Read Comics in the Classroom Part 1 and Comics in the Classroom Part 2 for much more!
The final part of this week's campaign to show how educational comics can be is all about, comics used in teaching and understanding philosophical dilemmas. William Irwin, a philosophy professor at King's College, Pennsylvania, edits the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series, which includes titles such as Batman and Philosophy, and X-Men and Philosophy.
Batman and the Joker have played a brutal cat-and-mouse for decades. The Joker commits a crime, Batman catches him, he's locked up, inevitably escapes and commits another crime. Why then does Batman not kill the Joker despite the Joker commiting numerous murders himself?
That's where Immanuel Kant and the deontological theory of ethics come in, where the morality of an action is based on the action's adherence to a rule or rules.
Christopher Robichaud, teacher of ethics and political philosophy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and Tufts University, uses superhero-based thought experiments to help people grapple with ethical dilemmas in an unsentimental fashion. To me, this is just like Socrates taking to the streets of Athens with his messages in the form of agricultural and mythological analogies.
That's where Immanuel Kant and the deontological theory of ethics come in, where the morality of an action is based on the action's adherence to a rule or rules.
Christopher Robichaud, teacher of ethics and political philosophy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and Tufts University, uses superhero-based thought experiments to help people grapple with ethical dilemmas in an unsentimental fashion. To me, this is just like Socrates taking to the streets of Athens with his messages in the form of agricultural and mythological analogies.
Imagine for example, that you are Peter Parker and you have just discovered that you have superpowers (that of a spier to be precise). Your Uncle Ben once told you, "With great power, comes great responsibility," Do you indeed have a moral obligation to use your abilities for good? Robinchaud says that these scenarios are a neutral way to start talking about ethical issues, such as consequentialism, that people often find provocative or confronting. To take that to a deeper level, de-personalising issues by providing artificial examples, facilitates easier and clearer consideration of ethical issues.
Christopher Bartel, an assistant professor of philosophy at Appalachian State University, asks students to read the graphic novel Watchmen in order to explore questions about metaphysics and epistemology. In Watchmen, the villain plans to detonate a nuclear explosion, which would kill hundreds of thousands of people but bring the world away from the edge of all-out nuclear war by presenting an outside evil that they must join forces against. Is this for the greater good? Does the saviour of millions justify the death of thousands? Bartel also uses the character of Dr Manhattan, who claims that everything, including people's psychology, is predetermined through all the causal laws of physics. This becomes a platfrom from which to discuss theories of determinism and free will, and the moral responsibilities entailed in those world views.
Whether in a classroom or not, these are all common themes readers come across in comics. This kind of thought must certainly be a good thing for people's development and so I conclude that not can comics be fun and beautiful, they can be thought-provoking and provide a medium for the healthy development of young people.
No comments:
Post a Comment