Comments on 3, 2, 1... Context: "The Dark Knight" and Philosophy

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In response to your "cynical" argument... what if ...

2009-11-12T16:45:01.203-06:00

In response to your "cynical" argument... what if everyone (or at least a majority) is convinced by this argument and votes this way? Then the argument will have proven false....

I wouldn't put it past the joker to lie and actually give them the detonator to their own ferry. If I were a sick, twisted criminal like the Joker, that's what I would have done.

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Tonight I had occasion to mention this scene from ...

2009-08-15T04:11:39.006-05:00

Tonight I had occasion to mention this scene from The Dark Knight at my blog and I hoped to find a thoughtful analysis to use as a reference. I really, really enjoyed what you had to say and the ensuing discussion. Kinda makes me want to start posting more thoughtfully to my own blog instead of my usual reactionary screeds! Good stuff.

Now the real question would be, if the Joker was r...

2009-05-25T12:44:37.426-05:00

Now the real question would be, if the Joker was really telling the truth about the detonators and their targets. Knowing the Joker he could have just as easily rigged the detonators to destroy their own boats. I do like your analysis though

I am a college student, and I am doing a paper for...

2009-03-10T17:57:09.758-05:00

I am a college student, and I am doing a paper for my Philosophy class(more specifically ethics)in which the prompt was to pick a situation that had a moral dilemma. This scenario came to mind as the perfect example. We, then, were to apply Jeremy Bentham's Moral Calculus to the situation in order to conclude whether or not the decision is morally acceptable. I noticed that many of your points were very similar to mine..right on! Your Level Three reasoning is on point. Immanuel Kant said that "the highest purposes of each individual are presumably self- preservation and the attainment of happiness" which is essentially the same thing you said. By you voting no, but knowing the majority would vote yes, you would be morally wrong. Kant says "Actions are not truly moral if they only appear to conform to moral law but lack moral motivation." This post probably wasn't necessary, but I liked everything you said. Cheers!

This is James Gilks (owner of SerialKillerCalendar...

2009-02-05T10:33:13.202-06:00

This is James Gilks (owner of SerialKillerCalendar.com) personally I would love it if they took the idea of the Riddler to a very dark extreme. His character is very close to real life serial killers like David Berkowitz (the son of sam) and the Zodiac Killer. Many serial killers (including Jack The Ripper and The Red Spider) have sent letters to the police and the Zodiac killer sent cryptograms (which where in essence a type of riddle). I think that if Hollywood is willing to take these films to the gritty dark side of real life, they should focus more on this angel and abandon the tacky jump suit wearing, cartoon aspect that Jim Carey brought to the screen. I would love to see a down right evil and twisted serial killer side to the Riddler.

I also believe that they are setting up The Mad Hatter for a future movie. If you watch carefully, Batman says that the man Dent is interrogating in The Dark Knight (the creepy smiling guy from the ambulance) is named "Jervis Tetch". This is The Mad Hatter.

Lastly, I would love to see all these films come together in to a plot that involves Arkham Asylum. There have been many amazing graphic novels that focus on this (especially "A Serious Place on Serious Earth"). This would be a perfect opportunity for the writers to place Batman against not only a huge cast of badies but also against his own troubled mind.)

Well, thats just the opinion of someone who runs a company devoted to selling serial killer merchandise so you can take it or leave it. I hope you can all stop by SerialKillerCalendar.com to pick up some morbid merch (including the new Serial Killer Magazine, Serial Killer Trading Cards and Serial Killer Action Figures. I know, its a shameless display of self promotion but really, I have to justify reading up on Batman Movies while I am supposed to be working somehow.

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I'm watching this movie now, and I just love your ...

2008-12-31T19:36:20.422-06:00

I'm watching this movie now, and I just love your analysis. I was looking to see if an experiment similar to The Joker's had ever been done in real life, like the one that tested if people would torture others (with an electric shock, I think) if ordered to by an authority figure.

I would be prepared to die, as I am a believer tha...

2008-08-04T10:27:48.172-05:00

I would be prepared to die, as I am a believer that every life has a value....even if that value and purpose is to serve as a warning to others.

The criminals on board the other vessel were guilty o various crimes, some that harmed others, and some (like drug use) that harmed nobody, physically, except themselves. As the original post for discussion stated, some greater, and some lesser crimes.

Everyone has the potential to be a hero. The true hero is willing, when called to do so, to lay their (* his or her) life down in sacrifice for the preservation of others.

If the chance presents itself, there in an animated "bridge", so to speak, between Batman Begins, and The Dark Knight. It is called Batman: Gotham Knight.

Bruce Wayne, in one portion, makes a comment to Lucious Fox, with respect to not only taking the life of a criminal, but taking anyone's life. He states "I'm willing to sacrifice my life for what I believe, but it has to me my life, only".

