The First Impulsive Kantian

Hey, Team.

David Corenswet being both from Pennsylvania and the same age as me means there is a not-zero chance of him being the same kid who tried to scam me out of my Pokémon cards at the Franklin mall in 2002.

Listen to Plantasia while you read this! No real reason, just seems right. :) Also there are spoilers. They’re vague spoilers (except for one in a footnote, which is explicit), but still spoilers. So. Idk. Whatever you read next is on you.

Kant’s idea of morality is the genuine act of doing the right thing, not necessarily achieving the right thing.¹ The value is placed upon a sincerity in a person’s effort and motivation. Therein lies an expectation for futility. A utilitarian might balk at this, the moral goal for them being, well, the utilitarian achievement of the goal. Sometimes I fancy myself a utilitarian but when I think a little hard about it, I have some issues with this “the goal’s the whole point” thing. This is both unforgiving to those who fail and also a blank check for the unscrupulous “ends justify the means” types.

In communism, the phrase goes “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Simply give what you can, take what you need. Kant viewed a failure to develop one’s talents to provide, a failure to help others, as a violation of humanity. When, as is inevitable in this mortal venture, interacting with people, “always act so as to treat humanity, whether in yourself or in another, always as an end in itself, and never merely as a means.” It’s okay to want something from someone, it is okay to expect to benefit from some interactions. It’s okay for someone to want or expect these things from you. It is not okay to only ever view a person as a tool and nothing more. Give what you can, take what you need. While it is always a choice to do so, it is vital we choose to respect, protect and uplift the humanity of our fellows.

With Kant, you might never tip the scales, but what matters is that you tried; really, truly put your all into making the world a better place. And on top of it all, there isn’t even an obligation to do this, not really. A person chooses to act morally.² A person chooses to do the right thing. We are self-governing creatures with rationality,³ needs, hopes, desires, vulnerabilities. Our humanity is our moral value, and how we choose to spend it requires care. It is a violation of our humanity to not acknowledge this is also the reality of our fellow man. Remember your humanity. Respect your humanity. It won’t always be fun. It will often be scary, even confusing. But you can wake up every morning, and despite not knowing what to do, put one foot in front of the other and try to make the best choices you can. We screw up all the time, but that’s what makes us human.

Superman, as portrayed by David Corenswet in James Gunn’s 2025 summer feature, is a Kantian figure. While he takes pleasure in doing the right thing, he doesn’t do it for pleasure. He’s doing it just to do the right thing, something he can’t fathom any others not being wholly driven by. He’s not representing anybody except him and doing good, why is this such a problem? It’s a problem because we’re, knowingly or not, acolytes of Bentham who don’t give a shit what your intentions are. What were the results? Have you considered the optics? The ripple effect? The big picture? Who could ever justify embodying so much power and choosing to scoop up a squirrel, to fire only warning shots across the bow? How can we trust a man who moves in perpetuity, who accepts the constant motion of his actions and never expects it all to just stop one day?

Luthor certainly doesn’t trust this. Of course in the end it’s all narcissistic projection, but he can’t believe anyone would ever operate the way Superman does. To Luthor, an avatar of the utilitarian at their most cynical, it is all filtered through the prism of what he would do. If he (Luthor) were a super powered, nearly god-like metahuman, he would subjugate the earth. He would have a harem. He would seek riches. How could anyone not? Perhaps he’d argue that he himself is a Kantian figure: ever laboring to make the world better, utterly lacking in the self-awareness that this better world he seeks is just a playpen tailored to his own whims. He rages over the perceived ease with which Superman moves. Luthor fancies himself a martyr, a slave to rationality, grinding away to break new ground for the greater good, while this floating hunk in swim trunks need only flash his dimples and the crowd goes wild. There’s some kind of moral code going on within Luthor, but it’s a perversion. Maybe Kant would be persuaded to agree that Luthor wants to make the world “better” and determine him morally sound.⁴ But he’s dead, so fuck him. Luthor can never fathom doing the right thing for the simple matter of doing the right thing, no interest in pleasure, praise or credit. That is the core of who he is and that drives him insane. He only feels small because if he were that big, that’s how he’s want everyone to feel.

