Philosophy Discussion Forums

So there's The Joker... dangling from the rooftop.

Chances are very high that this sociopathic mastermind will indeed continue to wreak havoc if not released from this mortal coil.

He has been imprisoned before and escaped to kill again. So why does Batman risk another similar occurence by allowing him to live?

Furthermore, Bruce Wayne has personal reasons to end The Jokers' life. Yet still he refuses.

A fighter, yes.
A killer, no.

"You can either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
- The Dark Knight

Then the true hero would be the person who built a prison that the Joker could not escape. And, there is always the death penalty for the mass murderer who cannot be prevented from killing his fellow inmates and guards. And, if necessary, we could return to the "Wanted: Dead or Alive" warrant.

cookietran wrote: ↑August 24th, 2020, 4:49 am So there's The Joker... dangling from the rooftop.

Chances are very high that this sociopathic mastermind will indeed continue to wreak havoc if not released from this mortal coil.

He has been imprisoned before and escaped to kill again. So why does Batman risk another similar occurence by allowing him to live?

Furthermore, Bruce Wayne has personal reasons to end The Jokers' life. Yet still he refuses.

A fighter, yes.
A killer, no.

"You can either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
- The Dark Knight

Did your mummy never tell you that killing is wrong?
And did she never say it was wrong to take the law into your own hands?

But MOST importantly - if Batman killed the Joker, then there would be no prospect for a sequel!
It would be suicide for the studio to do that.

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑August 25th, 2020, 7:42 am

cookietran wrote: ↑August 24th, 2020, 4:49 am So there's The Joker... dangling from the rooftop.

Chances are very high that this sociopathic mastermind will indeed continue to wreak havoc if not released from this mortal coil.

He has been imprisoned before and escaped to kill again. So why does Batman risk another similar occurence by allowing him to live?

Furthermore, Bruce Wayne has personal reasons to end The Jokers' life. Yet still he refuses.

A fighter, yes.
A killer, no.

"You can either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
- The Dark Knight

Did your mummy never tell you that killing is wrong?
And did she never say it was wrong to take the law into your own hands?

You should watch films with my wife. She always says, "You've got to kill the person. You can't just leave them there. You need to shoot them in the head/cut their head off/burn them, etc."--the latter part because we watch a lot of horror films and if you don't do that the antagonist will come back and kill you no matter what you did to them/it.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑August 26th, 2020, 9:48 am

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑August 25th, 2020, 7:42 am

Did your mummy never tell you that killing is wrong?
And did she never say it was wrong to take the law into your own hands?

You should watch films with my wife. She always says, "You've got to kill the person. You can't just leave them there. You need to shoot them in the head/cut their head off/burn them, etc."--the latter part because we watch a lot of horror films and if you don't do that the antagonist will come back and kill you no matter what you did to them/it.

Don't forget the advice from Zombieland; "always double-tap".

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑August 26th, 2020, 9:48 am

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑August 25th, 2020, 7:42 am

Did your mummy never tell you that killing is wrong?
And did she never say it was wrong to take the law into your own hands?

You should watch films with my wife. She always says, "You've got to kill the person. You can't just leave them there. You need to shoot them in the head/cut their head off/burn them, etc."--the latter part because we watch a lot of horror films and if you don't do that the antagonist will come back and kill you no matter what you did to them/it.

Good advice. You shouldn't walk around with a gun. But if you do you shouldn't pull it out and point it at anyone. But if you do, you should kind of kill them, because how do you walk back pulling a gun on someone?

On the general theme of lack of realism on screen:

How did Frasier manage to be so rich by doing a stint on a local talk radio station that broadcast only to a small city of considerably less than a million people? One theory I've read is that the entire show took place in the fading embers of Frasier's alcohol-wrecked mind as he lay dying on the street outside the closed Cheers bar, having never actually left Boston to go back home to Seattle.

You can't go home again.

It may seem strange to reply to a thread that deals with a movie that I don't think I ever saw, but the ideas seem interesting. I have a question, which I hope someone will answer, though I will write for either case.

Did Batman save the Joker's life, or did he just not murder him? There is a difference between not saving someone's life, and murdering the person, as I think most people will acknowledge (it is certainly acknowledged in US law). There is a difference between me murdering someone, and me simply not jumping into a river to save someone.


As has been stated by someone else above, of course, for the sake of making a sequel, they do not have Batman kill the Joker. And there is also the "boy scout" morality of the Batman character, which is better illustrated in the 1960's TV series of Batman. But is that the right morality to have?


I think, though, the issue of whether one should save someone's life, if one knows that that person is likely to kill others, is something that could make for an interesting discussion (depending, obviously, on what people have to say in the discussion). Should you save someone's life, if that person will kill others in the future? If you don't save the killer's life, he will not kill again. So by not saving him, you are indirectly saving the lives of those future victims, the people who would be victims if the killer lives. If you do save the person's life, then they will kill again and you are a part of the reason they get killed.

A slightly different discussion could be had about whether one ought to kill someone who is likely to kill others in the future. Should you murder a murderer who will murder again if you do not murder him? If you do, you will be indirectly saving the lives of those future victims, the people who would be victims if the killer lives.


