Spider-Man: No Way Home and Psychological Ethics

Marvel Cinema’s latest release, Spider-Man: No Way Home espouses a new ethic for the hero. In this film, there is an ethical shift from the traditional good versus evil narrative to a new view of the hero as a reformer of human nature. The solution to the main crisis of the film could have occurred in roughly the first 30 minutes, but Aunt May, Spider-Man’s guardian, suggests it would be immoral for Spider-Man to defeat the villains the easy way, which would result in their deaths—never mind that the villains would gladly kill him and have already murdered many other innocents. So instead, he risks his life and the fate of the world—this is a superhero movie after all—to save these supervillains who became monsters pursuing the whims of their own vices.  

Clearly, between the older series and this one, there has been a change in ethics in the Spider-Verse and perhaps our world too. To borrow terms used in The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman (not of course about Spider-Man, he has bigger fish to fry), the older series portrayed a moral battle between good and evil while the new series shows a therapeutic battle. The idea of the therapeutic is that it prioritizes the psychological as the most important aspect of human nature. In other words, how a person feels matters more than what they do.   

Trueman notices that the shift towards the therapeutic has tremendous implications for our culture’s conception of morality. As observable in the most recent Spider-Man film, good and evil have little to do with our new moral imagination. Instead, we prioritize understanding “Why do people act this way?” So, the plot of the film revolves around the hero as therapist diagnosing the psychological ills of the villains and creating cures for them. Since there are no objective morals, villains do not truly exist. The men attempting to destroy Spider-Man and the world have no moral accountability for their actions. They are not evil, only pitiable individuals who are misunderstood by society.

Within the context of the movie, Spider-Man appears to choose the higher moral ground by refusing to attack the villains, however this is a false idea about morality. To borrow a psychological concept, Spider-Man allows himself and others to be victimized by failing to stand up to evil. The science fiction aspect of the film heightens the ability of science—even allowing it to cure human nature. So, the film teaches viewers to understand their duty is to strive after cures for those who harm them. The problem with this concept is that human nature at its root requires more than a psychological treatment. For decades psychologists have obsessed over “where” evil is located in the brain, searching for abnormalities in brain scans of serial killers, but they still cannot stop some people’s impulse to destroy, abuse, and murder. Marvel promises its audience that if they will only give depraved people a second chance then all wrongs will be righted. Although this sounds nice, the result is horrifying. No pill, serum, or neon fog can cure evil. By perpetuating a hubristic notion of human power, Marvel prepares its viewers for victimization. The film shifts the burden for moral transformation from the villain to the victimized and leaves no defenses available for those who suffer from the atrocious actions of others. As an ethical model, the film is a bust, but as a superhero movie, it was enjoyable. Go watch it or don’t, but whatever you do remember you’re not Spider-Man and you can’t science away evil.