People are talking about the book I am in!

The website Watchmencomicmovie has put up a thread to discuss Watchmen and Philosophy, a book that I have an essay in. In the thread, people are asked to pose questions which will be put to the book's editor, Mark White, in an upcoming interview. One of the first questions to come up, from EmPiiRe x, is actually about the topic of my essay, deontology and utilitarianism. Annoyingly, EmPiiRe x suggests that we made a mistake I went out of my way to avoid: treating Veidt as a straightforward utilitarian, rather than a megalomaniac who uses utilitarianism to rationalize his actions. I've posted a response you can check out at the end of the thread.

The amount of attention the book is getting is a pleasant surprise. Molly and I went into Borders last weekend and there was a whole display dedicated to Watchmen, including two piles of copies of Watchmen and Philosophy. I've never been in a book that gets displayed like that.

Also interesting this thought on livejournal about the contradiction between Dr. Manhattan's own existence and his professed materialism. (The blogger also mentions the book I'm in!)

that wasn't so bad.

Cutting 25% of the paper was a good move. New version here.

"and if you film him from strange angles, he looks quite sinister"

Interview with Alan Moore about his decision to worship a Roman snake god.

hrrm

So I'm rereading The Watchmen and calling it work, because, well I can, and I've had a couple thoughts one of which made me a little dizzy.

I've been wanting to say that the real critique of consequentialism comes from Dr. Manhattan, esp with his comment to Veidt implying that the ends can't justify the means because nothing ever ends. I took this to embody at least two standard critiques of consequentialism. The first is simply the law of unintended consequences, which is illustrated well by events in the book. The second, and more interesting is the idea that since the future is infinite, outcomes in the distant future will always swamp (infinitely!) good outcomes here and now. More broadly, it is impossible to reason consequentially with an infinite time span. So you have to add some sort of discount rate, something that lowers the utility of outcomes as they recede into the future. But any discount rates are artificial and post hoc. So consequentialism doesn't work.

Re-reading the issue Watchmaker, however, I remember just how hard it is for Dr. Manhattan to embrace any moral worldview. He can only critique consequentialism to the extent that he critiques all human morality. Perhaps this fits with the general thrust of my essay, since I want to say that the book has small critiques of consequentialism and deontology which it uses to get to a critique of authority. Mostly, though, re-reading Watchmaker gives me that dizzy feeling you get when objectivity sucks away morality and feeling, the feeling Nagel writes about in The View from Nowhere. It leaves me unable to decide what to do at all, let alone write in my silly essay.

Other, less dizzying thoughts:

1. I hadn't noticed before that the history of superheroes in the fictional world of The Watchmen mirrors the history of the comic book in the real world, with a lively golden age in the 30s and 40s, a dead period in the 50s caused by public distrust of nonconformity, and a revival in the 60s.

2. What is the technical term for the kind of transition in movies and comics where a phrase or image is carried over into the next scene, acquiring new meaning?

putting the internet to good use

John Holbo is using public domain etexts and the print-on-demand service lulu to create new editions of 19th century science fiction. Right now he is just offering the versions available as etexts, but his plan is to created better edited scholarly editions.

Speaking of hundred-plus-year-old fantastic literature, Caroline and I have been reading Little Nemo in Slumberland and it's been really fun for both of us.

We have been reading this edition, because it is the one we happened to own. It's complete, but the reprinting is lousy: the image has been reduced in size and the text frequently has bits of letters missing. Also, it is difficult to lie down next to a five year old, and hold up a five and a half pound book so that both you and she can see the pictures and you can read the small type. Purchasing this edition, which is incomplete, but looks better, might be in order. On the other hand, maybe we should go with one of the multi volume volume editions of the complete set. (Free e-version of some of the comics are available here.)

I'm also not sure what to say to Caroline when the character of The Imp is introduced.

Listen to Captain America.

This panel is taken from here. Apparently there is a tradition in Captain America comic books of having the real Captain America face off against a fake Captain America. In the comic this panel is from, the *real* CA announces that flags are nothing: only the values behind them count. Via pharyngula.