But, that also holds a bit of contradiction to his actions at the end of Batman Begins, also. When the train was cascading across the destroyed tracks toward sure destruction, Batman had physically defeated Ra's Al Ghul. Knowing the danger that he posed to uncounted masses, due to his ideologies, should he survive the encounter, Batman made the following comment: "I'm not going to kill you, but, I don't have to save you, either".

He then glided to safety by using the memorycloth cape stressed to act as a faux glider.

So, by choosing not to save Ra's Al Ghul, when the capability and time were there, was Batman actually a hero, or a villain? He was not willing to take Ra's Al Ghul's life himself, but he was willing to let him die by making no effort to save him.

I too was intrigued by this scene in the movie. I...

2008-08-03T03:21:45.870-05:00

I too was intrigued by this scene in the movie. I was happy to see an ethical dilemma with some depth to it in such a huge box office smash. I think the situation in the movie is a great example and thinker, but I want to focus on the outcome.
Both boats choose not to set off the detonator, and they don't blow up. Later on, Batman says something to the Joker about how not everyone is willing to buy into his chaos. This is a whole 'nother can of worms, philosophically speaking. This shows just how much we buy into the ideas of modernity. We truly believe in a general optimism. The idea that mankind is somehow genuinely good.
I believe that humanity is depraved and that there is something deeply wrong with us so I can't really buy the outcome in the movie, but it does give an interesting example of modernity's sway on our thinking of human nature. Just a thought.
Thanks for the great post!

Two points that no one seems to have made so far:1...

2008-08-02T11:06:33.839-05:00

Two points that no one seems to have made so far:

1. Why hasn't anyone pointed out that the blow-up-the-other-ship is an example of the classic Prisoner's Dilemma. There is a significant amount of published works, both literary and scientific, on this phenomenon. We don't have to reinvent the wheel -- these published works can help improve our reasoning and judgement.

2. Why doesn't anyone consider trying to disarm the bomb, or at least the radio detonators? Any explosives expert will tell you that remote detonation via radio is VERY risky, both in terms of premature detonation from stray radio signals as well as detonation failure (duds).

Obvious objection to point 2: Most civilians in stressful situations are not equipped, either emotionally or technically, to even go near a bomb or detonator, much less trying to disarm one.

True. But I would expect that among the crew members, as well as the passengers, to have a mobile phone or walkie talkie or other means of communication to experts on land who could potentially walk them through the process.

You would need coolheaded people to do this, with at least some technical competence. Of course, there would be no assurance of success, and the stakes are obviously high.

Nonetheless, if I were on either of those boats, whether as a civilian or prisoner, my preferred approach would be to:
(a) evaluate the risks, and
(b) communicate with the outside world to improve my knowledge (and therefore my odds) as much as possible, and
(c) then take steps to disarm the bomb or at least the radio detonator.

In my view, it's much better to take direct action to neutralize a threat, than to spend your time agonizing over moral choices or trying to guess what another party might or might not do.

Thinking about the situation after watching the mo...

2008-08-02T08:43:05.589-05:00

Thinking about the situation after watching the movie, I realized that it's unlikely that the Joker would keep to his described rules: he is the embodiment of chaos, after all. It is likely that the detonators would do something else than described in his rules, such as actually blow up their own ship (I think this isn't as likely because it punishes the aggressor group which seems almost too sensical of a twist for the joker), blow up both ships (this is the way I like to think the detonators were rigged), or something else completely random (A "Boom" flag and a rain of confetti? Blow up another random building?).

Erik,You're right about the logically correct deci...

2008-08-02T04:55:25.271-05:00

Erik,

You're right about the logically correct decision if the rules were actually set - but only if you assume maximum survival is the only value. Whether or not it's better to kill others to reduce the total number of casualties or to avoid actually murdering knowing that this means that you along with those same people will die is a moral question that logic alone can't answer. And fortunately, due to the fact that we can't know the future (i.e. we can't know for sure that the rules are set), it's not a dilemna we ever have to deal with in real life.

Great post and comment thread. I just saw the mov...

2008-08-01T14:33:38.876-05:00

Great post and comment thread. I just saw the movie on Monday and enjoyed it immensely, largely because it shies away from easy answers and simple good/evil dichotomies.

(Not wholly, insofar as the Joker is an unambiguous force of evil and chaos--however, because he is insane, this is more understandable. As I like to say, the only people in the world who actually think of themselves as evil are literally crazy people and exceptionally silly folks like Satan worshipers. We would do well to recall that even people like Hitler and Stalin claimed to be acting for some greater good--and probably believed it.)

Forgive me if this has been mentioned before--I didn't thoroughly read every comment--but one reason why I found TDK and the ferry scene in particular so valuable is that it challenged a lot of the reigning cliches of what you might call the "national security mindset".

In particular, I thought it did a decent job of deconstructing the "ticking timebomb" scenario, an oft invoked justification these days for torture. (Now, it might have done this better if, for example, the civilians had ended up blowing themselves up--but that would have made for a more gruesome movie. Alternatively, it might have had characters on one or both of the boats challenge the truth of the Joker's claims, but this would have changed the situation substantially, possibly detrimentally affecting the dramatic tension.)

