Joke (2026-05-07)

::: spoiler Alt text Do they still do this? When I was a kid, villains were constantly dangling from buildings and being saved. :::

::: spoiler Bonus panel :::

241 points · 18 comments · view on lemmy.world

18 Comments

SailorFuzz@lemmy.world · 42 pts · 105d (1 reply)

And here we see the failure of Kantian style ethics. Batman's intent is moral and just, for him... But overall the outcome results in greater tragedy for everyone else.

TheTechnician27@lemmy.world · 30 pts · 105d

Yeah, but that's a point routinely highlighted in Batman, namely that Batman is deeply troubled and isn't strictly doing this for the good of Gotham. Batman having very strongly held ethics isn't meant to show that they're good ethics.

samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 27 pts · 105d (4 replies)

finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 104d (3 replies)

I believe Batman would have disarmed the Joker first, or at the same time, as punching him.

samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 104d (2 replies)

That would have been the smart thing to do!

OldChicoAle@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 104d (1 reply)

Too bad that's not what happened here.

samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 104d

This is what happened next, for those who are curious:

Makeitstop@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 105d (5 replies)

Ah, the old "Batman should play judge, jury and executioner" argument. Which is bullshit for so many reasons:

First and foremost, it's usually based on the idea that Joker will always escape. That's only true in the sense that the writers will keep bringing him back, which isn't really fair to include in the in-universe ethical questions. And even then, it just means that killing the Joker won't stop him either.
Batman but he kills people already exists, he's called The Punisher, and his war on crime hasn't been any more successful than Batman's.
Why is it only Batman who gets to play god? Would you be OK with a cop killing a suspect like that while they're sitting in a jail cell? How about an angry mob? Who decides when a suspect deserves to be murdered? What's the burden of proof?
Batman has larger goals than just stopping individual criminals. He is trying to fight corruption and fix a broken system. This means working with others like commissioner Gordon who also want to fix Gotham. He can't do that if he is killing people left and right.
On the flip side, if Batman gets a reputation for murdering criminals, that will almost certainly make the criminals more dangerous because it puts them in a situation where they have nothing to lose.
This comic in particular is pretending that there's no difference between using force to stop an imminent threat and killing someone who is already helpless. The second the Joker makes himself a threat again, force becomes an option again.

Tiresia@slrpnk.net · 22 pts · 105d (2 replies)

I think you're reading something in the comic that isn't necessarily there. You see someone ridiculing Batman's vigilante justice and interpret it as them supporting a different kind of vigilante justice.

Killing someone to reduce loss of life when you have no better options is good. Trying to get yourself or others in a situation where you have to make that call is bad.

Batman is morally repugnant for being a billionaire vigilante rather than not exploiting the poor and spending his labor making systemic improvements. But if someone gets in the situation where they can kill the Joker to prevent the Joker from killing others, they should take the shot.

Makeitstop@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 105d (1 reply)

Killing someone to reduce loss of life when you have no better options is good.

The key element being the lack of alternatives. Batman is capable of apprehending the Joker. At the beginning of the comic he has better options than letting him fall to his death. Once the Joker goes for his gun the scenario changes and lethal force is reasonably justified. But that's also when Batman stops acting like Batman and does nothing to stop the Joker in order to make the joke work.

The moral argument here assumes that if the Joker is alive he will inevitably kill again. That only works if you assume that he can't be stopped by anything short of death. But the Joker is only human and can be arrested and locked up.

We know he'll kill again because we know he's a fictional character that will be back in future stories. But without that meta knowledge he's no different than any other serial killer. We do actually arrest those guys and keep them locked up.

Strip away the assumptions that come with the comic book / cartoon / movie characters and play this scenario out with a cop or EMT or firefighter refusing to help save the life of a convicted murderer who is not an active threat. Does it still sound morally justified?

Tiresia@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 104d

You are being very particular in which elements you're stripping away, which elements you aren't questioning, and which elements you are. This is particularly clear with your reference to the Punisher, where you have no problem drawing from fictional consequences.

Cops rely on this sort of recontextualization to get away with murder and corruption. They put people in psychologically harrowing situations and then 'fear for their life' when that person lashes out so they can kill them. They tie up investigation of cops and rich people with investigation of other matters so it becomes a trolley problem where they can justify letting cops and rich people continue.

Imagine if they investigated homeless people with the same kind of "let's not tip them off, maybe we can catch the bigger fish" attitude with which they handle fraud, how much nicer it would be for homeless people to be able to shoplift some food or get a good night's sleep.

Should a cop with a conscience report a colleague for sexual intimidation, or wait to gather proof of the police chief taking bribes? False dichotomy, they shouldn't be a cop.

Should batman with a conscience kill the Joker or try to arrest him? False dichotomy, he shouldn't be Batman.

Putting people in prison is as useless as killing them at changing the systemic issues that got them to act the way they did. Batman's no-kill policy is absurd not because he should kill, but because it is just as arbitrary as any other red line would have been. Presenting the no-kill policy as some kind of heroic code deserves to be lampooned.

Here is a guy spending billions to beat up homeless people and drug addicts committing petty crimes to get through the day, putting them in medical debt and a sexually and physically abusive prison system, but then he doesn't kill the cartoonish mass murderer because ethics.

Zach Weinersmith has made other comic posts about Batman examining different parts of this, so I know I'm not just projecting my own politics here. I don't know if he agrees precisely with my politics, but with posts like Iron Sociopath he does point out the sadism inherent in vigilanteism and policing in general.

VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 105d

Bruce's mental state is also questionable, at best. In most continuities he's pretty convinced that he wouldn't be able to stop killing if he started.

WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 104d

I would be more than ok with cops killing a major terrorist like Joker.

Or at least actually securing him so he can't escape.

The average serial killer moron is not that much of a threat.

meowmeow@quokk.au · 12 pts · 104d (1 reply)

Every time I suggest we kill billionaires and people tell me to “be civil”

Kolanaki@pawb.social · 9 pts · 104d

"Please kill all billionaires?"

hakunawazo@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 105d

Deontology vs. teleology

raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 105d

Reminds me of Dexter getting his wife killed by saving Trinity

WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 104d

I should send this to people who keep telling me how I'm encouraging the wrong way to go about things.