XII
DIRTY HAN DS AN D DIRTY MINDS: THE ETHICS OF MIND READING AND MINDWRITING
Andrew Terjesen
 
 
 
The fear of mutants in the Marvel X-Verse often seems irrational, but there is an element of it that cannot be dismissed as easily as racism, sexism, or homophobia. Imagine living in a world where someone can read your thoughts without your knowing about it. Would you trust people to use this power ethically? Would you even know when they did? Imagine living in the Marvel X-Verse where Professor X, Jean Grey, or Emma Frost can alter your thoughts (what we’ll call “mindwriting”) so subtly that you wouldn’t be able to tell whether an idea or an action is your own. Would you trust them to use their powers only when necessary?
If Professor X could tell who committed a crime by reading that person’s thoughts, how many people would break the law? And if a group of telepaths could monitor our thoughts and detect when someone was planning to set off a bomb, how much safer would we be? Mindwriting would revolutionize therapy because telepaths could erase our traumatic memories and give us the ability to overcome various psychological obstacles. For all of the benefits, though, would we really want to turn over our law enforcement and clinical services to the X-Men?
This may seem like a very academic exercise—after all, no one can actually read minds (I hope)—but thinking about the ethics of telepathy can be very relevant to our everyday life. Ethics is the branch of philosophy that tries to discover principles that underlie moral behavior. Even though the specifics might be different, the general principles that help us distinguish good uses from bad uses of telepathy should also help us distinguish good and bad uses of optic blasts, adamantium claws, and personal property. In fact, thinking about unrealistic examples can be very helpful, because we don’t get distracted by the similarities to our own personal situation that might lead us to approve of a principle just because it lets us do what we already want to do.

Should We Trust Telepaths?

In a very early issue of Uncanny X-Men, Professor X tried to get Johnny Storm (the Human Torch of the Fantastic Four) to help the X-Men fight the Juggernaut (Uncanny X-Men #13). But Johnny is unsure whether the Professor is really contacting him or whether it is a trap set by one of the Fantastic Four’s enemies. His response makes a lot of sense. How does one distinguish the telepathic messages of Professor X from those of Jean Grey or the Shadow King? It’s possible that they “sound” different, but how can we be sure of that? Plus, it’s possible that telepaths could change their tone to “sound” like someone else. But let’s extend this worry even further. Shouldn’t Johnny Storm have been concerned that he was hallucinating, rather than receiving a deceptive message?
At this point, we seem to be exploring an epistemological (the name philosophers use for issues of truth and knowledge) and not an ethical question. But there’s also an ethical issue behind this one: if we can’t be sure about what we “see” with our minds, is it wrong to take actions based on what we think we see? That question is important even for mere mortals like us: when is it wrong to act if we lack certainty about the situation? When Cassandra Nova swapped bodies with Charles Xavier, the only evidence the X-Men had at first was telepathic, based on what Jean said she saw inside of the mind of a comatose Beak (New X-Men #119) and Jean’s statement that Professor X’s consciousness was lurking inside the body of Cassandra Nova (New X-Men #122). Admittedly, when Cassandra returned to Earth with the might of the Shi’ar Empire, she made no secret of the fact that she had switched bodies with Charles. But imagine if Cassandra had tried to maintain the ruse. Jean tells her fellow X-Men to attack and subdue someone who looks like Charles Xavier, based on her telepathic impressions of two comatose minds. Is that enough reason for the X-Men to fight with their mentor and the Shi’ar Imperial Guard?
The short answer is no. Jean seems to recognize this as Emma accompanies her inside the mind of Professor X, which is trapped in Cassandra’s body (New X-Men #121). Of course, we should scrutinize telepathic evidence as much as possible before we take action, but we don’t always have the luxury of asking for a second or third telepathic opinion. What do we do when one mind reader tells us that our beloved mentor is about to destroy the planet?

How Do I Tell Whether I’m a Mind Reader?

