Retributive Vigilantism In DC Comic's Watchmen

In popular culture, comic book heroes are individuals characterized not only by their superior physical and cognitive abilities, but also their desire to use those abilities to promote justice—justice, for Immanuel Kant, being the virtue of “respect [for] other’s freedom, autonomy, and dignity.” Oftentimes, the hero’s desire to promote justice is carried out in the form of retributive vigilantism, which, in its most basic sense, involves the hero operating independently of the state to punish wrongdoers for wrongdoing. Intuitively, at least according to J.L. Mackie, we are quick to side with these characters because we share this basic retributivist sentiment. The vigilante aspect of retributive hero justice, though, presents a more contentious
issue—is vigilantism ever morally justified if a hero is acting on retributive principles? The following shall be an examination of several contrasting moral principles and how these principles apparently give or deny retributive vigilante heroes the right to punish. I will begin by expounding on Immanuel Kant’s retributive theory from “The Right of Punishing and of Pardoning: The Right of Punishing” in his The Science of Right (1790) to establish the moral grounds on which one may punish, ultimately proceeding under the supposition that retributive punishment is justified. With Kant’s Second Formulation of the categorical imperative, I will argue that retributive vigilantism is morally justified, as it is a universal imperative that people ought to be treated with respect. I will then provide two arguments for why vigilantism may, nonetheless, be unjust. The first, based on Peter Strawson’s expressivist theory in Freedom and Resentment, will highlight the need for a trial. The second will rest on Kant’s explicit denial of just vigilantism on social contractarian grounds in The Science of Right. To the former, I will invoke Thomas Nagel’s conclusion to making moral judgements, as expressed in Moral Luck, to explain why a trial is meaningless in the pursuit of justice. On the latter, I will acknowledge that vigilantism may not be just on social contractarian grounds, but consider a case in which the government has failed to uphold justice, leaving retributive vigilantism as the only means of exacting justice. Thus, I will conclude that retributive vigilantism is morally justifiable, at least sometimes.
As a form of punitive justice, retributive justice is broadly defined by the principle that wrongdoers deserve proportionate punishment for wrongdoing. Conversely, retributivism also rests on the principle that it is not morally permissible to punish those who have not done anything wrong or punish those who have excessively. For Kant, this “principle of equality” carried out through an eye for an eye punishment, ensures a “sentence of pure and strict justice.” The need for retributive justice can also be understood in terms of his Second Formulation of the categorical imperative, which states that one must “act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.” In terms of retributive justice, this essentially means that we ought to punish criminals to respect them—to acknowledge that they are individuals with wills who are responsible for the actions that result from those wills. Given the universality of the categorical imperative, it would thus appear that a retributive vigilante is morally justified in punishing a wrongdoer in the pursuit of justice, as retributive punishment is ultimately how one ought to respect a wrongdoer and his actions. Nonetheless, as I will explore below, there may still be reasons to doubt whether retributive vigilantism is just. For most in opposition to retributive vigilantism, vigilantism appears unjust because it suggests the lack of a formal judicial process by which a wrongdoer’s culpability and punishment can be determined, specifically the trial.
Let us consider then, a case where a retributivist anti-hero, Rorschach, from DC Comic’s Watchmen comes across an incident in an alleyway. A man has just shot and killed another man. Rorschach, having seen the crime unfold, is certain that the offender is guilty insofar as he knows that the criminal has murdered someone. Given that retributivism also prescribes the limits for punishment, he knows he is permitted to capitally punish the offender. With responsibility for the crime and appropriate punishment established, Rorschach proceeds to shoot the offender, killing him. Had Rorschach not been there, this criminal would have been caught, put on trial, found guilty, and sentenced to death anyways because he was sloppy and left behind the weapon with his name and fingerprints on it. It would appear as if justice would have been reached in either case, regardless of who, Rorschach or the state, punished this offender. But suppose that, unbeknownst to Rorschach, this criminal was acting under some impulse caused by something in the water he was drinking. He suspected the water wasn’t right, but he took a chance and drank it anyways. Let us further suppose that the established legal system in this society shares Peter Strawson’s view of expressivism
whereby certain individuals are exempt from normal reactive attitudes, in this case, capital punishment. Among others, Strawson offers the following reason: “We should not feel resentment against the man he is for the action done by the man he is not.” The fact that he was not acting as his usual self would have surfaced and he would have received a lesser punishment owing to the fact that he was not entirely himself. But it’s too late now. In light of this exemption, it would appear as if Rorschach reacted inappropriately given this individual’s circumstances, since it does not appear that he was in control and, therefore, responsible for his actions. In Moral Luck Thomas Nagel presents a position that explains why the criminal’s luck may not matter. In order to hold anyone responsible and, therefore, deserving of punishment, he maintains that there must be the “condition of responsibility.” Because luck seems to imply that nothing is truly in our control. Nagel notes that we must ignore moral luck to make judgements regarding moral responsibility—as we regard ourselves as morally responsible for our actions from a first person perspective, or an “internal view,” we must extend that view onto to others. Thus, without any reason to exempt the killer above on the basis of moral luck, it would appear as if a trial had little effect on the eventual outcome. If guilt is certain and the hero punishes within the limits of what is permissible, vigilante justice does not appear unjust in that the same justice is ultimately exacted in punishing a wrongdoer for a wrongdoing. Why, then, does the state necessarily have to be the one to punish? From the same selection on punishment in The Science of Right in which he defines his theory of retributivism, Kant explicitly states that “right of administering punishment is the right of the sovereign as the supreme power to inflict pain upon a subject on account of a crime committed by him.” Such an assertion implies the existence of a social contract between the sovereign (state) and individuals in a society. This contract, broadly agreed upon as a “binding but largely unwritten agreement between the state and its citizens that forms the basis of all political institutions,” “is further defined by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan as a contract whereby citizens give up some rights to the state in exchange for protection, including agreeing to be punished if found in violation of agreed upon laws. By its very nature, vigilantism involves a hero operating outside the purview of this agreement between the state and its citizens. It would then appear that vigilantism is unjust because retributivist vigilantes do not have the necessary consent of a society’s citizens to enforce laws or punish wrongdoers. In cases where the social contract is effective—when the state “can effectively protect those who have consented to obey it” —a retributivist vigilante may not even see the need to act, as the state should, in theory, be able to uphold justice on its own. Marvel’s aptly named anti-hero, The Punisher, in the 2004 film, The Punisher, brings up the following:
“In certain situations, the law is inadequate… It is necessary to act outside the law… to pursue justice. This is not vengeance. Revenge is not a valid motive, it’s an emotional response. No, not vengeance. Punishment.”