The Joker repeatedly lies--this is how he got the people on the ferries in the first place (I am almost certain that he did not actually rig bridges and tunnels to explode because: 1) doing so would be a lot of unnecessary effort and cost; and, more crucially I think, 2) if he did, and they were found, the threat would have been defused along with the bombs--while not planting them means the threat would remain, since proving a negative in that fashion is impossible: the Iraq WMD debacle is a reminder of this).

In any case, because of the Joker's lies (the Rachel/Dent matter is another important precedent, as has been mentioned), the very terms of the situation itself become questionable. And this is why this particular justification for torture (or whatever else it is used for) fails: the situation would never be as clear cut as it is either in a hypothetical scenario, or in the framing that a bomber might offer.

Let me try to be clearer: the primary problems with "ticking timebomb" justifications for torture are epistemological. There's never enough information to justify suspending the rule of law and basic morality.

Take the classic example: a member of a terrorist group has been captured after the group claims to have set up a nuclear weapon to explode in a relatively short amount of time. In this case, at least the following is uncertain: 1) that the group actually did what it claims to; 2) that this particular prisoner knows the relevant information (location of the bomb, the means to defuse it, or whatever); 3) that only torture, and no other methods, would actually get the prisoner to provide true information--this last is especially doubtful if it's just a matter of running out the clock.

The problem with such scenarios is that they are emotionally laden. I could easily imagine someone responding to the above by saying: "What, so you're just going to let people die and do nothing?" Ask me again when the situation comes up. However, most cases in which the use of torture is considered are not nearly so high stakes.

We have a kind of bait and switch going on. Just because you can concoct a scenario in which torture might seem justifiable once does not entail that its regular use is acceptable. In fact, I would go so far as to say that we should punish torturers even if that torture successfully accomplishes its purported ends. I highly doubt this happens often, but I think this is the price we must pay as a society to be ruled by laws and not men. If an interrogator thinks the threat is so extraordinary that it justifies torture, then he should be willing to pay the small price of serving a prison sentence. Such a standard would ensure that torture and other suspensions of law are not occurring frivolously.

(Whoa, I could've turned this into an entry on my own blog! Sorry about the length, but I hope anyone stalwart enough to read through this finds it helpful.)

A couple of points I didn't see (sorry I only read...

2008-08-01T13:24:21.995-05:00

A couple of points I didn't see (sorry I only read about 35-40 comments before posting).

The civillian boat was an evacuation boat. Whcih menas it was filled with families. I might be willing to be noble and risk my own death for my principles but if my wife and step daughter are in danger than I am willing to kill to protect them from harm.

If as suspected the trigger resulted in my own boat blowing up I'd never know. The suspense not the actual death is the torture here. Waiting and wondering if I'm going to die knowing I could stop it. Death or murder are the ways to end the torment. At least of the current situation. if my actions create hell on Earth for me than it was for naught or if I end up in Hell because of my actions tha again for not. But those are possabilities while the current torment is a certainty.

I am not in a game of chance against one other individual I am in a game of chance agaisnt a group. Crowds are, because of the difusion of blame, capable of much greater attrocities than an individual would be. So a group is judged not by the best or even the average among it but by the lowest common denominator.

Were I on the boats, I might have argued that the ...

2008-08-01T00:26:15.746-05:00

Were I on the boats, I might have argued that the Joker is a psychopath and his promise of sparing the boat that blows the other one up might be false. After seeing one blow up he might have said, "Haha, I was right!" and blow up the other boat anyway.

This prisoners' dilemma was my favorite part of a ...

2008-07-31T18:12:30.828-05:00

This prisoners' dilemma was my favorite part of a very good film.

Normatively, it does seem best for both boats to accept what will come to them if they don't act and allow the blood to be on the Joker's hands.

Logically though, if the rules were truly set, it would make sense for one boat to go. The possible out comes are -1000 (either if no one or both act) or -500 (if only one acts) so acting cannot achieve a worse outcome than not acting. The question is how to coordinate so that only one boat goes, and logic cannot establish which should go, which exposes the argument that prisoners are of less value.

Correct. Joker was about to blow them both up whe...

2008-07-31T18:12:24.557-05:00

Correct. Joker was about to blow them both up when Batman intervened. He had every intention of following through on his threat, as he always does...

btw, the timeframe was before midnight. I remembe...

2008-07-31T17:54:28.111-05:00

btw, the timeframe was before midnight. I remember (though I may be wrong) that they were also told that both boats were going to blow up if neither made a decision. Although this didn't happen the idea of the threat by the JOker was to encourage the kaos and anarchy that was his goal.

Brian, I saw it in a regular theater first and in ...

2008-07-31T15:44:41.261-05:00

Brian, I saw it in a regular theater first and in an IMAX theater my second time. The IMAX really makes a difference. The combination of theater shaking sound and gigantic screen really increases the feeling that you're a part of the action. I highly recommend the IMAX experience!