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BATMAN’S VIRTUOUS HATRED
Stephen Kershnar
Batman Hates
Let’s face it—Batman hates criminals. In The Dark Knight Returns (1986), for example, he’s in a position to kill a powerful mutant behemoth, a member of a murderous youth gang that threatens Gotham. But rather than just kill him, Batman decides to fight the behemoth in order to remove any self-doubt about whether he could beat him. Despite breaking the behemoth’s nose, Batman loses the battle. After recovering from his injuries, Batman insists on fighting him again. This time, ignoring his conscience, Batman destroys him. In this case (and others), Batman seems to get immediate satisfaction from dominating and destroying the bad guys, although he never seems to get outright pleasure from it.
What can explain this attitude? Well, Batman is plagued by nightmares and tortured memories of helplessly watching while his parents were murdered (for instance, in 1992’s Blind Justice). Also, apart from his butler, Alfred, he lives a solitary life. Of course, he works well with Commissioner Gordon, the various Robins, Catwoman, and others, but he seems to shy away from any interaction that does not focus on fighting crime. In particular, despite flirtations and temporary dalliances with Catwoman (both in and out of disguise), he never makes a life with her. Batman’s hatred of evildoers in part explains why more generally he jeopardizes his chance at loving relationships with the various beautiful women in his life. For example, his relationships with Julie Madison, Vicki Vale, and Vesper Fairchild never lead to marriage, children, or even stability. As a result, it seems that his life, however valuable to others, is lonely and unfulfilling.
Vice and Hatred
In judging whether persons are good or bad, we can use the ideas of virtue and vice, which form a central part of the moral philosophy known as virtue ethics. Virtue ethics concerns what sort of a person one should be, differing from other schools of ethics that focus on how someone should act (deontology, for example) and on how to evaluate the consequences of an act (utilitarianism, for example).
The philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BCE) put forth the most famous version of virtue ethics.1 In his view, moral virtues are the most appropriate character traits of a person that make him good and, thus, allow him to make the right decisions. Think of a virtue as a mean between extremes in our actions and reactions. For example, in a situation where one is called upon to fight in a war, a person having the virtue of courage will not go berserk (the extreme of too much) or run away like a coward (the extreme of too little), but will stand firm and fight (the mean between the extremes). There are many other virtues, including prudence, justice, self-control, affability, mercy, generosity, and patience, to name a few. Virtuous people tend to do things in a rationally appropriate and correct way that makes them flourish while at the same time doing what is morally required.
Virtue ethics has been criticized for a couple of reasons. First, one could argue that it’s circular in that “virtue” is defined in terms of the tendency to do good things, while at the same time “good things” is defined in terms of what virtuous people tend to do! Second, virtue ethics has been criticized for being impractical because it provides no guidance when two or more virtues conflict. For example, justice and mercy have a tendency to conflict with one another on a regular basis when people try to make moral decisions about an appropriate punishment for a crime. A judge who considers giving a long prison sentence to a repentant Riddler cannot be both just and merciful, and virtue ethics tells her little about what to do. (It’s a riddle!)
It’s not clear that either of these criticisms succeed, however. Virtue need not be defined in terms of the tendency to do good things; instead, virtue might be defined in terms of loving what is good and hating what is bad. And even if virtue is unhelpful in guiding our actions, it might still be helpful with other issues. For example, it’s useful in helping a person decide if she is the sort of person that she wants to be. Despite these disagreements, virtue ethics sits alongside deontology and utilitarianism as one of the major ethical systems that philosophers use to evaluate and justify moral decision-making, and it’s the one that we’ll use to analyze Batman’s hatred.2
Is Batman Virtuous, or Does He Do Virtuous Things?
There are two popular theories of what makes someone virtuous (or vicious). According to Aristotle, persons themselves are primarily virtuous. A person is virtuous when he tends to do the right thing, and that action is virtuous only if it’s the kind of thing that a virtuous person would do. Let’s call this theory the “Virtuous-Persons Theory.”
For example, if Commissioner Gordon tends to do the right thing—treat his wife and child well, prevent the police from using excessive force, and so on—then he’s virtuous. In the Virtuous-Persons Theory, virtue centers on the question of how someone tends to behave. Even when he has an affair with an attractive female officer in Batman: Year One (1987), Gordon feels guilty and tells his wife, probably in part to repair his marriage and in part to enable him to fight police brutality and corruption. On this theory, Gordon’s actions are virtuous if they are the sort that a virtuous person in Gordon’s position would do.
The Virtuous-Persons Theory raises a couple of concerns, though. One is that we normally believe that what makes someone virtuous is what he thinks, not what he does or tends to do. For instance, we think that a person who was paralyzed could be virtuous or vicious even if she were unable to affect others through her actions. So this theory is incorrect to the extent that it focuses on what people do or tend to do, rather than what goes on in their heads.
