- The Joker is a murderous lunatic
and Batman's arch nemesis.
No matter how many times Batman locks him away
in Arkham Asylum, he always manages to escape
and cause death and destruction
wherever he goes in Gotham City.
And you would think that after the immeasurable mayhem
Joker has caused, Batman would've stopped him for good.
As in.
- Why would I put my finger on his throat?
- But I know what you're thinking.
Batman won't kill the Joker
because he doesn't wanna break his no-killing rule,
or he doesn't wanna stoop to Joker's level
or cross that line, or any number of reasons
that Batman has given over the years.
But today, I wanna show you that Batman's logic on this
matter is both incredibly inconsistent and very flawed.
(rock music)
Why doesn't Batman kill Joker is the question
that has been asked for decades,
other than the obvious real world reason
why DC Comics won't let Joker die,
'cause, you know, he's obviously their most popular villain
and they definitely make tons of money
whenever he shows up anywhere.
Batman has also established a few reasons in the comics
as to why he won't kill the Clown Prince of Crime.
The most popular reason is because Batman
is against killing, period.
He's not gonna kill the Joker for the same reason
he won't kill Penguin or Poison Ivy
or Killer Croc or anyone.
Joker isn't a special case.
He's just like all of the other criminals.
And Batman won't kill any of them, either.
The Caped Crusader is simply not a killer.
It's against his fundamental code that makes Batman, Batman.
Bruce Wayne's thinking here lines up well
with Kantian ethics.
Immanuel Kant believed that certain actions
like killing are always wrong,
even if you're killing a bad person like the Joker.
Doing the wrong thing for the right cause
is still the wrong thing.
He explained it by saying that we each have the ability
to reason, and reason affects what actions we take.
Therefore, it's only the actions themselves
that can be judged as moral or immoral
because they were endorsed by our reason.
Whereas the consequences of those actions were not.
Moral actions are rational
and immoral actions are irrational.
But how do we determine if a particular action
is rational or not?
At the core of this philosophy is the categorical imperative
which aims to evaluate the morality of actions
by taking actions to their extremes
and imagining what would happen if everybody did it.
If you steal a comic book from your friend,
you might think, oh it's no big deal.
But if we create a rule out of it, for example,
steal comics if you want them.
And imagine what would happen in a world
where everyone followed that rule.
We start to see some problems.
And yeah, this hypothetical world sounds like
a terrible place to live, but remember,
Kant is not concerned with the consequences here.
The bigger point is that a world where everyone
wills to steal everyone else's property
is logically impossible.
If everyone goes around stealing other people's property,
then the concept of owning something
would effectively disappear.
But by definition, you can't steal something
unless it's owned by someone else.
The entire concept of property and theft
breaks down completely.
From this we can determine that stealing
is morally wrong, again, not because of the consequences
of the action, but because the action itself is logically
inconsistent and immorality is a type of irrationality.
If we apply this to Batman, let's see what would happen
if his role was to kill every lawbreaker and murderer.
We can see how that would be a contradiction,
we're basically creating a rule that says break the law
and murder all murderers who have broken the law.
Everyone who follows this maxim becomes a victim to it
themselves, it doesn't make any sort of sense
so it must be a morally wrong action for Batman to take.
So it's actually very rational that Batman
would have a rule against killing.
To him, it's wrong no matter how you spin it, right?
Well, the problem is that Batman has gone against this vow.
We've seen that there are rare occasions when Bats
will intentionally break his no-killing rule
to stop dangerous threats.
Even if most of these instances are retconned away
or set in alternate universes of some kind.
Whether that be the Golden Age Batman
who loved snapping people's necks
and pushing people onto swords,
which is, you know, no longer canon.
The time that he locked KGBeast away and left him to die,
which was later retconned, or the time he shot Darkseid
with every intent on killing him,
even if he needed others to help him finish the job.
But wait, if Batman is willing to attempt a murder
on Darkseid, then he's admitting that killing
in some instances is justified, where Kant would say no,
absolutely not, murder is always wrong a 100% of the time.
And if Bats acknowledges that killing can be fine sometimes,
then why hasn't he killed the Joker?
We're right back to where we started.
Well, I guess there is The Killing Joke,
which reportedly intended on having Batman
kill the Joker in the final panels of the story.
However, that ending was purposely left ambiguous.
And when they made the story canon,
it very clearly was not the case,
as Joker has reappeared many times since then.
