The Watchmen, a comic by Alan Moore, appears to be a excersise in axiology. mostly in the evaluation of scoial conduct of certain ethics. one could even say each character is a embodiement of well known philosophical ideologies. each of these systems and its values are evaluated when each of these characters, which in so doing evaluates the systems they embody, are put through a series of situations. For instance when rorschach wrestles with telling the world about ozymandias' successful evil plan, he wrestles with the moral system of the categorical imperative and in so doing, illustrates some of the drawbacks of a moral system to a audience. When rorschach is confronted with the duty to thwart evil his, or atleast what he believed to be, universalized moral law he becomes conflicted to the point of self-destruction, he can't act within his duty without sending the world back into turmoil and he can't against it because that would allow a evil act to go unpunished.
In coming to understand his values throughout the book, it's in the end we come to understand the role they play in comprising what some would consider a moral exemplar of the categorical imperative.
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