he will help them defeat Nekron).32 Still, they would have done well to also apply this principle to themselves. Given that they are clearly emotional beings, they should recognize their own emotions and take them into account when computing their moral calculus. If the Guardians were more self-aware, they could have recognized that Scar was in the midst of a breakdown after her battle with the Anti-Monitor, and could have acted to prevent her actions that caused the Blackest Night.33

Triumph of the Will

So, where does this leave us? While at first it seemed that the new color corps posed interesting alternatives to the Green Lantern Corps, ultimately they all fall flat. The criticism of these single-emotional approaches from Aristotle, and the characters themselves, show that ultimately something other than just one emotion is needed in our moral decision-making process. While Aristotle’s theory offers one way to approach morality with an understanding of emotion and reason, it criticizes the Green Lantern Corps just as much as the other corps. The alternative approach to moral reasoning offered by utilitarianism offers a way to understand the role of emotion in moral reasoning that is more in line with our intuition that the Green Lantern Corps and the Guardians are getting it right. Not only does this theory allow us to see the Green Lanterns as heroes, but the debate regarding the appropriate amount of emotion in moral reasoning lets us account for the moral growth of the Guardians from their creation of the Manhunters to their realization, only recently, of the emotion within themselves. Now that the Guardians have recognized themselves as emotional beings, they will be able to move forward in a clearer way in their mission to protect the universe.34

NOTES

1. White and black corps have also been introduced, but since they represent life and death, rather than emotions, they will not be discussed in this chapter.

2. The way the green light is discussed in the comics can be a little confusing. When the emotional spectrum is discussed, the green light is included, suggesting that it should be understood as an emotion. At other times it is discussed as the ability to overcome fear (when a green ring approaches a new candidate for the corps, for instance). There is a long tradition in philosophy of referring to man’s ability to reason as his will, and it is in this tradition that we can best understand what the Green Lantern Corps represents. My discussion of the Corps and the Guardians in the last section of this chapter offers some textual (read: comic book) support for this position.

3. This first came to light in Green Lantern, vol. 2, #7 (July–August 1961), reprinted in black and white in Showcase Presents Green Lantern Volume One (2005) and in color in The Green Lantern Chronicles Volume Two (2009). For a full account of Sinestro’s actions on Korugar and the fallout from them, see Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn II (1991).

4. Sinestro explains this to Hal Jordan in Green Lantern, vol. 4, #26 (February 2008), reprinted in Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns (2009).

5.Green Lantern, vol. 4, #35 (November 2008), reprinted in Green Lantern: Secret Origin (2008). For more discussion of Sinestro’s motivations and how they might be justified, see Dryden’s chapter “The Greatest Green Lantern” in this volume.

6. The character of Star Sapphire actually goes all the way back to the Golden Age, making her/its first appearance in All-Flash Comics #32 (October–November 1947); her first Silver Age appearance (as Carol Ferris) was in Green Lantern, vol. 2, #16 (October 1962), reprinted in Showcase Presents Green Lantern Volume One.

7.Green Lantern Corps, vol. 2, #30 (January 2009), reprinted in Green Lantern Corps: Sins of the Star Sapphire (2009).

8.Blackest Night #0 (May 2009).

9. Ibid.

10.Green Lantern, vol. 4, #33 (July 2008), reprinted in Green Lantern: Secret Origin.

11.Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns (October 2008), reprinted in Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns.

12. Ibid.

13.Green Lantern, vol. 4, #38 (February 2009), reprinted in Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns.

14.Green Lantern, vol. 4, #25 (January 2008), reprinted in Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War, Volume 2 (2008).

15.Green Lantern, vol. 4, #26 (February 2008), reprinted in Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns.

16.Green Lantern, vol. 4, #36 (January 2009), reprinted in Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns.

17. Ibid.

18. A minor point, but one worth mentioning, is that Aristotle had a much more expansive list of emotions than discussed in the current Green Lantern storylines. While the Green Lantern list has just six (plus will), Aristotle not only takes there to be three emotions for every domain (cowardice, foolhardiness, and courage in the domain of fear, for example), he also has a more robust understanding of the domains of emotion, including things like a desire to please others and reaction to the success of others.

19. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 2:3–4.

20. Plato lays out this theory in detail in Book IV of the Republic.

21. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 2:10–12.

22.Green Lantern, vol. 4, #42 (June 2009), reprinted in Green Lantern: Agent Orange (2009).

23. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 6: 12–13.

24.Green Lantern, vol. 4, #42.

25.Green Lantern Corps, vol. 2, #31 (December 2008), reprinted in Green Lantern Corps: Sins of the Star Sapphire. For more on that law and the relationships between emotion and reason, the chapter by Donovan and Richardson in this volume.

