PART SIX
FRIEND, FATHER, . . . RIVAL? THE MANY ROLES OF THE BAT
17
WHY BATMAN IS BETTER THAN SUPERMAN
Galen Foresman
Backstory: Bat-fans’ Bane
A classic staple of discussion in the world of comics is the comparison of two great superheroes, and perhaps the most famous of all comparisons is that between Batman and Superman. Unfortunately, all too often Batman is summarily dismissed for lacking any superpowers, leaving Bat-fans crying foul. This chapter—like a great hero—comes to the aid of those Bat-fans by giving a brief introduction to value theory, specifically the notion of “better than.”
Donning the Philosophical Persona
As shown in Batman: Year One (1987), Batman’s first night out on the streets of Gotham ended disastrously. Bruce Wayne entered the fray unprepared. True, he did have years of martial arts training, but no matter what the movies show, if enough guys attack at once, all that training won’t be enough. Bruce learned from that little adventure, and from it he developed his Batman persona. We can learn from that little adventure, too, by making sure we don’t jump into a dispute with Super-fans without adopting a persona of our own.
Bruce knew that criminals were a superstitious and cowardly lot, and that the best way to catch them off guard—and ultimately be more effective—was to be scary. Childhood experience in a well (that would later become the Batcave), and a random run-in with a bat in his sitting room at home, convinced Bruce to don his famous cape and cowl.
In the realm of arguments and disputes, there is no better persona than the philosopher. It certainly isn’t as scary as a man parading as a bat—in many cases philosophers are quite laughable—but philosophers are specially trained to argue. When you need to strike fear in an opponent, be like a bat—dark, elusive, and scary. But when you need to change a person’s mind about something, be like a philosopher—careful, quizzical, and tenacious. More specifically, if you’re trying to convince someone that something is “better than” another thing, then be like a value theorist.
Value theory is the area of philosophy that is primarily concerned with the study of value and evaluation. Evaluation is the process of determining how good or bad something is, and value is what makes that thing good. For example, we might suppose that “being cool” is one of the properties that makes something good. In a way, then, being cool is a sort of value to us. When we are evaluating something that’s cool, like the Batmobile, then we count that value of being cool as one of the reasons the Batmobile is so good. Unfortunately, it isn’t so obvious what values really are. “Coolness factor” is just an example of what values are like, but it isn’t likely to be an actual candidate for real value.
Most of value theory is devoted to figuring out what values boil down to, and among other things, value theorists try to figure out what the difference is between something valuable and something that isn’t valuable. Value theorists are also particularly interested in how something can be “better than” or “worse than” another thing. In our case, we want to be like value theorists, because we want to know what it is that makes Batman better than Superman.
Donning now our philosophical persona as value theorists, we can continue our quest. The first step is to prepare our utility belts with a little vocabulary that will help us on our way. When we say that Batman is better than Superman, we are making an evaluative comparison. Comparisons are pretty common in our everyday lives, but many of them are not necessarily evaluative. Sometimes we’re just trying to explain how two things are alike or different without saying that one is better than the other. We’ll call these descriptive comparisons. An example of a descriptive comparison could be noting that one car is black and another is blue. If our only aim is to explain how the two cars are different, then we aren’t making an evaluative comparison.
An evaluative comparison relies on our evaluation of several things, and basically, evaluations tell us how good or how bad something is. Thus an evaluative comparison occurs when we take our evaluation of one thing and compare it with our evaluation of another thing. For example, if we evaluate the black car and determine that it is really good, and we evaluate the blue car and determine that it is really bad, then we can compare these evaluations and conclude that the black car is better than the blue car. In so doing, we will have made an evaluative comparison.
This vocabulary that we’ve added to our utility belt helps us describe our quest. The battle that rages between Bat-fans and Super-fans is a dispute over an evaluative comparison. Bat-fans think Batman is really good and Superman is not so good, and so they conclude that Batman is better than Superman. Bat-fans are just comparing their evaluations of these two superheroes. Whether their judgment is correct hinges crucially on whether their evaluations of these two great superheroes are correct. We can’t, however, solve this puzzle without doing a little background detective work.