In spite of a social contract, Punisher reminds us that state is not always capable of offering protection or adequately responding to injustices, such as when laws themselves are unjust or when the state is incapable of punishing supervillains. For Hobbes, “political obligation ends when protection ceases” so how just is retributive vigilantism when the state has failed in this obligation to protect its citizens and uphold justice—a case in which the social contract has been effectively voided? In such a case, John Locke, in his Second Treatise on Civil Government, argues that a “state of nature” essentially exists in the absence or breakdown of the social contract. With that, it is up to the individual, or hero, to seek justice for himself and others according to the law of nature. Despite the state of nature, he offers the following view of punishment and justice:
“and thus, in the state of nature, one man comes by a power over another; but yet no absolute or arbitrary power, to use a criminal, when he has got him in his hands, according to the passionate heats, or boundless extravagancy of his own will; but only to retribute to him, so far as calm reason and conscience dictate, what is proportionate to his transgression; which is so much as may serve for reparation and restraint…every man hath a right to punish the offender, and be executioner of the law of nature.”

The core principle of retributive punishment, namely the proportionate punishment of a wrongdoer for wrongdoing in the pursuit of justice, is evident, albeit in a state of nature. No longer bound by a social contract, the retributive hero would have just as much right as anyone else, not just the sovereign, to exact retributive justice. So in when a society is essentially in a state of nature—when the government is inadequate in upholding justice as agreed upon in the social contract—the retributive vigilante is morally permitted and, thus, morally justified in punishing wrongdoing for transgressions. Whether it be for reasons of respect or for reasons of human intuition regarding the righting of some inequality, punishment is regarded as an appropriate reaction to transgressions of justice.
This forms the basis for retributive punishment. If justice is something that ought to be promoted and if a hero acting on retributivist principles is seeking to exact retributive justice, it would appear as if vigilantism is justified. Conflict, however, arises over who has the right to punish and whether it is just for them to punish. The need for a trial to determine exemptions from punishment based on moral luck is something that a vigilante cannot typically offer, but that may not be relevant if one ignores moral luck in favor of maintaining a condition of control, as Nagel suggests. With that, the same justice is ultimately exacted if both the state and vigilante operate on the same retributivist principles. More than anything, however, the justness of vigilantism rest on the existence or lack of a social contract. In cases where a social contract is strong, or when the government is capable of upholding justice, retributivist vigilantism is not justified, as citizens have not consented to be punished by anyone but the state. Comic book story arcs, however, are not as straightforward. They often present us with criminals that cannot be brought to justice by ordinary means of the state. In these cases, the inadequacy of the state to uphold justice nullifies that social contract
between the state and its citizens. The society, at this point, is in a state of nature whereby individuals, heroes included, have the right to pursue justice on retributive principles under the law of nature. Thus, retributive vigilantism is morally justified, but only in instances where the state has failed in its obligation to uphold justice—only in what is effectively a state of nature.