Abstract
Harvey Dent’s death in The Dark Knight marks the key turning point of Christopher Nolan’s popular trilogy. It is a death with substantial consequences for Gotham, as the already fragile relationship between the city and its vigilante further deteriorates when Batman intentionally, but falsely, takes responsibility for Dent’s demise. As a result, Batman retires, not to be seen for nearly eight years, and even his resurfacing in The Dark Knight Rises is intended to be brief as he battles his inner guilt, fears, and their further exploitation by Bane and the League of Shadows.
Whatever chance you gave us at fixing our city dies with Harvey’s reputation. We bet it all on him. The Joker took the best of us and tore him down. People will lose hope.
James Gordon, The Dark Knight
For if justice goes, there is no longer any value in human beings’ living on the earth.
Immanuel Kant, Metaphysics of Morals
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Notes
- 1.
I limit my focus to Nolan’s films. Themes from the film have been explored in numerous comics, some of which clearly inspire iconic images used by Nolan. For example, the rooftop scene featuring Gordon, Dent, and Batman in The Dark Knight mimic images from the comic The Long Halloween. Also, Bane’s isolation of Gotham shares similarity with ideas explored in the comic, No Man’s Land. The author would like to thank Robin and Kamilia Al-Hakim for their generous support and feedback.
- 2.
Many of these themes are explored in great detail in Mark White and Robert Arp (eds.), Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul (New York; Blackwell Publishing, 2008).
- 3.
I use a general definition of punishment as the intentional harming of another, where harm entails a setting back of some interest. I leave aside conceptual issues relating to defining punishment, for more on the definition see David Boonin, The Problem of Punishment (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 2008); also see Thom Brooks, Punishment (UK; Routledge Press, 2012).
- 4.
In the comic book, Hush, Batman nearly kills the Joker, on the grounds that he ought to have done so long ago as revenge for the harm the Joker has done to Batman’s closest allies (Jason/Robin, Barbara, etc.). Gordon, who stops Batman in time, reminds him that this is the single act that differentiates him from criminals. It worries Gordon as he realizes that Batman had indeed thought this through.
- 5.
Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 6:231.
- 6.
Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, (Oxford: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
- 7.
The distinction is conceptual but mixed deterrence-retributive views do exist. Kant is interpreted as offering one such mixed view. For a defense of Kant as a mixed-theorist, whose theory is retributive in principle but deterrent in action, see Sharon Byrd, “Kant’s Theory of Punishment: Deterrent in its threat, Retributive in its execution,” Law and Philosophy, Vol 8, No.2 (Aug 1989), pp. 151–200.
- 8.
Boonin, p. 85.
- 9.
Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 6:331.
- 10.
Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 6:332.
- 11.
Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 6:229. Moreover, Kant’s ethical principle is first outlined in the Groundwork on the Metaphysics of Morals and then substantially taken up again in his Critique of Practical Reason. The universal test of the maxim informs his principle of external freedom as well.
- 12.
Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 6:230.
- 13.
Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 6:237.
- 14.
Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 6:245.
- 15.
Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 6:245.
- 16.
Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 6:231.
- 17.
Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 6:307.
- 18.
Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 6:308. Kant also holds this wrongfulness to possibly be in the formal and not material sense. See footnote in the Metaphysics of Morals at 6:308.
- 19.
Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 6:314.
- 20.
Arthur Ripstein, Force and Freedom: Kant’s Legal and Political Philosophy (Massachusetts; Harvard University Press, 2009), p. 272.
- 21.
Ripstein, Force and Freedom, 267.
- 22.
Coincidently enough, prior to becoming Two-Face, Dent would flip a two-headed coin which means that the outcome of the coin would always be the same, such that justice was never left to chance. He only scratches out the one side after becoming Two-Face, thereby creating a condition of chance in the outcome.
- 23.
Ripstein, Force and Freedom, 281.
- 24.
Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 6:332.
- 25.
Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 6:332.
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Al-Hakim, M. (2019). The Retributive Knight. In: Picariello, D. (eds) Politics in Gotham. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05776-3_10
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