But there are a few really interesting moments from
The Killing Joke that further show Batman's code of ethics.
In the beginning, he states that he doesn't want
Joker's murder on his hands.
And later, near the end, Bats explains that he doesn't
wanna hurt Joker.
He doesn't want either of them to end up killing each other.
But they're both running out of alternatives,
and they both know it.
This hints that Batman might be okay
with the concept of killing if he feels
that that's the morally right action to take.
And who could argue with Batman?
Well, for one, Batman.
Batman could argue with Batman.
We've seen a contradictory mindset on a few other occasions.
Times when Batman is very explicit
in his desire to kill Joker.
In the Under the Hood story arc,
spoilers for a ten-year-old story, by the way,
Jason Todd furiously questions Batman
on why he still allows Joker to live after all he's done.
Is it because Batman's moral code would make it
too hard to ever cross that line?
No, in fact, Batman explains it's the exact opposite.
It would be too easy to kill the Joker.
Killing Joker is all Batman has ever wanted to do.
He wants to torture him, break him
and send him off to his death.
He wants Joker dead more than he wants anything.
This is made exceptionally clear in Batman Hush,
when he decides to kill Joker once and for all,
and even runs through the list of ways
he could kill him right then and there.
It's brutal and I love it.
In both stories, there's talk of a line that's crossed
if Batman were to ever murder someone.
If he goes through with killing the Joker,
if he ever crosses that line,
he'll never be able to come back.
He'll regret it forever.
Not only that, but Batman will be no better
than Joker himself.
What does that mean?
There's a theory of ethics called virtue ethics,
which doesn't focus on the acts one commits,
but rather the character of the person who commits them.
Aristotle believed that the purpose of life was to achieve
eudaimonia, which is commonly translated
as flourishing nowadays.
And the way to achieve eudaimonia was by practicing virtues.
Virtues are basically in the middle of two extreme vices.
Aristotle laid out a whole bunch of these virtues.
But let's take a look at just one example.
In between being a coward on one end of the scale,
and being rash on the other lies the virtuous choice.
Being courageous.
If we were to question Batman's courage,
I think we could definitely confirm that he isn't a coward,
or else he wouldn't go out and fight crime
in the first place.
However, one could make a convincing argument
that being Batman and rushing into battle
with dangerous criminals is very foolhardy,
which is a vice, not a virtue.
But the fact that the Dark Knight is a brilliant strategist
and has a plan for almost everything means that
he never charges into conflict recklessly.
He's right in the middle, right where you wanna be.
The idea is that virtuous people tend to act in a way
that is morally right, so by practicing virtues,
one will learn to make the correct actions.
Practicing being the keyword there.
Virtues require time and habit and encouragement.
One needs to constantly exercise being virtuous
in order to make morally right choices.
For that to happen, one needs to be in a proper environment
with proper teachers who can help instill virtues.
And this is brought up in that Hush storyline
I mentioned a few moments ago.
When Batman is on the verge of killing Joker,
Gordon shows up and pleads with Batman
to remember who he is and what made him who he is.
His role models, the beliefs they instilled in him, quote,
"And think of how the Joker could never understand that.
"It's what makes him who he is."
Maybe that's what separates Batman and the Joker.
Batman was taught and regularly practices virtues,
while the Joker gives in to vices.
And perhaps it's Batman's virtuous nature
which compels him to keep Joker alive.
Not because there's anything inherently wrong with killing,
but because killing him is what Batman believes
is the morally wrong thing to do.
And since he is virtuous, and virtuous people
tend to do the morally right thing,
then not killing Joker may very well
be the correct decision.
Furthermore, it's possible that this is what all those
comic books mean when they talk about the line
that Batman can never cross.
Indulging in vices might lead Bats to make a wrong decision
that could haunt him for the rest of his life
and set a moral precedent.
If it's not corrected, that's kind of the biggest flaw with
this whole if-I-cross-that-line-there's-no-coming-back
argument.
Again, Aristotle believes that those who lack virtue
can change with time and habit.
If Batman truly believes that sparing Joker
time and time again is the right thing to do,
he might still slip up one day and accidentally kill him.
We've already seen that it's not out of the realm
of possibility.
And if he does cross that line,
it's not the end of the world.
If he continues to practice virtues,
he'll be back to making the right calls soon enough.
So maybe Jason Todd was right to criticize Batman
for his reasoning.
Jason tells him that he's not asking Bats
to kill every criminal, just Joker.
