Avengers and Philosophy: Earth's Mightiest Thinkers, The
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How could the body theory work with someone like Steve Rogers, the original Captain America? Let’s call the scrawny kid who hadn’t taken the super-soldier serum yet “Stevie,” and the athletic (post-serum) man “Steve.” Stevie and Steve do not look exactly like each other, nor are they made of exactly the same physical particles. So if the body theory of personal identity required the two bodies to look the same or have all the same particles, then we would say that Stevie and Steve are not the same person. But if the theory is more sophisticated, taking into account the normal processes of growth and cell regeneration, a body theory may be able to explain how Stevie and Steve are the same person: the former developed into the latter, thus sharing the same body.
Doubts about the body theory come from a thought experiment devised by the philosopher John Locke (1632–1704), in which we imagine people swapping bodies.1 Suppose one day Steve Rogers and Hank Pym wake up with each other’s memories and personalities. They go to the morning Avengers meeting, and the person who looks like Hank Pym starts reminiscing about fighting Nazis in World War II, while the person who looks like Steve Rogers tells a story about his wife, Janet. After careful questioning, everyone realizes what’s happened—Rogers and Pym have switched bodies. (Just another day with the Avengers.) So who’s who?
If we think the body theory is correct, then we must say that the person with Pym’s body is Pym and likewise with Rogers. But it seems a bit strange to be forced to say that the person with Pym’s body is Pym, even when he has no memory of being Pym. This person behaves and talks as if he is Rogers, and he would deny that he is Pym. These kinds of considerations have led philosophers to other theories, such as ones rooted in collections of psychological attributes like memories and personalities.
I Like You for Your Mind, Honest
Let’s call this kind of competitor to the body theory the “psychology” theory. This theory says that some aspect of our psychology is what is essential to us as individuals, so preserving this feature is what preserves personal identity over time. (Proponents of this kind of theory disagree about which psychological feature is key, but that needn’t worry us here.) This gives us a better explanation of the body-swapping case of Pym and Rogers, since it predicts that we would think Pym’s identity goes with his memories and personality, regardless of which body each ends up in. A difficulty with the psychology theory, though, can be illustrated with a different kind of example.
Suppose Pym invents a duplicating machine that takes a person’s brain and splits it into its two hemispheres, then creates two new complete brains out of them—each one identical to the original and retaining all psychological aspects of the original person. Let’s say Pym does this to himself and then creates two new bodies to put the new brains in. At the end of it all, we have two new people, each of whom has the same psychological profile as Hank Pym.
Unfortunately, if we think that the psychology theory of personal identity is correct, we have a problem in deciding what we should say about these two new Pym-like men. Is one of them identical to the old Hank Pym? If so, which one? They can’t both be identical to Pym, since then they would have to be identical to each other. And since there are two of them, they are clearly not one and the same person. But they both have Pym’s psychology, and neither of them appears to have any kind of privileged access—they both have equal claim to it.
The body theory and the psychology theory are two of the main candidates for explaining personal identity, but they are not the only options to choose from. And the difficulties I raised for each of them may not be insurmountable. You may already have some ideas for how we might tweak the body theory to get around the body-swapping problem, or modify the psychology theory to get around the duplication problem. These are fruitful exercises, but let’s take what we have discussed here and see how we can use it to discuss superheroes, rather than just “regular” people.2
Unmasking the Mantle Theory of Superhero Identity
When we discussed Hank Pym and Steve Rogers, we were talking about them as people, not as their superhero personas. Now let’s take up the question we began this chapter with: what can we say about superhero identity that allows us to approach puzzling cases, like the multiple heroic guises of Pym, or the multiple bearers of the Captain America title?
Would it work to simply import a theory of personal identity, such as the body or psychology theory, directly to the case of superheroes? Unfortunately, those theories will not quite capture what we need. Goliath and the Wasp are clearly two different superheroes, but Hank Pym has been both of them at different times. Whatever makes Pym identical to himself over time cannot be the same thing that makes a superhero identical to himself or herself over time; otherwise we would have difficulty saying that Goliath and the Wasp are not identical superhero identities (even though they both may have been assumed by the same person). On the other hand, Captain America is one superhero identity that has been assumed by Steve Rogers (most prominently) and also by others such as John Walker and Bucky Barnes. If Captain America were just a body, or just a certain group of psychological features, it would not be possible for different people (who have different physical and psychological characteristics) to “be” him. But clearly there have been multiple people, all going by the name “Captain America,” so we need a new theory of identity.
What should we say about superhero identity if it is not the same thing as personal identity? One possibility would be to draw from the way we talk about superheroes and apply it to the approach we use with personal identity, respecting the fact that it is a different sort of thing to be a superhero than to be a person. Being a superhero is like being a persona, or wearing a mantle, like when we say, “David Bowie shed the mantle of Ziggy Stardust in the early 1970s, adopting a few years later the persona of the Thin White Duke.” Bowie created his personas as a performance artist, and they were something more than just Bowie himself—they were associated with certain features that went beyond the person playing them.
