Jonathan Ichikawa, whos been doing an excellent job in the “papers blog”:http://opp.weatherson.org, recently posted the “following comment”:http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Philosophy/Blog/Archives/cat_ethics.html about _Spider-Man 2_. (Warning spoilers ahead)
bq. _Spider-Man 2_ is a hell of a movie. It was better than I’d expected, even after all the hype. And I think it illustrates better than any philosophers’ works I’ve read that there really is no plausible way to posit a morally significant difference between doing and allowing. Peter is morally required to be a hero, because sometimes morality is just that demanding.
As has been pointed out here and elsewhere, its part of the moral framework of the _Spider-man_ movies that sometimes morality requires you to do things not just to avoid doing whats wrong. But this is a long way from Jonathans suggestion that it somehow illustrates that theres no difference between doing and allowing.
Consider, for instance the scene where Peter Parker sees a guy getting beaten up in an alleyway and doesnt stop to help. It’s true that in the movie this is presented as being the wrong thing to do. But if there were no difference in the movies morality between doing and allowing, this would not only be wrong, but would be just as wrong as if Spiderman had beaten up the guy himself. And surely this isnt true. Even in the movie some allowings are not as morally loaded as the matching doings.