26. John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1863/1906), 25.

27. Ibid., 26–28.

28.Green Lantern, vol. 4, #26.

29.Green Lantern, vol. 4, #41 (May 2009), reprinted in Green Lantern: Agent Orange.

30.Green Lantern, vol. 4, #25.

31. Mill, Utilitarianism, 26.

32.Green Lantern, vol. 4, #48 (November 2009), reprinted in Blackest Night: Green Lantern (2010).

33.Green Lantern Corps, vol. 2, #28 (April 2010), reprinted in Green Lantern Corps: Sins of the Star Sapphire.

34. I would like to thank Ruth Tallman for her helpful comments on this chapter.

Chapter 2

FLEXING THE MENTAL MUSCLE: GREEN LANTERNS AND THE NATURE OF WILLPOWER

Mark D. White

There is a never-ending controversy in the comics world concerning how our heroes are drawn. Usually the discussion focuses on female heroes, who are drawn more like bikini models than world-class athletes, but artists are also criticized for drawing male heroes like body builders. It’s understandable that Superman would be drawn with an unrealistically amazing physique (although his powers come from the sun, not from pumping iron). But consider Batman and the Flash, both of whom would be too weighed down by all the muscle they’re typically drawn with to use their skills and powers effectively. And then we have Reed Richards, the supergenius Mr. Fantastic, who at times looks almost as big as his buddy the Thing (but with a better complexion).

This last example is even more pointed because the source of Reed’s “strength” is his mind, not his body. Green Lanterns also use their minds—more precisely, their willpower, rather than their raw intellect—to harness and command their incredible power rings. Green Lanterns do not have to be muscular—just think of Xax, Ch’p, and especially Eddore—or even brilliant—think of Guy Gardner and G’nort. But all do need to be “strong” in terms of will, capable of focusing their concentration through the ring, and maintaining their resolve until their task is completed. And as we have seen many times in the Green Lantern stories, this takes enormous effort (and sweat).

As Sinestro said to a newly resuscitated Hal Jordan in Green Lantern: Rebirth, “Your mind is like a muscle unused for years. You forgot how to use the power ring.”1 But is the connection between willpower and a muscle just a useful metaphor, or something more? With all due respect to our esteemed Korugarian “friend,” I think we’ll investigate this a little more, asking what the best philosophers and psychologists on Earth have had to say on this matter—and mind.

The Ghost in the Lantern

Before we talk about willpower or strength, let’s back up a bit and think about the will in general. Most generally, the will can be understood as a part of the mind that makes decisions distinct from the more mechanical operations of the brain. The concept of the will is not very popular among modern scholars in the area of philosophy of mind, however, since it reminds them too much of the theological notion of the soul or the simplistic dualism of René Descartes (1596–1650), who maintained that the mind is a separate, ethereal “thing” that exists on a separate plane of existence from the body.2 Philosopher Gilbert Ryle (1900–1976) famously ridiculed the will (and Descartes’ dualism in particular) as “the dogma of the Ghost in the Machine.”3 And most contemporary philosophers agree that the mind is more closely connected to the brain, some even suggesting that the mind is the “software” that runs on the brain’s “hardware.”4

At this level, the discussion of the will is nothing more than the timeless debate about mind and matter, which belongs in the area of philosophy known as metaphysics, covering the nature of reality and existence at the most abstract level. The will is also discussed in metaphysics in the context of the existence of free will: whether our actions are freely chosen by us or whether they are determined perfectly and precisely by the state of the world and the laws of physics (a view known as determinism). But we don’t need to wade into these very deep waters to discuss will or willpower as it is used in the world of Green Lantern.5 For our purposes, we’re more interested in what happens inside the mind or brain rather than the nature of mind or reality.

Action Theory Comics

The understanding of will and willpower used in the Green Lantern comics belongs in the realm of action theory, an area of philosophy that looks at how people make decisions and then act on them. In action theory the will is understood to be a distinct part of our decision-making processes—the part that actually makes a choice after our reason and our judgment deliberate about what to do. But on the whole, philosophers are not much fonder of this concept of the will than they were of the metaphysical one. Most action theorists stick to the desire-belief model of action, which is usually traced back to David Hume (1711–1776) and in modern times is often associated with Donald Davidson (1917–2003). This model says that desires and beliefs completely determine a person’s action, so there is no need for another part of our minds to rubber-stamp that choice. For example, if Carol Ferris wants to buy a new jet for Ferris Aircraft, and she believes it is possible to buy the jet (that is, it’s available and the company has the funds), then she will buy the jet. Generally, if someone wants to do something and also believes she can do that thing, then that is sufficient reason to do that thing.

