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In "Batman v Superman," Bruce Wayne witnesses
the destruction caused in "Man of Steel"
and makes the decision to take down Superman
before he wipes out all of humanity.
And while that logic sounds good on paper,
it's a lot more complicated
and nuanced than you might think.
And maybe, just maybe, Batman is wrong.
(rock music)
Last week, we looked at the ethics
of whether or not Batman should kill the Joker.
The comments section was divided, to say the least,
and I can only imagine that will continue today
as we debate not who would win,
but whether the two gladiators
should even fight each other at all.
- Holy here we go again, Batman.
- As of this recording, I'm at a bit of a disadvantage here,
since the movie hasn't actually come out yet.
All we have to go off of are the trailers.
And, thankfully, they do provide us with a few reasons
why Batman wants to bring down Superman.
Chiefly among them is this line.
- If we believe there's even a 1% chance
that he is our enemy,
we have to take it as an absolute certainty.
- Now, you and I both know
that Superman is the big blue Boy Scout.
He would never turn on us like that.
But for the sake of this video,
let's put all of our presuppositions of Superman aside
and attempt to tackle this from Batfleck's perspective.
All you see is an immensely powerful being
who has shown literally unbelievable
and possibly unlimited power.
You don't know his weaknesses.
You're unsure if he even has any,
to the point of questioning
whether or not he can even bleed.
- Tell me, do you bleed? (dramatic orchestral music)
- The only other members of his species that showed up
tried to terraform the planet
with no regard to its current inhabitants.
And after the battle where he recklessly participated
in destroying Metropolis, he walks away unscratched.
Even his hair is still perfect!
So yeah, it becomes a little easier
to see where Batman is coming from here.
But to get a better sense of what's going on,
a helpful analogy might come in the form
of a famous thought experiment.
Quick, to the Bat Trolley!
(manic orchestral music)
There's a famous thought experiment
that you may have heard of called the trolley problem.
It goes like this.
There's a runaway trolley speeding down a track,
about to hit five people who, for whatever reason,
can't move out of the way.
They will definitely die
if the trolley continues (trolley explodes) towards them.
However, you, being the observer of this scene,
are standing next to a lever.
If you pull that lever, the trolley will switch
on to a new set of tracks
and spare the lives of the five people.
But here's the catch: that new set of tracks isn't empty.
There's one person on it who also can't move.
If you don't pull that lever,
the trolley will continue down the track it's on
and kill five people. (trolley explodes)
If you do pull the level and switch tracks,
(trolley explodes) the trolley will only kill one person.
Which do you choose?
To see this from Batman's perspective,
let's plug in Superman as the one guy on the spare track,
the entire human population on the main track,
and Batman himself at the lever.
If Batman does nothing,
all of humanity dies. (trolley explodes)
If he pulls that lever, the trolley will kill Superman,
(trolley explodes) but spare everyone else on the planet.
Side note, I know that a trolley is no match for someone
who has been described as more powerful
than a locomotive on many occasions,
but let's say that Superman is weakened;
kryptonite, red solar rays, the whole deal.
If Batman pulls that lever, Superman will die.
There's no clever way out of it,
there's no coming back to life
as is so common in the world of comics.
Batman can't save both parties, he has to choose.
I believe, at least with the case of Batfleck,
Bats would pull the lever.
However, this really isn't a fair analogy of the situation.
The problem we've set up is one
where Batman has to take action to kill Superman
because we know for certain
that if he does nothing, everyone will die.
But in the real world,
at least in the world established by "Batman v Superman,"
we don't know for sure that Superman
will turn against the human race.
If Batman decides to do nothing to stop Supes,
then it's possible he could never end up turning evil
and go on to do great things for the planet.
To alter the trolley problem again,
it would be as if the trolley is speeding down a track
that's obscured by fog.
Batman suspects that there is the possibility
that hidden by the fog is every other person on the planet,
which I know is a bit weird, but just go with me here.
Batman has the lever
and could easily cause the trolley
to switch to the second track, (trolley explodes)
where he clearly sees Superman,
once again, tied down and weakened.
So, does he do nothing and risk the trolley
potentially killing every human being on the planet
or does he switch the track,
fully knowing that he will kill Superman in the process.
In "Batman v Superman," it looks like he'll pull that lever.
Even though this is already confusing enough,
this example still isn't an accurate representation
of what Batman is going through,
but it's a good foundation to start on.
In the scenario we've set up,
all Batman has to do is pull a lever.
That's easy.
In fact, it's too easy.
Let's go back to the core of the trolley problem.
You're watching a trolley speed towards (record skips),
actually, is there a synonym for trolley?
I feel like I've said that word so much already.
At this point, the word has lost its entire meaning to me.
Cablecars, streetcar, tram?
Is tram something?
Let's say tram.
Okay, so you're watching a tram
speed towards a group of five people.
But instead of a lever that switches the tram
to a second track with one person on it,
you're standing next to that other person
and you know that if you push that person
in front of the tram, they will die,
but (tram explodes) their weight would slow down the tram
enough not to hit any of the other people in the group.
Actually, you know what?
I'm sick of tram now too.
So, do you push that person?
You're still trading one life for five.
It's the same equation both times.
But neurologist David Eagleman points out
that you're actually using completely different regions
in your brain for both cases.
In the first scenario,
where all you have to do is pull a lever,
you're using parts of your brain
that are used to solve logical problems.
Five is greater than one, so pull that lever, Kronk.
- [Voiceover] Wrong lever!
- But in the second scenario,
where you have to physically push a person
in front of the trolley to their death,
you're now activating regions involved with emotion.