The larger question is: how does one determine the reliability of telepathy? During the Planet X Saga (in X-Men #149), the Cuckoos exonerate Beak for siding with Magneto because their telepathy confirms that he was under a subtle form of mind control. But how can they be sure that they were reading Beak’s mind correctly? If they had been wrong, a traitor could have entered the X-Men’s confidence and crimes would go unpunished.
Presumably, the Cuckoos would have justified their statement by comparing it to all of the other times they had probed someone’s mind. But this only raises a deeper question: how can they be sure that they ever read someone’s mind? From Professor X’s and Jean Grey’s origin stories, we can infer that most telepaths are initially overwhelmed by all of the thoughts they are picking up and they cannot tell who these thoughts are coming from. In that situation, how does one determine that one is experiencing telepathy as opposed to schizophrenia? It seems that telepaths have just as much a reason to be skeptical about their mind-reading abilities.
The difficulty here is a problem that stretches at least as far back as the philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650). In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes wondered how he could be sure that other people had thoughts.1 A well-constructed machine could talk and act like a person without ever having a single thought. This philosophical issue has become known as the Problem of Other Minds, and it has importance for the ethics of mind reading. If we cannot offer any reason for thinking that other people have thoughts, we have no reason to believe that we are reading their minds.
The most common answer to the Problem of Other Minds is offered by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), who argued that we are able to rely on an analogy between our own behavior and the behavior of others to conclude that they are also thinking beings.2 The same logic could be applied to mind reading: if your mind reading tells you something that predicts how someone will behave and that person then does behave that way, you’re probably reading the person’s mind. For example, when Professor X was first discovering his mind-reading abilities, he used them to excel at sports (Uncanny X-Men #12). His telepathy told him how the other athletes would react, and he used that information to outplay them—dodging attempts to tackle him on the football field, for example. No single instance would be enough evidence that Xavier had telepathy, but the repeated success in matching what he thought the other player was thinking and that person’s actual behavior would be very good evidence.
It turns out that the X-Men could also use the method of analogy to determine the reliability of any telepath they work alongside. Cyclops has good reason to believe Jean when she says that Cassandra Nova has possessed Professor X’s body because he has often observed her making statements about what someone thinks that are reflected in the person’s behavior. Thus, the X-Men prepare for the return of Cassandra Nova and try to keep Cassandra Nova’s body alive while it houses Professor X’s consciousness.

How Much Ought the X-Men to Rely on Telepathy?

The X-Men often rely on their telepaths to serve as field communicators, issuing orders and relaying information to the whole team. But there are several reasons to think that a particular command might be unreliable. To start with, something might interfere with the transmission and it would be hard to make out, as often happens with a cell phone. Also, going back to Johnny Storm, there is the possibility that an evil telepath like Cassandra has taken over the telepathic line and is sending incorrect information. Or that the recipient is having a mental hallucination. Moreover, there is some risk in relying on the telepath to correctly read someone’s thoughts and intentions. We can make mistakes with our vision and hearing, so why should telepathy be any different? Finally, the telepath must be trusted not to lie.
The appeal of telepathy has always been that it would give us guaranteed access to what people are thinking, but based on these considerations, telepathy is not much different from any method we use in the real world to try to predict how people will act.3 The situations in which we are morally justified in acting on telepathy will be similar to the situations in which we are morally justified in acting on other fallible sources of information.
When trying to determine the ethics of a particular action, philosophers consider two main things: the results of acting that way and the things we owe (usually called “duties”) to our fellow human beings. When Cassandra is in Charles’s body, there will be very dire consequences if the X-Men do not treat her as a threat. On the other hand, we owe it to people to give them a chance to defend themselves against the accusation of being possessed; we should not attack them unless they provoke us. If we’re going to figure out what the right thing to do is in this situation, we have to weigh the results against our perceived duties. The procedure is straightforward enough, but it is not simple. What weighs more: the deaths of several people or the right to trial by jury?
Some philosophers have favored the principle that the results should be weighed more than our duties. Those philosophers would argue that the danger posed by Cassandra requires one to treat Jean’s telepathy as reliable. In general, they would have the attitude that the more dire the consequences, the more seriously we should take flimsy telepathic evidence. On the flip side, the less dire the issue, the more we can hesitate and try to verify the telepathic evidence through other means.
In Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) says that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure.”4 The action that results in the most overall happiness is better than any other action, according to utilitarians, and therefore is the right action to take. So, for example, even though it is a violation of our duty not to kill one another, if Wolverine’s decapitation of Magneto-Xorn will save the planet, then it is the right thing to do. (And not only because Magneto-Xorn was a terrible retcon.)
Other philosophers are concerned that utilitarian thinking ends up licensing all sorts of things that we would normally call “wrong” (such as erasing your students’ memories, as we’ll discuss later) just because these produce the best consequences. As a result, they place greater weight on our duties. Duty-based moral theorists, called deontologists, would argue that it is never right for Wolverine to kill anyone, no matter how badly the person acts or how dangerous he or she is to society.5
Utilitarians often criticize deontologists for placing too high a value on moral purity. Although Mill never gives a conclusive argument for utilitarianism (he says it is impossible to do so), he points out a simple fact in favor of his theory. Everybody wants to be happy, and this suggests that there is something worthwhile about happiness. To state the idea more broadly: who doesn’t want to have good results? If Wolverine’s actions save six billion people, how could we call them wrong (especially if the only alternative is the deaths of six billion people)? Utilitarian thinking appeals to a simple moral principle that we all seem to recognize: actions that produce the greater good are better. So, if acting on Jean’s telepathy is likely to produce greater good than ignoring her warning, the X-Men should act on it, even if it means running roughshod over the usual rules of civility and the duties of friendship.

