Who is Batman and what is his no-kill rule?
Batman. The Dark Knight. The caped crusader. Bruce Wayne. A man who had his life changed forever at just eight years old. On that fateful night in Crime Alley of Gotham City, Wayne witnessed a man gun down his parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne. This moment would change him forever. As he grew older, he learned various martial arts by traveling the world, walking different paths of life along the way. Once he returned to Gotham City, he would begin his crusade against crime, moving through the shadows of the night as Batman.
When he entered this crusade, Wayne intended to avenge his parents by vowing to snuff out crime without killing. Instead, he would operate outside of the law to bring justice to those affected by crime. He knew that the system wasn’t perfect, and he intended to be the bridge to justice.
How does not killing work into him being the bridge? Well, we have to break down what justice actually is. Just like Batman, Immanuel Kant believes “that all human beings are of equal worth,” according to David Johnston’s “A Brief History of Justice.” By extension, Kant believes all humans are free and have agency. This free agency makes it so anyone can do anything, but the equality of humans is something that can only be defined as justice when it is upheld. Batman believes that upholding justice is something that requires villains/criminals to be saved, not killed, just as innocent people are saved. Whether it be Two Face, Bane or the countless other villains in Batman’s gallery of rogues, Batman wants to save them.
The Challenge
Although this sometimes works for lesser criminals, supervillains pose a problem when it comes to Batman’s no-kill rule. Take someone like the Riddler in the 2022 film, The Batman. Throughout the film, Riddler was leaving clues for Batman and the Gotham Police Department to solve, all giving hints as to what his big plan was. By the time they figured out the big plan, Riddler had already been jailed. But Batman was present at his arrest. If he had just interrogated & killed him, he could have figured out the plan and prevented the flooding of Gotham City. Instead, he takes the route of a deontologist.
According to Michael Otsuka’s “Kamm on the Morality of Killing,” “Not only are we sometimes prohibited from killing one in order to prevent others from being killed, but there are even certain circumstances in which we may not violate someone’s right not to be killed in order to prevent more of the very same type of right not to be killed from being violated.” Batman knows it’s his duty not to kill, and he leaves the fight for justice in the police’s hands once he has done what he can. He does go on to interrogate Riddler in jail, but that’s him enacting his role as a vigilante. Through this interrogation, he finds out that Riddler’s plan has been set in motion, spurring him to do whatever he can to stop it. The plan does come to fruition and Gotham does get flooded, with many dying in the process. This brings in the issue of deontological justification, which is “notoriously hard to justify,” according to Otsuka.
In the reading, Otsuka talks about how “Bernard Williams, among others, has argued that one has a special responsibility for actions that flow from one's agency that one does not have for the actions of others, and that this is why it could be wrong to kill somebody rather than allow another to kill more.” Although this doesn’t exactly line up with Batman’s no-kill rule, it bleeds into it. Just like how “Kamm rejects this sort of "agent-relative" justification of constraints that focuses on certain facts about the agent who would violate the constraint,” Batman knows that when he doesn’t kill, he’s indirectly responsible for the villains’ killings. But, he also knows that it’d be worse if he takes the power of death into his own hands. In the film, “Batman: Under the Red Hood,” he tells Jason Todd that crossing that line and killing the Joker would be “too damned easy. All I’ve ever wanted to do is kill him. A day doesn’t go by when I don’t think about subjecting him to every horrendous torture that he’s dealt out to others. And then, end him. But if I do that, if I allow myself to go down into that place, I’ll never come back.” This is the foundation of his no-kill rule. He knows the pain that killing inflicts, and even though he wants to kill his arch-nemesis with every fiber of his being, he can’t. It’d break his moral code and send him down a path he can’t return from. And the Joker knows this.
The Antithesis
The Joker is the antithesis of Batman. He lives by no moral code, instead inflicting chaos and destruction wherever he goes. One would think that the simple solution would be killing him to prevent other killings. This would be the utilitarian belief. But, as stated earlier, Batman can’t as a deontologist. He knows that it would be something he can’t morally come back from. Chapter one of Mark D. White and Robert Arp’s “Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul” dives into various thought experiments that try to justify Batman’s killing of the Joker. As stated in my final PHI 101 reading essay, White & Arp look at “the trolley experiment, one with a crazy twist. If Joker is the one man on the track and the other five are people he’s tied up, what should Batman do? Some say that he’d be justified in pulling the lever and letting Joker get run over, while others believe that his moral code would be compromised, and therefore unjustified. This goes into another argument. What if a surgeon has five patients who need organ transplants and one healthy surgeon. Would he be right to drug the surgeon and take his organs for those who need them, resulting in his death? Many would say no, as the only thing he did was have good organs. After diving into this argument, the chapter shifts into another idea. If Joker has shown that he is willing to kill innocent people, then what’s the harm in killing him before he does it again? Punish him before he can take more lives. It sounds like an open and shut case, right? Well, that’s the tricky part. What if Joker truly does reform? Would the killing be justified then?” No. This goes back to the previous section. Even if Batman did kill the Joker, it would open up the door for him to use death as the final punishment. He would become judge, jury and executioner.