And those two brain systems fight each other
to try to figure out what you should do.
Your rationality says,
"Obviously, one death is better than five."
But your emotional side argues,
"I don't want to kill somebody."
And this arguing also incorporates positive duties,
AKA the responsibility to help people,
versus negative duties, AKA the responsibility
to not harm people that we've talked about before
in our Spiderman video about power and responsibility.
Pulling a lever is just too impersonal.
Instead of interacting with a human being directly,
you're further removing yourself from the situation.
And this is a problem we face today with modern warfare,
where taking human lives can be represented
in incredibly abstract ways.
Pixels on screens and pushes of buttons
make drone strikes and cyber attacks
become more like video games.
Similarly, a man by the name of Roger Fisher
believed nuclear launch codes
to be too accessible to the president of the United States,
who could decide to kill millions of lives
with an impersonal and unemotional command.
Instead, Fisher proposed that the launch codes
should be put into a small capsule
and implanted next to the heart
of a living, breathing volunteer.
That volunteer would accompany the president
everywhere he or she goes
and carry around a large, menacing butcher knife.
And now, I just wanna read you exactly what Fisher wrote.
"If ever the president wanted to fire nuclear weapons,
"the only way he could do so would be for him first,
"with his own hands, to kill one human being.
"He has to look at someone and realize what death is,
"what an innocent death is,
"blood on the White House carpet."
Batman isn't pulling a lever or pushing a button,
he's personally confronting Superman one-on-one,
mano a mano.
To have that reflected in our trolley problem,
imagine that in order to save the entire human race
that may or may not even be on the track in the first place,
Batman has to physically push Superman onto the tracks.
And again, we're assuming that Superman is weakened
and will definitely be out of the game permanently
if Batman decided to go through with it.
Bats would have to engage
both the logical and emotional parts of his brain,
which could make it tricky to actually go through with it.
But hang on, Batman doesn't look conflicted about this.
Based off the trailers, it seems as though
he isn't even a little hesitant about stopping Supes.
What else is going on here?
And this brings up the final variation
of the trolley problem that we'll talk about today
because it's already getting convoluted enough as is.
But hey, that's what these thought experiments are for.
Think back to the scenario
where you have to push someone (man screams)
onto the tracks in order to stop the trolley
and save the group.
That still seems like a tough call to make, doesn't it?
Well, would it help in your decision-making process
if I told you that the person you're pushing
was responsible for putting that group of people
on the tracks and sending the trolley
barreling down to kill them?
In other words, imagine those old-timey mustachioed villains
tying up damsels in distress on railroad tracks.
If the only way to save that innocent civilian
was to push the villain in front of the train,
would it be easier to do?
Intuition seems to say, "Yeah."
It's kind of poetic justice in a way.
It feels like it would be morally justified
to push the villain, since he set up
this whole scenario in the first place, right?
And when you look back at the trailer,
it's so obvious that Batman sees Superman as the villain.
In Batman's mind, he believes that it's the Man of Steel
versus everyone on the planet.
You can't have both.
And since Superman is the being who Bats believes
is endangering the entire human population,
he has absolutely no reservations
taking down the last son of Krypton permanently.
What started out as a simple trolley thought experiment
escalated into a complicated and nuanced plot.
And believe it or not, we've actually seen Batman
in a very similar situation before.
In "Batman Begins," the caped crusader
is fighting Ra's al Ghul on a speeding train.
If Batman does nothing and lets that train
continue barreling towards Wayne Tower,
Scarecrow's Fear Gas will cover the entire city of Gotham
in a cloud of fear and terror
that will cause countless deaths.
But if Batman reroutes the train into the ground,
it will come at the expense of one person's life.
However, that one person, Ra's, is far from innocent.
In fact, he's the one that set up
that entire plot to destroy Gotham.
It's so on the nose that I feel like
we as fans should've seen this coming.
And of course, we all know what Batman chose.
- I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you.
(dramatic orchestral music)
- As we established in part one of this series,
Batman's thinking here can be considered utilitarian.
Batman weighed the consequences of each action
and decided to take the action
that benefited the most people.
And that's precisely what he's doing with Superman here.
Batfleck is going to go out of his way to take down Superman
because he believes doing so
will benefit the largest amount of people.
But, if Batfleck is a utilitarian
trying to save as many people as possible,
then is fighting Superman the best way to go?
He's treating Superman as if he were a bomb
with enough power to destroy the entire planet
that's just waiting to detonate.
It doesn't matter if there's only
a 1% chance of it triggering,
that likelihood is more than enough
to warrant getting rid of that thing.
- Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb.
- Which again, sounds simple enough
that I'm sure we could agree to that,
except Superman isn't just sitting around,
waiting to turn against humanity,
he's actively going out and saving people.
If Batman does nothing to interfere
and lets Superman live,
Superman could potentially save countless human lives.
Heck, we've already seen him save the entire planet
from an extinction-level event in "Man of Steel,"
and he did that in a snap.
But if Batman wants to maximize wellbeing
for the most amount of people,
then, by going off of his hypothetical statement
that Supes only has a 1% chance of turning villainous
and a 99% chance of staying a hero,
Batman should really just do nothing.
But that wouldn't make for an exciting movie, would it?
"Batman Tolerates Superman"?
- [Voiceover] Aww!
- Actually, I'd probably watch that.
What do you guys think?
Is Batman right to wanna take down Superman?
Or should he just do nothing and let Superman help people,
even if there's a risk that he might someday turn evil.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
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If you missed last week's video
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click right here to watch it and a playlist of our videos
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My name is Scott,
reminding you to read between the panels
and grow smarter through comics.
See ya.