Should One Ever Mindwrite?

Although utilitarians are willing to say that some things that we normally think of as bad (such as killing or lying) can actually be good, depending on their results, the application of the principle is more complex. Mind reading can involve some bad actions, like mental eavesdropping, but mindwriting opens up a whole different can of worms. An exchange between Polaris and Havok in X-Men #478 during the “Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire” illustrates the utilitarian perspective on mindwriting.
Polaris: Alex? Maybe I’m just noticing because he has to use Rachel to do it now. . . . But did the Professor always just push his will onto people like that?
 
Alex: When he had to, I think. Yeah. Like, remember when Jean became the Phoenix? He made that whole airport full of people forget they’d seen any of us. . . . But don’t forget the Shi’ar are the people who killed her the first time. And they’d do the same to Professor X if they got the chance. So I don’t think him pushing a few minds to get us on our way is that bad, in the grand scheme of things.
 
Polaris: No, probably not.
As Havok sees it, violating some “minor” duties to fellow sentient beings is permissible if it prevents even worse things from happening.
Over the history of the X-Men, telepaths have always been a bit cavalier in the use of the mindwriting abilities. Early in the X-Men run, Professor X was quick to take over people’s minds in order to get their attention (Uncanny X-Men #16) or even to paralyze them (Uncanny X-Men #38). For the most part, these actions were done in the heat of the moment, when no other options were available, and the stakes were high. They also were temporary effects that did not seem to cause any lasting damage. Here, the utilitarian would argue that such actions produced the most good, as was the case when Professor X saved Nightcrawler from the people in an angry lynch mob by freezing them (Giant-Size X-Men #1).
Now let’s consider mindwriting: erasing people’s memories. In his early appearances, Professor X regularly erased the memories of the X-Men’s friends and foes, such as the Vanisher (Uncanny X-Men #2), the Blob (Uncanny X-Men #3), Johnny Storm (Uncanny X-Men #13), and the Mimic (Uncanny X-Men #19). After faking his death, Professor X seemed to have abandoned that practice, perhaps recognizing that the immediate good of the action was not enough. When there are long-term consequences of an action, those must also be taken into account. If the overall result is negative, then the action is no longer morally permissible, no matter how good the short-term results might be. For instance, all of the people who had their memories erased regained them at some point and were pretty angry about what had happened, which caused them to have a grudge against the X-Men. We can also imagine that having your memory erased could create lasting psychological stress, as you cannot explain why you did some of the things that people said you did. It might also lead you to repeat the same mistakes or neglect certain responsibilities. Finally, knowing that there are people out there who can erase your memory might result in mutantphobia or a complete breakdown of social bonds, due to lack of trust in your memory and in other people.
Based on these consequences, utilitarians would advocate more restraint in mindwriting. But deontologists would find even a small number of mindwriting cases abhorrent. Mindwriting takes something personal from us and limits our freedom of choice in some circumstances.6

Is There Such a Thing as a Telepathic Affair?