So if we are just a group of cynics, why is this movie doing so well? I thought we liked grim dark, edgy, it’s all corrupt, scum and slime? Well, because in general we don’t, actually. Or at least, not always. There’s a perpetual back and forth, a pendulum swinging from the sullen ham-fisted Frank Miller acid rain and broken teeth to the blissed out smile of an alien zooted on a cloud unspooling from Grant Morrison’s LSD-laced heart. It comes from a place of fear, this thing of hope. “It’s not that I needed Superman to be ‘real,’” Morrison writes in Supergods, “I just needed him to be more real than the Idea of the Bomb that ravaged my dreams.” A cursory scroll online can reveal a bevy of audience members glowing in the comfort brought by the suggestion of a pro-Palestine message. For a moment, Superman was more real than the political figures and our own fellow civilians who are complicit in or even celebrators of genocide. For just under two hours, Superman was more real than the Idea of the Bomb.

Morrison muses over whether such an earnestly positive figure might be in fact a figure borne out of a desire to make ourselves better. Perhaps Superman is some sort of allowance made by the public “to feel worthy of a tomorrow where our best qualities are strong enough to overcome the destructive impulses that seek to undo the human project.” Sat comfortably in my reclining seat at the AMC 16, I watched Superman tumble out of a collapsed entrance to a pocket universe. Limp in Lois’s arms he sputters feebly through the poison in his veins that he has to go back in there and free everyone still inside. He’s an impossible man but that’s the point of iconography; they’re road maps to what a person can be, or at least get close to being, “the personal greatness of which we all know we’re capable” as Morrison puts it.

There is a core element to the character that is held, almost crystalized, within the lines and ink on the page, that we can only hope is also carried in the bones and flesh of the actors who embody him. Morrison repeatedly refers to him as something divine, an Apollo, a sun god, Moses and Karna. They ascribe not just his abilities but his choices on how to use his ability to an inherent divinity.⁵ I disagree, though I understand and empathize with their interpretation. They were raised in a world that only ever showed its teeth– a nuclear testing site loomed across the water all their childhood, their father was a World War Two veteran turned activist carrying zines explaining the world’s end. It becomes hard, under these guides, to believe that someone like Superman could ever be someone like you or me. They call him “the loftiest aspirations of our species.” His invulnerability and talents for defying gravity, the lasers, the x-ray vision, the superbreath, what have you, sure, these are all trappings of some kind of god. But that’s not the core of who he is, that’s not the through line that can never be retconned. They say themself “We have to adapt to his rules if we enter his world. We can never change him too much, or we lose what he is.” And so what are his rules? What is this thing that can’t be adapted too far without erasing the man altogether? “He never gave up and he never let anyone down. He stood up for the weak and knew how to see off bullies of all kinds.” By Kant’s standards, he is a perfectly moral human.

Anyway.

you’d only have two nickels but it’s kind of dumb it happened twice.

Further reading (not alphabetical):

Morrison, Grant. Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human. Random House Publishing Group, 2011.

Kant, Immanuel, Christopher Bennett, Joe Saunders, and Robert Stern. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. London, England: Oxford University Press, 2019

If you want prompts for reflection on the Metaphysics, this is nice for that:

Herbert, J. H.. Immanuel Kant's Ethics - A Smart Student's Guide: A Concise Guide to Kant's Ethical Philosophy with a focus on his Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (Owl Professor Smart Student Guides Book 3). Owl Professor Guides, 2015.

I have a headcanon that Lex Luthor has convinced himself Superman wears a wig. The first day Superman entered the public sphere, Luthor passively noted his hairline looks kind of too good to be true. It has cycled in the background of his mind ever since and is now solidified as an Infallible Truth in his mind.

To the nerds I’m seeing claim online they “like Henry Cavill’s Superman better”: No you don’t. You like Homelander.⁶You only want to be that big so you can make everyone else feel small. You might even be angered by how nervous women make you feel. Not that you care, but I don’t respect you.

And finally, yes, I still want to spit in Superman’s mouth. This isn’t going to change, this is part of my structural integrity. Accept it and move on.

Additionally, my Mad Max fan fic has begun over on substack (working on filtering it over here as well) The last Wednesday of every Month⁷ is when I will publish a chapter or short story from my psychedelic body horror self soothing tool.

Okay, that’s all for now, Team. Talk soon (threat)!