Author: dsolo008

In a summed-up version, Kant’s view on deontology is that one should do unto others as you would have others do unto you no matter the situation or the possible outcome. This ethical theory believes that two wrongs do not make a right. In the comic, Superman’s refusal to “bend the rules” of mortality fits with Kant’s understanding of respect that is owed to others, no matter what they have done or what they say they will do because he ultimately believes that it is wrong to create a wrong or bad action in order to correct a bad action. Superman believes there are moral ways to handle those who are committing crimes and refuses to kill any of the Elite members regardless of their actions and crimes. This can be seen in the part of the comic where Superman confronts the Elite and ends up getting beat up badly. He tells the Elite members that their decisions to kill villains as a way to stop or defend themselves is not morally correct. He tricks the Elite members into thinking he killed one of them but in reality, he was just suppressing their powers for the moment to prove his point that even when protecting others there must be moral standards set in place that shall not be broken regardless of what is happening. 

While I believe that every situation has to be looked at individually and future results or consequences need to be taken into consideration, for the most part, I do believe that Kant and Superman’s actions were ethical, and the Elite’s were not. Kant and Superman both believe that someone committing a bad action does not justify a bad action to be done in order to stop the other. Superman was very adamant about how wrong the Elites were in killing those attacking because killing someone or something was a moral way to act, regardless of what the other person had done. Even in the end, Superman proved that you could stop someone from committing bad actions without having to budge what was moral and not kill them. On the other side, while the Elites were stopping creatures and groups from destroying and killing innocent humans, they thought that alone justified their, being able to kill them. From an ethical point of view, there are other ways to handle those who are committing or are about to commit crimes. The Elite team could have stopped the creatures and terrorist groups and had them locked up rather than killing them. 

Superman’s (very Kantian) ideal world where “dignity, honor, and justice become the reality we all share” is the type of world where everyone acts for the right reasons because he believes that everyone is or at least should have the same understanding that every action we take has to be lead with dignity, honor, and justice. He believes that all actions must be justified and be in line with everyone’s morals. In Superman’s world, if everyone acts right, the end result will be good. This implies that if we do the right thing and lock someone up rather than kill, they will either stop or change their way. 

Both Leon and Reynold had achieved great levels of intelligence, but the main difference was their viewpoint on what was important enough in life to pour their intelligence into. Leon made decisions and took actions based on what the normal people could not see or understand, while Reynold was making decisions based on how he could save humanity. What they found to be important in life after their newfound intelligence was a huge deciding factor in how they would go about making decisions, especially when it came to their confrontation. I believe that the reasoning behind Reynold’s decision was based on his conflicting views with Leon. Reynold cared about humanity and had a set goal of saving it and Leon’s goals would have not only prevented his but would have also created great harm to the world. I believe that they had mutual respect for each other’s intelligence but they both knew that in order for either one of them to fulfill their goal, the other goal did not exist. They were also aware that because each one faithfully stood on completely different sides of their viewpoints, they knew neither one would have been able to change the other’s mind which left them with one choice which was that one of them would have to be eliminated. 

If we look at this from a utilitarian perspective, they would have most definitely agreed with Reynold’s decision. In the utilitarian model theory, the right choice that should be supported is the one that results in the greater good for the greatest number. It is not about whether pushing intelligence limits is better or worse than saving humanity. It is about which choice will bring greater good in greater numbers. Reynold came to the decision that if he were to let Leon continue the path he was on, he would eventually be the cause of much harm to humanity. From a utilitarian perspective, letting one man continue living his life would result in the harm and pain of millions, or on the other hand, removing that one individual would save millions of people from harm and pain. For this reason, a utilitarian would most likely have agreed with Reynold’s reasoning. I do believe that Reynold would have found Leon’s perspectives to be too small and too meaningless. One reason I believe this to be true is that Leon had set his goals and views from an outside perspective. His goals were mainly based on things that he could learn about or learn to do. While he may have come across some incredible discoveries, everything was for his personal benefit, and he neglected to think about anyone and anything else. A very ego-centric mindset, which could have been perceived as selfish. I also believe that Reynold might have found Leo’s perspective too meaningless due to the fact that one could have perceived Leon to be wasting his newfound intelligence. Leon only says humanity is small, minded humans who could not see the patterns right in front of them, and rather than putting his new intelligence level to help them, he had a tunnel vision for what he wanted to create and accomplish. 

If it’s computers many times we don’t take security into consideration when creating new other areas. A strategy that I would implement to safeguard my lab would be to incorporate security to work alongside the developers. When technology is involved, we need to incorporate how to protect it while it is being created rather than at the end or after it has been attacked. I think when it’s not computers or phones, many times security isn’t a priority but today so many things are being linked to the internet without having good security implemented in the development which leaves us with many vulnerabilities. I would also consider adding firewall protection to any device that connects to the internet. One other strategy that I would implement to safeguard my lab would be using VR machine environments. They allow for mistakes to not become detrimental to organizations and they allow for more security. 

The NIST Cybersecurity Framework allows organizations to pick which parts they believe to be beneficial and incorporate them into the security programs. Organizations benefit from the framework in a variety of ways, from being able to assess their current state, being able to plan out where they would like to be, and being able to see the gaps in between that need improvement. This framework can also help assess their improvement since the processes are repeatable.  

Many organizations already have security programs in place, but the NIST Cybersecurity Framework is meant to work alongside the current program and help show its weaknesses as well as where and how they can be improved. This framework has five functions that can be applied to help strengthen their security. The functions are to identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover. Using these functions an org can not only discover what some weaknesses are and how to react to them, but these functions also incorporate how to recover as well, which helps organizations plan for “in case” disasters which can also help reduce how long their networks or services might be down for. Framework profiles are also extremely beneficial to organizations. They allow organizations to create current profiles which assess how they current are and create a target profile that is ideally where they would like their security posture to be. These profiles make it easy for internal and external stakeholders to understand the current positions as well as the desired end goal. Organizations can compare the two profiles to see where there are gaps and make decisions on how to improve those gaps. This also allows organizations to see opportunities where they can improve their security posture that may have been overlooked before or possibly an area that was being given more funding and priority than what it actually needed. 

I would personally use many parts of this framework to help assess and improve my future workplace. I would use this framework to create profiles to help understand the weaknesses as well as strengths within my workplace to be able to decide what needs to be improved. I would also use this framework because it uses a common language to communicate the requirements which allow everyone to understand the current posture as well as the desired one and the plan to get there. If I were to establish a new cybersecurity program or want to analyze a current one, I would also use this framework to do so.