Another concern is that particular actions can be virtuous or vicious regardless of who takes the actions. For example, consider Carmine “The Roman” Falcone, a mafia don and a source of violence, corruption, and death, whom Batman and Catwoman investigate in The Long Halloween (1988). At one point, Carmine puts a one-million-dollar bounty on Batman’s and Catwoman’s heads, which eventually leads to Falcone’s death and the destruction of his empire. But in addition to these bad acts, Falcone truly loves his son (a Harvard MBA and Rhodes Scholar), and this love is virtuous even if Falcone himself is not. Bad guys can have good thoughts and do nice things, and we need our theory of virtue and vice to reflect this.
A second theory of virtue holds that a person’s thoughts and actions are primarily virtuous (or vicious), rather than the person himself—he’s virtuous only to the extent that he has virtuous thoughts or actions. We’ll call this theory the “Virtuous-Thoughts-and-Actions Theory.” With this theory, a thought is virtuous when it involves a person loving what is good (for example, Gotham residents having happy, healthy, and fun lives) and hating what is evil (for example, Gotham residents suffering because of the Joker or the Ventriloquist). A person loves something when he is pleased that it happens, wants it to happen, or does what he can to make it happen, and he hates something when he has the same attitude toward the thing not happening. Similarly, a person’s thoughts are vicious when he hates what is good and loves what is bad. According to this theory, a person is vicious if he has many vicious thoughts, or perhaps many more vicious thoughts than virtuous ones.
The Virtuous-Thoughts-and-Actions Theory is attractive. It lets us judge a thought or action without having to know anything about the person who has it. For example, in Batman: Year One, a pimp manhandles a young prostitute in response to her poor judgment in soliciting tricks. Other than his motivation, we don’t need to know anything else about the pimp to know that his actions—pimping her out and manhandling her—are vicious. Of course, Batman (disguised as a veteran cruising the red-light district) responds by provoking the pimp and then smashing him with an elbow and a devastating kick to the head. The provocation suggests that Batman is looking for an excuse to injure the pimp, rather than merely trying to protect the young girl. His violence results from his hatred of evil.
The Virtuous-Thoughts-and-Actions Theory, unlike the Virtuous-Persons Theory, explains that virtuous people tend to think and act in certain ways because they love good things and hate bad things. According to this theory, persons are virtuous depending on the number of virtuous thoughts they have, or perhaps their ratio of virtuous to vicious thoughts. This is consistent with how we often think of people, isn’t it? We often think that whether someone is virtuous or not depends on what goes on in his head—in particular, it depends on whether he loves good things and hates evil ones.
Batman’s Hatred Is Virtuous
Batman hates criminals and loves to see them suffer, and this might suggest that he’s vicious. For example, when smashing the pimp with his elbow, he worries about enjoying it too much. But is Batman in fact vicious? Or might this hatred actually be virtuous?
The issue of whether Batman is virtuous is a tricky one, because not all persons are good and not all pain is bad. For instance, we often think that it’s good that evildoers suffer. We think that it’s good that people get what they deserve, and vicious people deserve pain (or suffering). Because virtuous persons love good things, they may love to see a vicious person in pain—a virtuous person can actually want a vicious one to suffer, and be pleased when he does suffer. And if wanting someone to suffer or being pleased that someone is suffering is the same thing as hating him, virtuous people can hate. Batman is just such a case.
“Just desserts” explains why we think that Batman’s suffering is bad, whereas the suffering of a dirty and brutal cop isn’t. Detective Flass in Batman: Year One is a former Green Beret who uses his training and size to brutalize men who are doing nothing more than hanging out on a street corner. Flass and fellow officers actually beat James Gordon for not taking bribes or tolerating a dirty police force. Gordon later gives Flass a bat to make the fight more even and severely beats him, stopping just short of sending him to the hospital. He then leaves Flass bound and naked, which sends Flass and the other dirty cops a clear message.
Like Batman, Gordon is obviously a superb fighter, but unlike Batman, it’s not clear that Gordon enjoys handing out rough justice or beating people to send a message. We imagine that Batman would probably enjoy beating and humiliating Flass. His hatred is virtuous, but this dark personality stands in sharp contrast to a person like Saint Francis of Assisi and superheroes like Spider-Man and Superman, who are also virtuous but not awash in hatred.
Responding critically, you might claim that a truly virtuous person doesn’t hate other human beings. Rather, hatred is a bad thing, an inherently negative attitude, and therefore best avoided. If this is true, then two conclusions might be drawn. It might be thought that because he hates some people, Batman isn’t virtuous, or at least he is less virtuous than he could be. Alternatively, we might conclude that Batman, being virtuous, doesn’t really hate people. Perhaps he views criminals in the way a soldier might view warriors on the other side, as adversaries who have to be disabled or killed—but not as persons worthy of contempt or disrespect.
