If Rorschach is an Objectivist, Why Does He Fight Crime?

[Ash Loomis]

It's occured to me if Rorschach is an objectivist, than he doesn't believe in the concepts of good and evil. Following that philosophy, what was done to Kiity Genevese and Blair Roche wasn't wrong because there is no such thing as right or wrong. So why does he go out compelled scawl his own design on the world, and fight an imaginary evil?

 

[The Question]

I'm fairly certain that the Objecttivist philosophy states that there is good and evil. Perhaps much more strictly than is preactical. Either way, to quote myself:


"Way I see it, there really isn't good or evil. Simply those who help people and those who hurt people. I intend to be the former and stop the later."

 

[BlackOpsTengu]

Its a circular argument though, those who hurt people, is something negative, and by definition, evil. Same point for those who help people. All he's done is interchange one set of terminology for another. It's like trying to agure that beliving in nihilism is not a belief... when it is.

 

[The Question]

Not exactly. You can say that you, as an individual, feel the need to help others. Not necesairily basing it on "cosmic truths," but you're own personal morals.

 

[BlackOpsTengu]

Yet personal motives are just that, personal. He could just as easily reverse it and say, "I want to hurt people and kill those those who help people." But it would just be a substitution of values and names. Bad becomes good and good becomes bad. You're still left with an idea of good an evil.

It's something that you really can't escape from is all I'm saying. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. You can't shoot someone in the head and then sit on a mental sideline and say, 'that action was neither good or bad and thus had no result.' Either you think good is good and bad is bad, or bad is good and good is bad.

You can't just say, 'there are no morals', because that itself is a judgement on morals. It is saying that those without morals are "good" and those with morals are "bad". See? If you make the statement that "everyone should have no morals", then those with morals are unacceptibled to you, and so you shot everyone with morals, thus you would be acting on ideas of good and evil even if you don't use those terms.

 

[The Question]

Good points all around.

 

[BlackOpsTengu]

Yeah, I find villians like Darkseid who revel in their evilness to be much more rational than those saps who think that they're 'above' good and evil like Imperiex. Its just self delusion if you think you can get around the idea of good and bad, they're roadblocks that are simply too large to circumvent.

 

[The Question]

Well, that I don't agree with. I tend to dislike villains who consider themselves evil. Because, nobody does. Everybody thinks that they're rightious.

 

[BlackOpsTengu]

I agree. Most villians think they're actually good guys, a smaller proportion think of themselves as evil, and an even smaller proprotion think they're above the whole mess. Its the ones who think they're above it that are kidding themselves.

 

[The Question]

Not necesairily. Some people simply see good and evil as completely meaningless terms. To some, there is simply a never ending series of actions, neither one being any better than the other. And these are the people who kill someone so casually that it means nothing to them. And these are the people who are seriously dangerous.