The Origin Story: How We Make Evaluative Comparisons
The evaluative comparison of Batman and Superman is much like any evaluative comparison we’ve made in our lives, and so there’s something to learn by examining how we’ve made these evaluations in the past. For example, evaluative comparisons we once made as children do not always come out the same when we make the comparisons as adults. If we’re honest with ourselves, when we Bat-fans were young and immature, we too may have really liked Superman and all his superpowers. What’s more, we may have a difficult time explaining why we changed our minds. When Batman fights crime, we all know why he does it. We’re all familiar with what Joe Chill did to his parents. Batman’s origin story helps explain why he does what he does as an adult, and in similar fashion, we have origin stories, too. So let’s take a moment to explore our own origin stories to see how it is that we came to make evaluative comparisons in the way that we do. In doing this, we may be able to put our finger on why it’s so difficult to justify our evaluative comparison that Batman is better than Superman.
When many of us were young, evaluative comparisons of ice cream primarily revolved around the amount of ice cream we were going to get. In other words, the bigger the bowl of ice cream, the better it was, and between two bowls of ice cream, the bigger bowl was the best. We’ll call this simplistic way of making evaluative comparisons the quantitative method. Quantitative evaluations are evaluations based on the amount or number of something there is. When we move to comparing those evaluations based solely on differences in amount or number, we are making quantitative evaluative comparisons.
As we grew up and became more sophisticated in our tastes, the mere amount of ice cream simply wasn’t enough to persuade us. We began to prefer things like chocolate to vanilla, and so our evaluative comparisons took on new and more complicated aspects. Quantitative evaluations would take us only so far, because now we began to recognize that qualitative differences in things sometimes made smaller amounts better than larger amounts. Suppose you think chocolate is better than vanilla. If you had to evaluate and compare a bowl of chocolate ice cream to a bowl of vanilla ice cream, then the chocolate ice cream is probably going to be better to you. We’ll call this sort of evaluative comparison a qualitative evaluative comparison.
Our evaluations and comparisons become the most difficult to make when we blend quantitative and qualitative aspects of things together. If, for example, you need to evaluate a large bowl of vanilla ice cream against a spoonful of chocolate, then you run into the difficult challenge of determining which bowl of ice cream is better than the other by mixing quantitative and qualitative evaluation. If you really hate vanilla, then no amount of it is going to be good to you. But what if you think vanilla ice cream is okay? Is a lot of okay-tasting ice cream really better than a spoonful that tastes really good?
By now I suspect most Super-fans have tired of reading about evaluation, comparison, and ice cream. Their origin stories still have them thinking quantitatively: more power is better. This explains why they’ve probably moved on to something that doesn’t take as much intellectual fortitude. Bat-fans’ efforts, on the other hand, have been rewarded by learning what makes the comparison of Batman to Superman so difficult. And if we’ve learned anything from Batman, it’s that knowing and understanding the problem is essential to solving it. (This is why we think villains are so stupid for sharing their evil schemes with heroes once they’ve been captured.) We can sum up the problem like this: comparing Batman and Superman is like comparing two bowls of ice cream that have many good qualities in various amounts. Knowing that it’s sometimes hard to make a simple comparison of ice cream helps us to see it’s exponentially more difficult to compare two great superheroes. But I am confident that Bat-fans are like their fearless (and smart) hero, and so they’re up to the challenge. (Don’t let me down!)
Lurking Villainy: Begging the Question
We’ve come a long way, Bat-fans, but before moving further into the heart of this debate, it will be useful to note an important error that people tend to make when evaluating and comparing. This error is the lurking villainy in most evaluative comparison disputes like those over Batman and Superman, and it is particularly important to take note of it so as to not employ it ourselves. The error I’m referring to is a general argumentative strategy called “begging the question.” It’s a subtle and fallacious—in other words, bogus—style of argument that can be employed in virtually any argument. It’s relevant to the Batman and Superman dispute because it is commonly employed when we make lists of pros and cons to make difficult evaluative comparisons.
“Question-begging” is an abused term these days. We often hear people say things like “This begs the question” when what people really mean is “This raises the question.” What philosophers mean when they say something begs the question is that an argument assumes the truth of the conclusion in its premises, whereas a good argument will support its conclusion with evidence or reasons that people can agree on apart from the conclusion.
For example, suppose you and I are arguing over whether or not vanilla is a better flavor than chocolate. I think vanilla is better than chocolate, and in order to convince you that I’m correct in thinking this, I formulate the following argument:
“Vanilla is better than chocolate, because vanilla is the best flavor in the world.” The conclusion is that vanilla is better than chocolate, and the reasoning for this conclusion follows from the fact that vanilla is the best flavor in the world. When we examine this argument, we can see that if vanilla really is the best flavor in the world, then it has to be better than chocolate. The problem, however, is that if you don’t think vanilla is better than chocolate, then you aren’t going to be convinced by my reason that vanilla is the best flavor in the world. For vanilla to be the best flavor in the world, vanilla must be better than chocolate. Unfortunately, our original argument assumes that vanilla is the best flavor in the world and so it assumes that the conclusion is true as well. Therefore, it begs the question.
