Ethics in the Watchmen

Who will watch the watchmen?  Allan Moore asked in his acclaimed graphic novel, The Watchmen.

This graphic novel confronts a multitude of moral issues, and each character seems to have his own set of morals.  From Rorschach's absolutism to Ozymandias' utilitarianism, the novel seems to ask who is right?  And what do you believe?

Where do you fall on the spectrum?  Do you agree with Rorschach?  Or Ozymandias?  Or perhaps, Night Owl, who was torn between the arguably amoral method and the world changing result?  

Spoiler Alert!!!

Rorschach:  The Absolutist

Rorschach had strict moral values in the comic.  If a person killed another person, then they deserved to be punished.  Period.  No questions asked.  It didn't matter to Rorschach why somebody killed someone else.  To him it was wrong and he felt that it was his duty to right that wrong.  (On an interesting side note, Rorschach seemed to believe that the right punishment for murder was death, and he had no issues with killing murderers or others who he believed deserved the death sentence.)

Night Owl:  The Undecided

Night Owl took on the role of kind of the average guy.  (Or as average as superheroes ever get.)  He was obviously divided on the issue of punishment for wrongs and what precisely made something worthy of punishment.  Night Owl clearly expresses his opinion on what he thinks of Ozymandias' plan, but once it is carried out he decides not to do anything about it.  He seems to go with the idea that since the world is safe in that moment, the atrocities that made it safe should be ignored.

Ozymandias: The Utilitarian

Ozymandias took the extreme opposite approach to Rorschach's.  Ozymandias believed that killing was justifiable if it made way for a better end.  He was on the whole against violence, but he did, without a shadow of a doubt, go by the moral code of the greater good for the greater number.  He may have saved the world from another war.

Dr. Manhattan: The Hedonist?

Dr. Manhattan presents the biggest problem for this analysis.  He cared, but then didn't.  In the end though, he seemed to be motivated primarily by what interested him over anything else.  He liked to watch, to study, to examine problems, to understand...  This primary pursuit of the "interesting" leads me to place him in the hedonist bracket.  

The Silk Spectre: The Virtue-ist

The Silk Spectre seemed to apply the golden rule to everyone's actions as well as her own for most of the novel.  The Comedian was bad to her because he had not followed this rule.  Ozymandias was incomprehensible because of this.  Rorschach was strange.  Dr. Manhattan confused her.  Only Night Owl seemed to almost li

ne up with what she thought was right.  She wanted everybody to treat everyone else nicely, and when they didn't she found them at fault.

So, who was right?  Was anyone right?  And what would you do if you were in their super-shoes?