During his marriage to Jean Grey, Cyclops sought out Emma Frost as a counselor to help him deal with his feelings after being possessed by Apocalypse (New X-Men #128). Of course, Emma was not the most professional counselor and used her powers to start a “telepathic affair” with Cyclops (New X-Men #131). As she described it, they were “only having a thought together” and it was in no way a violation of Cyclops’s marriage vows (New X-Men #136). When Jean discovered Cyclops inside of Emma’s thoughts, however, she was not willing to accept that what happened between Cyclops and Emma were only thoughts (New X-Men #139).7
From a utilitarian perspective, it does not seem that Emma and Cyclops did anything wrong. The consequences of their “telepathic affair” seem minimal—after all, just thinking about something is not the same as doing something or even intending to do something. The main consequence of the “affair” seems to be Jean’s anger (and given that their relationship was already rocky, it did not seem to make things worse in that regard). Jean’s response seems out of proportion with what was happening. Had Cyclops merely fantasized about having an affair with Emma, Jean would not have been justified in acting the way she did. As Emma describes it, “in a private thought, where we’re safe to explore all those . . . difficult feelings without guilt” (New X-Men #138).
But to a deontologist, this example illustrates what is wrong with the utilitarian principle. Just because Cyclops and Emma’s affair has no real consequences does not mean that it is okay. To begin with, since they were using telepathy, this was more than a simple fantasy. This was an example of Cyclops sharing a fantasy with Emma, and it was a secret that he was keeping from Jean. Although nothing “really” happened, Cyclops did violate a trust with Jean. Even if he thought there were things that Jean would not understand, he could have respected the trust between them by trying to go to therapy together with her. The deontologist would argue that the relationship between a married couple is an important foundation of what it means to be human, and no greater good could justify discarding that relationship.8
A deontologist would also disapprove of Jean’s actions on learning of the affair. In her search for evidence of a physical affair (or plans to have one), Jean peers into many of Emma’s most private memories and makes her relive them. Afterward, Emma is very upset because Jean, in her words, “saw right through me. She saw the truth and I had no defense . . . and she knows, too. Why did I allow myself to become so stupid and vulnerable . . . ” (New X-Men #139).
Imagine if all of your thoughts were made public. Would you still be able to function in society? Wouldn’t you have difficulty interacting with people who knew all of your fears, hopes, shames, and desires? More important, what would it mean to form a relationship with someone if there was nothing you could share with that person and nobody else? If you have no secrets, then there is no way to build intimacy with other human beings, and intimacy is an important part of the fabric of society. Utilitarians recognize this, to a certain extent, since they would say that most of the time we should not act as Jean did. Unless, of course, a million lives are at stake. To the deontologist, the utilitarian principle misses the point. If my privacy or my trust is always in danger of being violated (if the circumstances get dire enough), it seems that I cannot always rely on them or on other people. In which case, do I really have trust or privacy?

Getting Your Mind “Dirty”

The deontologist’s point makes sense: there are just some things that one should not do. But once we accept the deontologist’s argument, we open the door to situations where doing the right thing could have extremely bad consequences. So we must ask ourselves, are we willing to get our hands “dirty” to prevent a very bad thing from happening?
Let’s assume for the moment that using one’s mindwriting abilities to alter people’s personalities is a violation of a basic right to independent thought that we all have. In several instances, telepaths in the X-Men disregard that basic right in order to stop a disaster. Jean uses mindwriting to corral humans in an orderly manner when the Shi’ar are attacking the school (New X-Men #124); Xavier uses mindwriting to defuse a terrorist situation (New X-Men #133); and Emma uses mindwriting to temporarily remove Jamie Madrox’s objections to coming to the X-Mansion to discuss a plan to save the messiah baby (Uncanny X-Men #492). Xavier’s actions seem most troubling as he hands the terrorists over to the police, saying, “I’m a telepath . . . and I can absolutely assure you that none of these men will ever again use violence in the service of abstract ideas.” His statement that he had a talk with the lead terrorist and “explained some of the destructive inconsistencies and contradictions in his thinking” seems to be a euphemism for a complete rewrite of the former terrorist’s personality. Changing someone’s thinking permanently (as opposed to temporarily, in the cases of Jean and Emma) seems to be a gross violation of basic human rights.
Since the terrorist was a complete stranger, it seems a defensible action on Xavier’s part, if the danger was great enough.9 But it would be impossible to defend the same course of action against a loved one—for example, when the Professor tried to keep Amelia Voght from leaving him by making her see his point of view (Uncanny X-Men #309). Admittedly, he stopped himself before he went too far, but the damage was done. By exerting control over her mind, he forced her to respect his judgment, even though he would not respect hers. A more lasting action has come to light recently. Professor X admitted that he had erased Cyclops’s memory of his brother Vulcan and altered his memories of the island Krakoa in order to hide how Xavier’s poor judgment caused Vulcan’s death (X-Men: Deadly Genesis #6). Cyclops was so stunned by the revelation that he cut all ties with the Professor and asked him to leave the X-Men.
Although Cyclops has begun to forgive the Professor, it is clear that his use of telepathy was viewed as a betrayal of basic trust. And while the Professor’s intent was good (to spare Cyclops added emotional pain), his methods required him to get his hands (or at least his mind) dirty. The idea that the “ends justify the means” is often traced back to the political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), even though he never uttered that phrase. The closest he comes are passages such as the following:
a prince, especially a new one, cannot observe all those things for which men are esteemed, being often forced, in order to maintain the state, to act contrary to fidelity, friendship, humanity, and religion. Therefore it is necessary for him to have a mind ready to turn itself accordingly as the winds and variations of fortune force it, yet, as I have said above, not to diverge from the good if he can avoid doing so, but, if compelled, then to know how to set about it. 10
Machiavelli is not saying that one should violate the rules of morality whenever one has a good intention. Instead, he argues that one should do it only when it is absolutely necessary. Qualifiers such as “especially a new one” show that Machiavelli is thinking of his licensing of dirty hands (or minds) to be very limited in scope. Nevertheless, he seems to accept that we might need to act against fidelity and friendship, which seem to be basic moral principles we all abide by. Yet Machiavelli is not invoking the utilitarian principle and claiming that this is the right thing to do. He admits it is wrong, even though it is necessary.11