In the dispute over Batman and Superman, we run into the very same begging-the-question problem. In these arguments, Superman’s amazing powers come up time and time again as the reason Superman is better than Batman. But just as in the chocolate and vanilla dispute, unless you already agree that superpowers make for the best superhero, then you aren’t going to agree with the Super-fans’ conclusion. For decades now, the Super-fans have been using this bogus argument to undermine Batman’s primacy, and that’s an insidious villainy we must put a stop to. (To the philosophy-mobile!)
As we all know, in stopping any villain, it is of supreme importance to avoid stooping to the level of the villain. In this particular case this means avoiding begging the question against Super-fans. To avoid the Super-fans’ mistake and to help them see the error of their ways, we need to once again discover the source of their mistake. When we were exploring our origin story, we noticed that it is extremely difficult to justify an evaluative comparison when mixing quantitative and qualitative evaluations, which we’re doing when we claim that Batman is better than Superman. One of the most common ways to overcome these difficulties is to list the pros and cons of the things you are comparing. It is, however, this very method of deciding between two possibly good options that causes us to beg the question.
When we make a list of pros and cons, we are making assumptions about what should count as a pro and a con. This means that you are not providing a reason for why something goes on the pro side of the list or the con side of the list. You are simply assuming that particular attributes are pros while others are cons. If you did something similar with Batman and Superman, your lists of pros and cons for each superhero would consist solely of the attributes the superheroes have that you assume are good and bad. Problematically, this provides fertile ground for begging the question in a dispute.
When a Super-fan makes their list of pros, it’s probably chock-full of things like X-ray vision, superstrength, and the ability to fly. When the very same Super-fan makes a list for Batman, they probably cite Batman’s lack of X-ray vision, superstrength, and the ability to fly as cons for Batman. But this is clearly an unjustified evaluation of Batman, since Batman does not need these features to be great. And it begs the question against Batman’s greatness when Super-fans assume that Batman needs these features to be the better superhero.
Bat-fans, on the other hand, must also avoid making lists based on the assumption that only the features that Batman has are good. I hesitate to point out the number of times Bat-fans have said that Batman is better because he is smarter. While certainly true, it, too, runs the very same question-begging problem. What makes us Bat-fans think that being smart is so great? We need to have a good reason for thinking this that is independent of our evaluation of Batman, before we can use it as a reason to justify Batman’s greatness. To emphasize the error that is being committed when Bat-fans assume this, let’s take a look at a similar argument.
Suppose we made a list of pros and cons for Batman. Batman has a lot of cool gadgetry. He needs it. Which column would cool gadgetry go into, pro or con? I’d put it down as a pro, as I suspect many other Bat-fans would. But for what reason? Here is one reason we cannot use: Batman is great and so his gadgetry must be a pro. Of course, this would beg the question, since we are trying to figure out why Batman is so great. If you think about this argument, it would go like this: Batman is great because he has awesome gadgetry, and his awesome gadgetry is great because he’s Batman, and Batman is great. This argument travels in a circle. To avoid begging the question, we need to straighten that circle out. To do this, we need to justify the greatness of Batman independently of how we already feel about Batman.
So here’s the task for the Bat-fan: explain why Batman is better than Superman in such a way that doesn’t already assume all the things about Batman are better than features possessed by Superman. If we think about how we got to this point in the discussion, we can see where some of the major errors in reasoning have occurred. In particular, think about making lists of pros and cons. Such lists start by assuming some things are good and some things are bad, even though they don’t tell us why we think they’re good and bad. To avoid begging the question when comparing Batman and Superman, we need to decide first what makes a superhero great and then see whether Batman or Superman has those features. In other words, figure out what sorts of things belong on the list of pros and cons before evaluating the individual superheroes.
Justice Restored: Superheroes and Bravery
No doubt the last section ended with a difficult task, but this is no time to despair. We have discovered a great weakness in these nefarious argumentative strategies, and now it’s time to bring them to justice. To accomplish this difficult task, we need to decide on some essential features of a superhero. We can then use these essential features to make a list of pros and cons for both Batman and Superman that doesn’t beg the question in favor of one or the other. These lists will, however, tell us who turns out to be the best superhero of the two.