What is it about a mantle that allows for its continuity over a span of time? If it is not just the body or the personality wearing it, what is it that is essential to being a superhero? Two different features stand out when we pose the question this way. One is that a superhero mantle must be of the appropriate kind; that is, it must be the mantle of a superhero. The second feature is that the bearer of a superhero mantle must have a certain legitimacy. Not just anyone can put on a Captain America uniform and actually be Captain America; there is a process that must be followed to become certain superheroes. Both of these features—appropriateness and legitimacy—take us beyond the kinds of theories we see for personal identity.
Let’s explore these two features in a bit more detail. The aspect of appropriateness of a mantle is just the kind of role that we traditionally associate with superheroes. For one thing, there must be some form of superpower or extraordinary ability associated with it, such as superstrength, lightning speed, extraordinary proficiency with a weapon, and so on. A superhero needs to be extraordinary in some form or other. A superhero must also be a hero under some reasonable description, to distinguish superheroes from supervillains. So by “appropriate” I just mean what we would expect—a superhero mantle is one that is associated with some extraordinary ability (or abilities) and some kind of heroism, the reason we call that person a superhero.
The issue of what it is to “legitimately” bear such a mantle is difficult to specify, but we can think of a superhero mantle along the lines of intellectual property. If I invent a new product, I have a legitimate claim to that product, by virtue of the fact that it is my own creation; or if I create some kind of art, I likewise bear a legitimate claim to that art. The David Bowie example illustrates this point well, because he has the only legitimate claim to his Ziggy Stardust mantle. He could perhaps pass it on to someone else who could give concerts or make albums as Ziggy Stardust, but it would be illegitimate if someone did so without Bowie’s blessing (that is, we
wouldn’t think that such a person would really be Ziggy Stardust, as Bowie was). More generally, the legitimacy of a mantle can be traced to its source or pedigree; the person has to have “earned” the mantle, either by creating it or having it bestowed upon him or her by someone in authority (like when Cap gave Kate Bishop the mantle—and bow and arrows—of Hawkeye during one of Clint Barton’s “deaths”).3
Now we have a theory in place—we can call it the “mantle” theory—that will allow us to approach the cases of Hank Pym and Captain America in a bit more detail. Our goal with this theory is to capture the essence of what it is to be a superhero, in the same way the body and psychology theories aim to capture the essence of what it is to be a person. If we can do this successfully, then some of the puzzling cases ought to become less puzzling.
Case Study 1: The Supersoldier
Captain America is one of the most iconic superheroes in the Marvel Universe, and Steve Rogers is the first and most prominent person to wear the patriotic costume. But he is not the only one. In 1987, John Walker took over the job after Steve Rogers quit being Captain America, though Rogers took the job back after a year and a half. Then, in 2007, Steve Rogers allegedly died, disappearing for a few years, leading to his old sidekick Bucky Barnes becoming the new Captain America. When Rogers came back, Bucky continued as Captain America until his apparent death fighting Sin and the Serpent during the “Fear Itself” event, after which Steve once again donned the stars and stripes.4
Were John Walker and Bucky Barnes really Captain America? Or should we say that they were three different superheroes, all called “Captain America”? According to the mantle view, we have two main things to consider in determining whether they were one and the same superhero: appropriateness and legitimacy. Did each person wear the appropriate mantle, and did they come by it legitimately?
The issue of appropriateness has to do with whether the bearer of the mantle has the right kinds of abilities and whether the bearer is heroic. With Captain America, the abilities are a collection of extraordinary physical features, such as the strength and agility that were given to Rogers through the super-soldier program. (Some proficiency with the round shield is also a key element.) Both Walker and Barnes satisfied these requirements, adding their own unique character to the mantle (Walker was considerably stronger than Rogers, and Bucky carried a gun). They also both acted with an appropriate kind of heroism while they wore the mantle. Neither Walker nor Barnes had a squeaky-clean past, but it is common for heroes to have their unheroic moments. What is important is that while they wear the mantle of a superhero, they are expected to be heroes; repeated failure on this score would put their superhero status in jeopardy.
Legitimacy is the more interesting issue when it comes to considering multiple people being Captain America. For Walker, the moment comes when a government commission, whose job is to manage the “superhuman resources” in America, seeks a replacement for Rogers as Captain America. The government is worried about the bad press they might get from Rogers quitting in an act of protest, so they settle on Walker, another all-American who is making a name for himself as the Super-Patriot, a Cap-esque hero. They offer Walker the role as Captain America and he accepts, while having the following conversation with a member of the commission, Valerie Cooper:
Walker: I couldn’t just do the job without changing my name and costume . . .?
Cooper: No, Captain America is a tradition that goes back decades. We want to preserve it. Well?