Trying to Clean a “Dirty” Mind

Professor X’s greatest abuse of his powers comes when he completely mindwipes Magneto (X-Men Vol. 2 #25). In part, this action is an emotional response to Magneto ripping the adamantium from Wolverine’s body, but it is also something that Xavier had been considering as an option when Magneto began threatening the entire population of Earth. In mounting his assault on Magneto, Xavier states that “We do not have the luxury of time, or the occasion for nobility. . . . At this point, we are not fighting for the philosophy of a cause, a hope, or a dream—we are fighting for our very survival—and if we do not fight to win, this planet will be irrevocably lost to us.” In his justification of his actions, Xavier’s reasoning is very similar to Machiavelli’s. The mindwipe of Magneto is a necessary action and it is also a wrong one, but it appears to be the only way to save the human population from extinction.
When confronted with “dirty minds” situations like these, philosophers invariably offer one of two responses: use some form of the utilitarian principle to argue that it is not a morally wrong action (so it’s not really dirty) or admit that it is morally wrong, but that we must do it. Although the precise line may differ from person to person, it seems that no philosopher would deny that mindwiping (or even killing) Magneto is better than allowing the planet to be destroyed.12
Along these lines, Michael Walzer (b. 1935) is a modern political philosopher who argues that there are times when people must get their hands dirty. In a seminal article, he defended the practice, but he also recognized that we do not want to give free rein to “dirty hands” excuses.13 As a result, he argued that you can be justified in getting your hands dirty, but you should feel guilt about it afterward; the guilt is evidence that you have acknowledged responsibility for committing a “moral crime.” Xavier certainly fits the bill; he even seems to want to die in the act of stopping Magneto. Similarly, he seems remorseful about his actions toward Cyclops, which may be why Cyclops is willing to renew a relationship with him.
Some people (usually, staunch utilitarians) criticize Walzer for thinking that there is a real conflict between necessity and morality, but let’s consider a different criticism: Walzer does not go far enough in recognizing the wrong of getting one’s hands dirty, and he seems to offer no way to ever really get them clean. Once someone has done bad in order to bring about a good, it may be easier to rationalize similar actions in the future. Arguably, Xavier’s violations of his friends’ trust multiply and get worse over time, as he seems more and more willing to take such actions. Guilt does not seem sufficient to guarantee that Xavier would not find it easier to do the same thing to someone else. Moreover, it is often hard to predict unintended or long-term consequences of our actions. The good we try to do might end up making things much worse—as when Legion tried to assassinate Magneto and ended up creating the Age of Apocalypse.
Xavier’s belief that his attack on Magneto is a suicide mission seems to excuse his behavior. The problem is that he survives and continues to make decisions that are morally questionable but that he claims are necessary.14 If we are going to allay the concerns that make the deontologist disapprove of Xavier getting his mind dirty, then steps must be taken to ensure that he doesn’t risk abusing his position. The best way to do that would be for him to voluntarily step down (and even forgo using his powers again) after getting his mind dirty. This might not be a permanent action, but even a period of not abusing his position and powers would send the right kind of signal about the importance of those basic duties that deontologists want to protect. Moreover, if Xavier knew that he would need to step down after getting his hands dirty, this would give him pause and maybe encourage him to seek a different solution. To step down from all he holds dear would be a tribute to those very important moral ideas like trust, friendship, and human dignity.15

In a (Real) World Like This

In his investigation of the murder of Emma Frost, Bishop comments that “In a world of mindreaders, shapechangers and disembodied consciousnesses . . . crime takes on a whole new meaning” (New X-Men #140). His observation turns out to be quite astute. One of the Cuckoos, Esme, uses her abilities to take possession of one of the X-Men to shoot Emma and creates a false alibi with her sisters and the Beast by altering their memories. In a world where something like that can happen, it is really important to reassure the average person by taking dramatic steps to wash one’s dirty mind.16 Otherwise, mutants such as Professor X, Emma Frost, and Jean Grey really are something to be feared, because they might sacrifice us at any moment to satisfy their notion of the greater good. Likewise, in the real world, the penalties for “dirty hands” must be severe so that the actions of dirty hands are rare.
 