Batman shouldn't hide behind the
there's-no-coming-back argument.
Besides, isn't it the Dark Knight's duty to protect Gotham
from its parade of criminals?
Why is killing too far?
If killing the Joker prevents future killings
of innocent civilians, isn't Batman obligated
to go through with it?
That line of thinking is very utilitarian,
a theory which holds that the best action to take
is one which maximizes utility.
Okay.
So what exactly is utility?
Is it having lots of pouches in your utility belt?
Well, no, that's just a dumb joke
I desperately tried to fit in here.
Defining utility is kind of a whole thing
that we don't really have time to get into,
but just for the sake of this video,
let's say that something has utility if it promotes
happiness or wellbeing.
So if the consequences for killing Joker
are that many lives are saved from his psychotic wrath,
then a utilitarian might believe that Batman
should absolutely kill the Joker.
In fact, he should have done it ages ago.
When Jean-Paul Valley, aka Azrael,
took up the Batman mantle,
he started doing some decidedly un-Batman-like things.
It all came to a climax when he faced off
against a serial killer named Abattoir
in a scene that was very reminiscent
of Joker's plunge into a chemical vat.
But where Batman tried to save Joker,
Azrael just stood by and let Abattoir fall
to his death in a pit of molten metal.
But it gets worse.
Before this showdown, Abattoir had kidnapped
his own cousin and hooked him up to a machine
that slowly crushed him.
With Abattoir dead, there was no way of locating his cousin
in time to save him.
He died because Azrael refused to save Abattoir.
When Gordon informed him that his inaction
led to an innocent man's death,
Azrael just said, "So, what's your point?"
He went on to explain, quote,
"So one man died.
"Against that death, weigh this.
"Abattoir had already slaughtered 25 people.
"His insanity was incurable.
"He seems to escape from jail at will.
"How many more do you think he'd have killed?"
End quote.
Kinda sounds like Azrael's making a statement
about Batman's policy with the Joker.
Even the way he described Abattoir could easily
be applied to the Clown Prince.
When Bruce Wayne and the Robin at the time, Tim Drake,
confronted Azrael about his reckless actions as Batman,
Azrael turns it around on them,
criticizing Bruce for his tolerance of criminals,
effectively blaming him for all of the lives
that they have taken.
He even singles out the Joker by name.
It's clear that Azrael's ethics are utilitarian.
He's willing to let Abattoir and his cousin die
if it means trading those two lives
for the safety and wellbeing of the rest of the city.
Jeremy Bentham, the philosopher who founded utilitarianism,
had a very Spock-life belief.
Bentham put the happiness of the community
before everything else.
He believed in quantity over quality.
The more people who are happy, the better.
In fact, quality didn't really factor in at all.
Specifically, this is known as act utilitarianism,
where an act is deemed morally right
when it creates the best results
for the largest amount of people.
But how could we possibly know
every last effect our actions have?
Not only that, but how can we accurately calculate
the consequences of alternative actions
to make 100% sure that we're doing the right thing?
Or at least, the less bad thing.
As Professor Mark D. White wrote in an essay on the subject,
we really have no idea if killing Joker would save any lives
in the future at all.
For all we know, Joker could die of natural causes tomorrow
and never hurt anyone again.
How could we be positive in thinking
that killing him is justified?
Not only that, but what if Joker's death sets in motion
even worse consequences that we couldn't even fathom?
Batman actually takes us into consideration
when it comes to killing Joker in The New 52.
Quote, "It's true I don't do it because of my code,
"because of what I stand for but there's another reason too.
"And it's this city.
"I truly believe that if I did it, if I killed Joker,
"Gotham would just send me someone worse."
Which is kind of odd, considering Batman regularly
faces threats against the entire universe
with the Justice League,
while Joker usually sticks to terrorizing a single city.
There are already monsters worse than Joker.
Heck, Batman works on a team with someone
infinitely more dangerous.
Someone with essentially limitless power.
Someone who could destroy the planet
and with it, the entire human race, if he wanted to.
Someone who actually killed Joker.
That's right.
Superman.
If you think it's challenging to figure out
whether or not Batman should kill the Joker,
wait until we match up the Dark Knight
and the Man of Steel in part two
of this ethical debate next week.
In the meantime, what do you guys think?
Should Batman kill Joker?
What do you think is stopping him?
Let's talk about it all in the place
where we talk about things.
And I'll pick some of your brilliant comments
to showcase on Monday's video.
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