Walker: Hmmm . . . Ma’am, if Uncle Sam wanted me to be Mickey Mouse, I’m that kind of American—the kind you can count on. When do I start?5
By the end of the issue, Walker is wearing the Captain America costume and everyone is calling him by that name. It seems that now he really is Captain America.
For Bucky, we have a different kind of moment, but one that is just as illuminating and decisive. Bucky picked up the available mantle of Captain America in 2008, supported by Tony Stark, who was director of S.H.I.E.L.D. at the time. Then, in 2009, when Rogers came back, he publicly endorsed Bucky as Captain America.6 So in 2010, the slice of time we are considering for Bucky, Steve Rogers now had a superhero identity similar to that of Nick Fury (a kind of superbureaucrat, with a license to requisition), and Bucky was Captain America. Bucky’s legitimacy came first from Stark claiming that Rogers would have wanted Bucky to continue the Captain America legacy, and then from Steve Rogers himself giving him his endorsement.
We see the legitimacy requirement fulfilled in two different ways here—Walker was given the mantle by a government committee (which also took it away from him, giving it back to Rogers), and Barnes was given it by Stark and then Rogers. In the specific circumstances, it makes sense why different mechanisms are legitimate. The mantle of Captain America is sometimes considered to be owned by the government, though it is also in some sense the property of Steve Rogers. And in both the Walker and Barnes cases, viewed in this light, we should be happy to say that people other than Steve Rogers really were Captain America.
Case Study 2: Pym Particles
When it comes to Hank Pym, we have a different, and perhaps more subtle, issue concerning the condition of legitimacy. Over the past fifty years, Pym has been Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath, Yellowjacket, and the Wasp, moving back and forth between them from time to time.7 Is Pym all of these superheroes at once, or just one at a time? How can we evaluate this question? The issue of appropriateness is important, though not the key element to evaluating the situation, so I will discuss that briefly first, and then the subtlety of the legitimacy question at play in Pym’s case.
All of these personas are clearly of the appropriate kind to count as superhero mantles. First of all, Pym has been a hero for virtually all of the past five decades, fighting the good fight with the Avengers.8 Next, it is plausible to think that at most times in his history, Pym has had the ability to perform the superhuman or extraordinary tasks that his identities require. His size-changing abilities are based on the so-called Pym particle, which allows access to another dimension called Kosmos. Pym discovered how to use these particles to send mass to Kosmos (shrinking to ant size) and to draw mass from it (growing to giant size). His other abilities, such as communicating with ants through his Ant-Man helmet, or electrically “stinging” people and flying when he is Yellowjacket, are technological advances that stem from his own abilities as an extraordinary scientist, so it is reasonable to see him as having these abilities any time as well.
The key issue for deciding whether Pym is one superhero at a time, or many at once, is really a conceptual issue linked to the notion of legitimacy. On the mantle view, the question, “Can Pym be multiple superheroes at one time?” becomes the question, “Can Pym legitimately wear multiple superhero mantles at one time?” A similar question arises in issues about personal identity: suppose Pym develops multiple personality disorder, and we ask whether the personalities count as distinct people. According to the body theory of identity, the question, “Is Pym multiple people?” would hinge on whether he has multiple bodies, which he does not; while on the psychology theory it would depend on whether he has multiple sets of psychological features such as memories or personalities, which he may.
How do we decide if Pym can legitimately wear multiple superhero mantles at one time? Think about what it means to wear a mantle or persona. Can David Bowie wear his Ziggy Stardust and his Thin White Duke personas both at the same time? No, certainly not. These personas look and behave totally different. Ziggy is a glammed-out alien, and the Thin White Duke is a classy-looking madman. Aside from the fact that these two personas are radically different, the concept of a persona itself requires us to say that a person can only adopt one at a time. Your persona—however glam or mundane it is—is the face that you put on for the world, and you can only have one face at a time.
A superhero mantle is very much like Bowie’s persona, and this limit to one persona at a time transfers to superhero mantles as well. Pym cannot coh
erently be both Ant-Man and Giant-Man at the same time, for the simple reason that the former is a superhero who shrinks and the latter is a superhero who grows. The prediction of the mantle view that someone can only be one superhero at a time is supported by the way the characters themselves treat the transitions. Even in less clear-cut cases, such as when Pym changes identity from Giant-Man to Goliath (a change mostly only in name and costume), we still see that the superheroes—Pym included—take him to have dropped the Giant-Man persona and picked up the mantle of Goliath.9
For example, shortly after Pym becomes Goliath, he ends up stuck at a height of ten feet, which is very unsettling for him. A doctor is called in to give him a checkup, and we have this exchange as the doctor arrives and is let in by Captain America and Quicksilver:
Doctor: I got here as soon as I could, Cap! Where is the patient?
Captain America: Major Carlson! I knew you wouldn’t let us down! You’ll find this an unusual case! Have you ever heard of . . . Giant-Man?