To be sure, the desire-belief model works very well in most normal instances of decision-making, like Carol’s decision to buy the jet. But many choices seem more complicated—particularly after they’re made. For instance, if Tom Kalamaku needs a particular wrench to fix a plane, and he believes that wrench is in his toolbox, then we assume he would reach into the toolbox for it. But suppose that even though Tom knows he has to fix this plane, and believes that he can, he nonetheless spends hours on Facebook instead. He may even feel guilty about it, because he knows he should have fixed the plane instead. Why didn’t he, then?

Most philosophers, following the belief-desire model, would say that Tom actually must have wanted to spend time on Facebook—after all, that’s what he did! But there’s a very clear sense in which he wanted to fix the plane—it’s his job, he’s a responsible guy, and he knew that he had a duty to fix that plane. In other words, his best judgment was that he should fix the plane, but he didn’t. This may be strange, but it is by no means uncommon. How many of us know that we should exercise, should eat better, should stop smoking or drinking, yet we don’t? Philosophers call this phenomenon weakness of will, which poses an enormous problem for the desire-belief model of choice because it makes no room for choices made against one’s better judgment.6

Will: Rebirth

While most philosophers struggle with trying to explain weakness of will within the desire-belief model, some have suggested that a concept of an independent will can solve this problem and can also make descriptions of human choice more realistic. Several contemporary philosophers have written that the desire-belief model is too simplistic, and that it leaves no room for actual people. One such scholar, R. Jay Wallace, writes, “Action is traced to the operation of forces within us, with respect to which we as agents are ultimately passive, and in a picture of this kind real agency seems to drop out of view.”7 Another, J. David Velleman, writes that in the standard model, “reasons cause an intention, and an intention causes bodily movements, but nobody—that is, no person—does anything.”8 In other words, the desire-belief model is a version of psychological determinism, the idea that our actions are the direct results of psychological factors within our minds (desires and beliefs), which leaves no room for true choice—including, as we saw earlier, choice against our better judgment. But, as Wallace argues, “rational agents are equipped with a capacity for active self-determination that goes beyond the mere susceptibility to desires and beliefs.”9 So the desire-belief model does not seem rich enough to describe our actual choices, which are not always ideal.

In his 2001 book Rationality in Action, contemporary philosopher John Searle argues that the standard picture of choice as painted by philosophers is fine for animals, who may have no choice but to satisfy their primal drives, but not for human beings. Searle suggests that true rationality is not deterministic, as the desire-belief model implies, but rather has “gaps,” such as that between judgment and decision, in which true choice is made, possibly against a person’s best judgment. Furthermore, there is no explaining what happens in the gap: “What fills the gap? Nothing. Nothing fills the gap: you make up your mind to do something, or you just haul off and do what you are going to do.”10 No matter how we may deliberate or mull over a decision, we still have to choose to follow it, and that choice happens in the gap, representing free choice (if not free will in the metaphysical sense).

One advantage of Searle’s gap is that it makes weakness of will very easy to understand: it happens when someone chooses, for whatever reason, not to do what he or she judges it best to do! Tom knows he should go home, but doesn’t. He made the “wrong” choice according to his judgment, but that was his choice to make. I know I shouldn’t have eaten that cherry danish this morning, yet I still did. According to Searle, this type of choice is no big mystery; such choices will only be mysterious for those who are devoted to the desire-belief model. But can we explain why people make such choices? Searle says no, because there is no explaining what happens in the gap—there is no rational process at work to analyze or pick apart. And that is precisely his point: people do have true, free choice, above and beyond their deliberative, calculating decision-making processes, and oddly enough, that is part of what makes us rational in a broader, richer sense.

With Great Will Comes Great Willpower

So let’s say we accept the existence of the will in some form—we still need to explore the concept of willpower to understand what makes a Green Lantern tick (or grasshopper, as the case may be). What does it mean for the will to have power or strength, and how would we measure that?

As we saw earlier, the will is what enables us to make true choices, whether good or bad. But even though you can make bad choices, ones against your best judgment, you’d rather not! After all, that’s what your judgment is for—to help you make the best decisions you can—and your will is just there to carry them out (or not). So we can say that a person’s will is strong to the extent that it enables him or her to follow through with his or her best judgment—and the stronger the will, the more willpower the person has.

One early writer on willpower (though he called it “virtue” or “strength”) was the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). Kant is perhaps best known for the categorical imperative, his version of the “moral law,” which helps determine duties that should be followed out of respect for that law.11 But he also recognized that there are many factors that can tempt us away from our duties, such as desires and inclinations. Ideally, people will be autonomous, having the “inner freedom” to choose to do the right thing regardless of temptations (or external influence), but no one is perfect (other than God). As Kant wrote, “While the capacity to overcome all opposing sensible impulses can and must be simply presupposed