It seems that people have been doubting batman. Saying he
goes against the morals of society and is considered an unnecessary vigilante.
Have you ever lived in Gotham? It is not a society driven by the common people
for the common good, in fact it is one of decay and it is its own underworld
full of criminals and scum. The society of Gotham has a gun to its head and the
only person really holding the trigger back is the Dark Knight. Kant’s
categorical imperative goes out the window here, as Gotham is sliding down that
slippery slope to corruption faster than any city in America. Batman does not
wish for the perilous situation Gotham has found itself in, but he does wish to
save it from itself. This is the only thing that may seem unethical, and maybe
Ra’s Al Ghul was right and Gotham should just tear itself apart. Gotham has
placed itself beyond the bounds of reason and it is for this reason that Batman
acts unreasonably (at least in Kant’s eyes). However, Batman follows his own categorical
imperative when it comes to the greatest immoral act possible, he does not kill
no matter what the situation (he technically does kill the Joker in the Dark
Knight Returns, but that was Frank Miller’s own spin on things). In fact, this
is the moral principle that he founds himself off of and is the reason he can be
viewed as an idea rather than just a person. Batman himself is a philosophical
concept, as he is the real superman. His will drives him more than any personal
goal. Most of the time, he takes the largest falls, but in doing so enables him
to have the greatest rises.
“Why do we fall, Bruce? So we can
learn to pick ourselves up.” Both Alfred and Bruce’s father present this idea
to Batman/Bruce (who is Bruce Wayne?) in “Batman Begins” and it is often what
acts as a drive for Batman. Gotham has fallen and Batman is trying to help the
city learn to pick itself up. Categorical imperative has been lost, since a
virus is spreading and if it continues morality will no longer be in question
at all in Gotham. Kant seems to rely on a belief that nature will always
restore order, but how is order to be restored if no one cares for it. I agree
that if no one was to kill or steal the world would not have to worry about
killing or stealing, but people do kill and steal. Thomas Wayne tried to
restore order in Gotham without a closed fist, but Gotham rejected him and fell
into a deeper hole of decay. Batman is not bound by flesh; he is an idea that
Gotham can feed itself off of.
Kant also seems to believe that
reason is pure and any truly rational person will arrive at the same reason and
logic in any given situation. In other words, if all people looked at an event
rationally they would come to a reasonable conclusion about it. I do not find
that reasonable at all. I can rarely agree completely with anyone when
discussing a moral dilemma. Even in class when we were discussing whether to
hit one or four people with a train, disagreement and discussion ensued. Kant
had great faith in people’s morality, but in truth it is still something that
is being explored, and until a universal moral code is agreed upon, categorical
imperative is a weak philosophy. People are different and possess different
will and reason, and it is for this reason that I tend to agree with
Nietzsche’s moral philosophies more than I do Kant’s and it is for this
preference that I see Batman as the real Superman.
Kant believes in a universally true
moral law, he brings morality to the metaphysical realm and then back to
reality. He believes in doing unto others as you would want them to do unto
you, but most people do not care for the moral duty another applies
himself/herself to. This is where Nietzsche comes in with the idea of mastery
of self. You have will and you have morals, but they are your own.
Self-morality is a personal journey that is developed throughout life. This
journey may be shared with friends, family, and environment, but certainly not
the entirety of humanity. People will found themselves in corrupted moral
codes, though it is not corrupted to them. We develop our own morals and try to
stick with them, sometimes a moral dilemma must be solved and from that we
learn. Morality does not currently have a fixed state, it is evolving and
sometimes breakthroughs and revolutions are made in morality and the form of it
changes within the world. Morality is a beast worth taming, though it is a wild
one that is hard to capture. When an individual grabs the reigns of his own
morality he becomes a master of it, and master’s are often adored and followed.
Batman has founded his morality and is using it to defeat the corruption of
morals and will that Gotham has become engrossed in. The citizens of Gotham
recognize the virus, but lack the will to eradicate it. This is where Batman steps
in and tries to help save the city from it’s own weakness. In essence it is the
overall morality of Gotham vs. Batman’s own morality, and the winner determines
the stronger morality.
Surely Kant had good intentions,
but he was not viewing humanity rationally rather he was viewing it with
rose-tinted glasses with which he believed a natural and general rule of
morality lied outside of our reality. But morals exist because reality can be
unreal at times, and humans learn to cope and hopefully evolve. If a universal
moral code is to be formed is it not necessary that we at least try and test
different moralities until the strongest and surest rise, just as Batman’s own
morality rises above the corrupt moral mentality of Gotham? I think it is
necessary to at least give it a shot.
(One more thing) If Superman had
super-strength, then he could just knock into someone while he was running or
even just lean over to pick something up and accidentally knock heads with a
person thus he would unintentionally kill them. Superman has definitely killed
more people than Batman, and is usually considered the less intelligent of the
two as well. Superman is a nice superhuman jock, while Batman is a
strong-willed nerd/detective/playboy/billionaire. What is not to love about
Batman, besides the fact that no one is Batman?
I love this batman/superman debate--very insightful. One applicable quote from Kant:
ReplyDelete"Let justice be done, though the world perish" and all the bad people in it :)