Our list of essential features will have to be brief, since it would take an entire book to cover the issue thoroughly. The motivation is for you to get an idea of how to start thinking about solving this comparison between Batman and Superman. I will offer one possible argument. It is not watertight, but it may kick off a more fruitful debate about what it is to be a great superhero, and why Batman better fits that mold than Superman.
Before diving into the argument—because we know that usually turns out badly—here’s my plan of attack. Good superheroes must be heroic, and to be heroic a person must be courageous or brave. Batman is more courageous and brave than Superman, and so he is more heroic. The more heroic a superhero, the better that superhero is, and since Batman is more heroic than Superman, we can conclude that Batman is a better superhero than Superman. To see how this argument works, let’s make up a superhero to see how he compares to these greats.
Imagine, for a moment, a superhero who has the ability to make socks appear on people’s feet by clapping his hands. And these socks are extremely comfortable and durable. Every time this superhero does this, however, he gets a small headache. He likes to help people, and so he often endures the headache to provide socks for hundreds of thousands of people around the globe. He can do something that ordinary people cannot do, and he makes a personal sacrifice to help people every time he endures his headaches. This is a superhero, and we, of course, are interested in determining how great this “Argyled Avenger” really is.
I’ve suggested that one thing that separates great superheroes from the not-so-great is bravery. There are, of course, other factors like the greatness of their goals, and for this argument we’ll assume that Batman and Superman are basically tied on that score. The Argyled Avenger is a superhero as well, but he’s not so great since his heroism comes from putting socks on people’s feet at the cost of suffering a small headache. If he were somehow risking his life to do this great service, then we’d probably speak more highly of him as a superhero, even though his goals are still not as lofty as those of Batman and Superman. Bravery, then, is fundamental to evaluating a superhero. If a superhero is not all that brave, then he is not all that great.
What does it take to be brave or courageous? Enduring a headache doesn’t seem to be very brave, even if it is making a sacrifice to help others. But why is it that enduring a headache doesn’t seem all that brave? One reason is that we don’t think that enduring pain automatically qualifies as doing something dangerous, and we do think that doing dangerous things can mean a person is brave. Going to work can give most people a headache, but we aren’t going to be handing out certificates of valor to those with good attendance. On the other hand, when someone confronts something dangerous to help others, then we usually say that person is brave.
It’s also important that the heroic person knows that what they’re doing is dangerous in order for us to think of them as brave and courageous. For example, there is a big difference between the person who runs into a burning building to save children when he knows it could collapse at any moment, and the person who runs in thinking that the fire is small and unlikely to harm them. A brave person understands what he’s doing is dangerous and confronts it anyway.
Return now to Batman and Superman. They both have the lofty goals of saving lives and maintaining justice, but only one of them faces danger on a regular basis and knows it. Only one of them is consistently brave and courageous, while the other is a lot like the Argyled Avenger. (Three guesses as to which one . . .)
Batman has no superpowers. He is not bulletproof. He cannot fly. He cannot look through walls to see what’s coming. What’s more, he is smart enough to know that he is constantly putting himself in danger to help others. So Batman is braver and more courageous than Superman. In other words, Batman takes bigger risks to help people than Superman. In this respect, Batman is better than Superman, which means that on the list of pros and cons, Batman is a better superhero than Superman on a very important score.
To our credit, we came to this conclusion without begging the question against Superman. We didn’t have to stoop to the Super-fans’ level. Our goal was accomplished by thinking about what makes superheroes great before we applied our criteria to our evaluation, and our comic relief—the Argyled Avenger—was a useful foil for helping us in the evaluation of all superheroes. (See—he was useful after all!)
To Be Continued . . .
This does not, of course, end the debate. I suspect some Super-fans who got bored learning how to reason fairly opted to just skip to the end of this chapter to see the conclusion, and in so doing have had time to think of many objections to my claims about Superman’s bravery. It’s true that Superman is, on occasion, brave, and it’s also true that on occasion Batman is not brave. After all, sometimes his gadgetry stops bullets or helps him fly, but the simple quantitative comparison here is that more often than not, Batman is more heroic than Superman. The great irony in all this is that the things so many Super-fans like about Superman, his superpowers, are the very things that prevent him from being better than Batman. After all, isn’t Superman at his most heroic when kryptonite or magic is around? It’s just too bad for Super-fans that it isn’t around more often!1
NOTE
1 I’d like to give a special thanks to Chris Metivier and John Ridgway for inspiring critical thoughts in this chapter.