Rorschach's Journal...

I've been wanting to write this post since the movie came out in March. All the character's in the Watchmen graphic novel represent a different philosophical worldview. Bon appetit.
(Adam if I misuse any philosophy names, let me know.)

Dr. Manhattan - Empiricalism/Metaphysics:
He has surpassed the peaks of human thought and existence and has forgotten what it means to be human, because he is so far beyond the human experience and all that entails. Nothing that he cannot calculate or experiment on means a thing to him.

Ozymandias - Utopianism/Consequentialism/Situation Ethics:
He wants to make the world a perfect place. His goal is to bring peace to the world in any means possible. If that means one huge white lie, for the greater good he finds that to be acceptable. He is known in the graphic novel to be the world's smartest man. He is essentially a villain, though he is a superhero. He thinks due to his intelligence and resources that he is the only person who knows how to save humankind because humankind is too ignorant to save itself.

The Comedian - Cynicism/Nihilism:
He thinks that the whole idea of good/virtuous human beings is a joke. Civilization is a joke. The American Dream is a joke. In his own life and in his adventures fighting evil around the world, he has seen only too much evil to persuade him otherwise. So he fights evil with reckless abandon. The joke is on him, his costumed compatriots and all of mankind.

Nite Owl II - Virtue Ethics/Altruism:
(In comic book cataloguing system if another superhero takes on the same codename of another superhero, ususally retired or dead, they get a II, III, and so on tacked on to the end of their name. Though fellow superheroes and villains only call them by their codename. Not, "I will get you Nite Owl II." It would make for awful villainy rhetoric or superhero conversation. Dan Dreiberg is the second Nite Owl. In the movie and graphic novel he is seen dining with the original Nite Owl (or Nite Owl I if you prefer) Hollis Mason.)

Nite Owl is a retired superhero. When he fought evil he did it because it needed to be done. He was a brilliant inventor and inherited money from his father. He was a self-made superhero like Iron Man or Batman, though he has no dreams of saving the world. He is doing the right thing for society. It is rewarding and exciting, and that is enough for him. As far as philosophy goes, he is the middle man in the graphic novel, and takes no extreme sides in being a superhero. When the events of the Watchmen graphic novel unfold, he begins dealing with these feelings of impotency since leaving the costumed vigilante lifestyle.

Silk Spectre II - Feminism:
She is the only female in this world of costumed men. Just as her mother was one of the few women in her time. Just as Wonder Woman was at the time of her creation. She inherited her mother's superheroine codename. She hated being a vigilante and saw it as stupid, overly risky, and dangerous. For all of her feminist bravado, she becomes nothing more than Dr. Manhattan's sexual partner and human contact, whose job is to keep Dr. Manhattan happy and content so that he does not decide to destroy the earth in case he ever drifted into insanity. She too is a middle of the road character like Nite Owl.

Rorschach - Moral Absolutism/Nihilism:
Of the three active superheroes in Watchmen, (the other two being Dr. Manhattan and The Comedian) he acts illegally. When superheroes were outlawed in 1977 by the Keene Act, he decides to keep fighting because there is still evil in the world. In his eyes there is only black and white, no shades of gray. There is good and evil and all evil must be eradicated from the Earth even if that means he kills some men. He never compromises on this principle, and it is why he must die in order to preserve peace in the world due to Ozymandias' scheme. He believes that he is the one person who can bring true justice to the world, and must enforce moral absolutes for the benefit of mankind.