In the story under discussion, it is pretty much a given that no prison can hold the Joker for long, so that is not a way to prevent him from murdering others in the future. With that in mind, what should Batman do?

cookietran wrote: ↑August 24th, 2020, 4:49 am So there's The Joker... dangling from the rooftop.

Chances are very high that this sociopathic mastermind will indeed continue to wreak havoc if not released from this mortal coil.

He has been imprisoned before and escaped to kill again. So why does Batman risk another similar occurence by allowing him to live?

Furthermore, Bruce Wayne has personal reasons to end The Jokers' life. Yet still he refuses.

A fighter, yes.
A killer, no.

"You can either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
- The Dark Knight

The Joker is a work of fiction rather than reality. The characters are not actually real and so they don't really have motives in the same way people do in real life.

You might say that these fictional characters portray genuine human characteristics and dilemmas in some way. The problem with the Dark Knight is that the dilemmas tend to be pushed to the extreme beyond what most fortunately have to experience in their real lives. Its very difficult to try and then extrapolate backwards to a genuine human experience- the rights and wrongs of the Joker dangling from a rooftop.

For this reason these kind of dilemmas remain strangely unanswerable for the reason that there is nothing to measure them against in real life.
Unlike a question like "Should I hit that robber that has stolen the purse from the old lady, or let them run on down the road as I don't wish to add to the suffering of the world by hitting them". These scenarios are more easy to decide because there is more evidence available on city streets from previous trials of the probabalistic moral outcomes for each of
"hit robber/ let them run".
1. Robber stopped
2. Robber stopped
3. Robber had a knife which caused an injury
4. Robber stopped

'therefore ->
etc.

Jack D Ripper wrote: ↑October 1st, 2020, 4:07 pmDid Batman save the Joker's life, or did he just not murder him?

It's arguable. Decide for yourself:

cookietran wrote: ↑August 24th, 2020, 4:49 amHe has been imprisoned before and escaped to kill again. So why does Batman risk another similar occurence by allowing him to live?

Furthermore, Bruce Wayne has personal reasons to end The Jokers' life. Yet still he refuses.

Because you cannot do evil that good may come. The end doesn't justify the means. "Thou shalt not kill."

cookietran wrote: ↑August 24th, 2020, 4:49 am So there's The Joker... dangling from the rooftop.

Chances are very high that this sociopathic mastermind will indeed continue to wreak havoc if not released from this mortal coil.

He has been imprisoned before and escaped to kill again. So why does Batman risk another similar occurence by allowing him to live?

Furthermore, Bruce Wayne has personal reasons to end The Jokers' life. Yet still he refuses.

A fighter, yes.
A killer, no.

"You can either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
- The Dark Knight

The whole movie revolves around the theme of chaos vs. order and the question of means and ends. The basic problem that runs throughout the trilogy is the corruption of Gotham. In the first movie you have competing ways of dealing with the problem: destruction vs. reform. The destruction route attempt to induce the city to destroy itself. That is a very logical film, a kind of chess match between Batman and Ra's al Ghul.

In the second film the antagonist (the Joker) doesn't play chess. He can be neither predicted nor controlled because his motives are so strange. So most all of the usual chess moves are rendered useless. Thus the whole movie revolves around the attempt of the agents of justice and order to try to combat and contain Joker's chaos without sacrificing their principles (which is incidentally precisely what Joker wants them to do). Throughout the movie you see them try to walk that fine line. Gordon lies to his family about his death in order to keep them safe. Batman spies on the entire city via their cell phones in order to locate Joker (and Fox tells him this is immoral and threatens to stop helping him). Harvey Dent is the character who is especially unscrupulous in his fight against Gotham crime, and this eventually turns him into a villain himself.

Alfred gives the key to the movie in the story about the bandit in Burma (see this clip and this clip).

It is crucial to the entire logic of the movie that Batman does not abandon his principles in the end.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑August 26th, 2020, 9:48 am

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑August 25th, 2020, 7:42 am

cookietran wrote: ↑August 24th, 2020, 4:49 am So there's The Joker... dangling from the rooftop.

Chances are very high that this sociopathic mastermind will indeed continue to wreak havoc if not released from this mortal coil.

He has been imprisoned before and escaped to kill again. So why does Batman risk another similar occurence by allowing him to live?

Furthermore, Bruce Wayne has personal reasons to end The Jokers' life. Yet still he refuses.

A fighter, yes.
A killer, no.

"You can either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
- The Dark Knight

Did your mummy never tell you that killing is wrong?
And did she never say it was wrong to take the law into your own hands?

You should watch films with my wife. She always says, "You've got to kill the person. You can't just leave them there. You need to shoot them in the head/cut their head off/burn them, etc."--the latter part because we watch a lot of horror films and if you don't do that the antagonist will come back and kill you no matter what you did to them/it.

Something to think about when having a family argument, no? (This is where Lagayascienza---sic?---replies in a huff, pointing out that whether or not I am murdered by my spouse has nothing to do with assessing the moral rightness of her argument in re: cinema and sumpfin, sumpfin, sumpfin...)