NOTES
1 René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, translated by Donald Cress (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993). See Meditation II.
2 Bertrand Russell, “Analogy,” in Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1948).
3 Based on this fact, the parallel between relying on telepathically obtained information and relying on information obtained by torture is much stronger.
4 John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002). The work is not very long and is a good introduction to the utilitarian way of thinking. The quote comes from the beginning of chapter 2.
5 The word deontology comes from the Greek word for “binding” and refers to the fact that deontologists think certain duties serve as constraints (or bounds) on the ways in which we can act. Unlike utilitarians, deontologists do not have a single principle they ascribe to. Various deontologists think we owe one another different things and for different reasons. One of the most famous deontologists is Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Kant laid out his theory in his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, arguing that we have a duty to act on principles that can be universalized (applied to everyone) and to show a respect for human dignity. For a more thorough discussion of Kant, see Mark White’s chapter in this volume. For simplicity’s sake, we will treat deontology in a general way: as the belief that there is a limit on the actions we can take (no matter what the consequences are).
6 Interestingly, Professor Xavier of the Ultimate Universe refuses to erase the memory of May Parker when she learns Spider-Man’s identity by accident (Ultimate Spider-Man #105). The reason he gives is very deontological: “It’s not my place. People have to live their lives.”
7 Jean seems concerned that the “telepathic affair” represented an intention to have an affair or that they had already done so, so it may not be the telepathic thoughts that upset her as much as what she thinks they represent. In fact, she rifles through Emma’s memories looking for a one-night stand with Cyclops and is calmed down only when Cyclops invites her into his mind and she sees that he rebuffed Emma’s physical advances when he had the opportunity. It would seem, then, that Jean would disagree with the idea that there is such a thing as “just thoughts.” Yet to suggest that there is no such thing as a “fantasy” seems too strong.
8 If you’re still not convinced that Cyclops has done anything wrong, ask yourself what you think of a spouse having “cybersex” without his or her partner’s knowledge. Is that cheating? (And be sure to imagine yourself as the spouse who didn’t know about it.)
9 Since we do seem to owe strangers less than we owe our family and friends.
10 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, translated by W. K. Marriott (New York: Everyman’s Library, 1992), chapter XVIII.
11 Elsewhere in the Prince, Machiavelli makes reference to using cruelty well. He seems to be recognizing the moral wrongness of the action by using the term cruelty. But one also needs to use it well if one’s state is to survive.
12 In his article “Admirable Immorality, Dirty Hands, Ticking Bombs, and Torturing Innocents,” Southern Journal of Philosophy 44, Howard Curzer tries to map out all of the possible positions when it comes to “dirty hands.” Those who think that torture is wrong and we should never do it (even if the whole planet is at stake) he calls “Pauline Principle Purists,” a reference to St. Paul. But Curzer does not think St. Paul ever ascribed to such an extreme view, nor can he identify anyone else who has argued for it.
13 Michael Walzer, “Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 2, no. 2 (Winter 1973): 160-180.
14 In X-Men Vol. 2 #28, Jean and Cyclops confront him about his recent decisions (including the Magneto mindwipe) but do not suggest that he step down. In fact, they seem to go out of their way to make it clear that they still trust him and will abide by his decisions.
15 A great example of this is in the film The Dark Knight (2008). Batman creates a city-wide sonar monitoring system based on cell phones in order to find the Joker before he kills ferry loads of people. Although the results will be very good if Batman succeeds, it still tramples people’s privacy. In recognition of how dirty this gets his hands, he gives this immense power to Lucius Fox (who is not comfortable with it at all and thinks it is wrong but sees the necessity of the situation). In addition, when the danger has passed, Batman “steps down” by designing the system to self-destruct right after Lucius is finished, even though it could help avert other disasters in the future.
16 Although this sounds like strictly utilitarian reasoning, reassurance might also be something that we owe (regardless of the consequences) to those who lack telepathy. Similarly, we might owe it to people not to cause them to live in fear of what we might do.