I would argue, however, that such criticism is mistaken (though I don’t hate my critics for proposing it!). Hatred (that is, having a negative attitude toward something) is an appropriate attitude toward persons who maliciously cause others to suffer. Other points of view, which may be either positive or indifferent, are not appropriate: good persons should not feel benevolent toward evildoers who intentionally hit, poison, or kill others. Nor should a person merely indicate through indifference toward evildoers that she does not care if they act in such ways. Negative attitudes and emotions such as hatred, disgust, or contempt are the morally correct ways to respond to wrongdoing, and therefore they are virtuous.
The analogy to soldiers is also mistaken in that it doesn’t capture Batman’s actual attitudes toward evildoers. He shows little appreciation for criminals and never expresses regret or remorse when foiling their plans, even when doing so involves serious violence. Criminals, unlike soldiers fighting for their countries, are not worthy of respect or admiration, but are wrongdoers who have earned contempt and hatred. So, I would argue that Batman does indeed hate criminals. And since this is the only appropriate attitude to have toward such people, he is virtuous because of, not despite, his hatred.
Batman’s Hatred Is Not in His Self-Interest
Even if we accept that Batman’s hatred of evildoers is virtuous, it still might not be in his self-interest. Batman’s hatred has led him to be so focused on crime fighting that he can’t indulge in other things that make a person’s life worthwhile, such as family, friends, and hobbies. For example, the fact that Batman has so many ruthless enemies makes it unwise for him to get involved with a woman. Consider what happened to Jim Gordon in Year One: Flass and his buddies severely beat him with baseball bats, kidnapped his wife, dropped his baby off a bridge, and exposed his affair—and this is nothing compared to what Bruce Wayne could expect for his friends and family if his identity became known to the Joker, Two-Face, and the rest. Even though it’s in the interests of Gotham’s citizens for Batman to be consumed with hatred and crime fighting, it’s not good for his mental and emotional well-being.
There is something unseemly about having a life revolving around hatred and violence, even if it’s directed at persons who deserve it. Perhaps this is best explained by the notion that a virtuous life need not go well. Batman is certainly an example of this. Virtue alone does not guarantee that your life will be a success, because it doesn’t guarantee meaningful relationships, true beliefs, and pleasure—all things that are essential for someone’s life to flourish. A person whose life is consumed with hatred, even virtuous hatred, might have a less pleasurable life, or lack a beloved partner and friends, and this explains why his life goes poorly. With his brooding and violent outlook and his isolation, Batman seems to be just such a person.
Batman’s hatred makes the world a much better place even if it makes his life worse. His pain and isolation pale in comparison to the ocean of death and destruction that would have resulted had Batman not stopped his enemies’ nefarious plans. For example, in The Long Halloween, the Joker plans to stop a serial killer by gassing everyone in Gotham Square on New Year’s Eve. He reasons that “odds are” the killer will be in the crowd, and he seems utterly unconcerned with the massive collateral damage. (Luckily, Batman stops him.) Another example of how dangerous the Joker is comes from The Dark Knight Returns: after claiming to have already killed six hundred people, he gasses and kills hundreds more who come to hear him interviewed on a late-night talk show. Batman doesn’t stop the Joker every time, but when he does, he saves many lives, and on the balance definitely makes the world a better place, regardless of the effect on his own well-being.
Could Batman choose not to hate? It’s not obvious that he could: watching his parents being murdered greatly influenced his attitude toward crime and criminals. In The Dark Knight Returns, we see that as a boy, Bruce insisted that any criminals in his bedtime reading were caught and punished. In another episode in that story, which may be merely a dream, young Bruce fell down into a hole where he was claimed by a giant bat that instilled hatred and ferocity in him. Without control over his hatred, Batman can’t be responsible for it, so we can distinguish the issue of whether Batman is virtuous from whether he is responsible for what makes him virtuous, his hatred of evil.
Lacking Balance
One issue we have not considered is whether a successful life requires a balance between love of the good and hatred of the bad. It might be that a person’s life is happier if he has a proper balance between love and hate.3 In this view, a person who spends too much time loving the good seems oblivious to the suffering and pain that are a part of everyone’s life. Similarly, a person who spends too much time hating evil seems insensitive to the many good and beautiful things in life. Given Batman’s laserlike focus on fighting crime, he might fit into the latter category. Thus, aside from his isolation and tortured dreams, Batman’s life might also be limited by the prevalence of hate in his life. But without his hate, could the Batman exist? Would he be the same Dark Knight? I think not.
NOTES
1 See Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. J. Welldon (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1987), especially Book 2.
2 For a simple introduction to virtue ethics, deontology, utilitarianism, and other ethical theories, see Simon Blackburn, Ethics: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2003).
3 See the interview with Bat-Tzu in chapter 20 of this book for more on the importance of balance in one’s life.