But what about all of the countless people Joker has killed? It has been established that Joker is the antithesis of Batman, and he won’t stop until one of the two wins the game of morality. Joker exists to test Batman’s limits. He himself has told Batman that he doesn’t know what he would do without him. How do you stop someone whose only remedy is death when you have a no-kill rule? For Batman, he sees the solution as sending him to Arkham Asylum, an asylum that houses Gotham’s supervillains. But Arkham is just a revolving door, the villains don’t change when they come out. They go on to commit more crime and inflict terror on the city Batman is trying to save. And every time he sends them off, they come out with more of a vengeance against him. That raises the question: is it all worth it?
Does it even work?
In season 1 episode 34 of Batman: The Animated Series, titled “I am the Night,” Wayne begins to question his role as Batman. The episode opens with him telling his butler, Alfred, that he’s tired. It’s the anniversary of his parents’ death and he feels as though his mission is failing. After reading that the Penguin’s conviction has been overturned due to a technicality, he says “sometimes, old friend, I wonder if I’m really doing any good out there.” He continues, telling his trusty butler that “I’ve won a few battles, Alfred, but the war goes on. On and on.” He knows that his crusade is a long-haul, and it’s starting to weigh on him. Later in the episode, the police setup for a raid. One of the officers questions why they haven’t gone in yet, to which police commissioner, Jim Gordon, responds by saying they’re waiting on Batman. But Batman is late, busy stopping another crime and honoring his parents in the alley that they were murdered in. Even though he told Gordon he would be there. Tired of waiting, Gordon begins the raid, but it turns out it was a setup! Shots are fired from both sides, and although Batman does eventually arrive, it isn’t in time to stop Gordon from being shot.
In the Batcave, Batman blames himself for Gordon’s injury, believing that him being late was the reason for Gordon being shot. Stricken, his emotions take over and he begins smashing equipment in the cave, falling to his knees before wailing in anguish. This sends him into a state of depression, as he wallows in the cave for three days. The rejection of deontology begins to cloud his mind. He sees Gordon as a father figure, so knowing that he could have made a difference, especially on the anniversary of his parents’ death, crushes him. Dick Grayson, aka Robin, reassures him that it isn’t his fault, that Gordon knew the risks and that Batman is holding the city together. But still, Wayne wants to call it quits and let the law succeed where he has failed. After hearing that Gordon’s would-be killer has escaped to finish the job, though, Batman springs back into action as he realizes his duty, which goes back to deontology. “This is my hunt,” he tells Grayson before leaving the Batcave. He makes it to Gordon’s hospital room just in time to stop his would-be killer with the help of the police and a perfectly timed batarang. Although his faith was tested, the test reminded him what he was fighting for.
The reason for Batman’s crusade is outlined in Safiyya Ahmad’s “Vigilantism in Moral Philosophy.” Ahmad says “some consequentialist objections [to vigilantism] include concerns about negative social prejudices and long-term instability. Additional objections include psychological damage to the perpetrator and a lack of necessity.” That lack of necessity is something that Wayne felt while in the Batcave, but “in spite of these valid concerns, vigilantism can be morally justified under the following circumstances: a breakdown of the legal system, due process, attempts to mend larger social issues, and the advancement of justice.” Even though his faith was tested, Batman was reminded that these were the things he was fighting for. Where the legal system and society had fallen short, Batman was there to pick up the pieces. As a vigilante, he is the bridge between law & justice, holding the foundation together as the war goes on. If he were to take death into his own hands and kill whoever he saw fit, he’d be directly going against law & justice, and everything he’s fought for would begin to crumble.
Death is Batman’s kryptonite. The one thing he works to prevent when it comes to protecting those he cares about. If given the power of death, Batman knows that he would get drunk off of it. His strength is in his deontology. His will to resist. His will, and duty, to save.
The war goes on
When Batman isn’t enough, Bruce Wayne helps save the day. It is established that Wayne is a philanthropist who works to fix some of the problems in Gotham City with financial leverage. When his former best friend and enemy, Harvey Dent/Two-Face is in the hospital for reconstructive surgery, he was the one who picked up the tab. “Bruce Wayne picked up the tab for this? Good old Bruce, he’s never given up on me,” said Dent in the Batman: The Animated Series episode, “Second Chance.” Batman was indirectly responsible for Two-Face’s birth, anyway, as he hit a gunman shooting at Dent, sending his bullets into an electrical box that exploded and blew away half of his face. He took responsibility for his actions and tried to save Dent.
Batman isn’t perfect, though. In The New Batman Adventures episode titled “Old Wounds,” Nightwing (formerly Robin, real name Dick Grayson) is recounting a story of when he and Batman were chasing a crook for a lead on the Joker. They trail the crook to his apartment, where they encounter his wife and son. Robin, knowing the damage this could do to his family, takes a step back, but Batman bursts through the window demanding answers. Robin tells him not to do this in front of his family, but Batman responds “the sooner he talks, the sooner we leave.” He’s moving like a cop, and Robin knows that this could cause more harm than good. So, he acts on his own accord and leaves. Eventually, this and other actions spur Robin to leave Batman and embark on his journey as Nightwing. Later in the episode, we find out that Wayne gave the crook a job at Wayne Enterprises. Nightwing talks to him, and the former crook, initially confusing him as Batman, tells a story. “I ran up against him, once. It was a real eye-opener. Forced me to get my life together. Now I've got this great job! Even Mr. Wayne knows me. Terrific guy, never too busy to stop and ask how my boy’s doing.” To which Nightwing responds, “Mr. Wayne is a good man.” Batman knows that criminals exercise their free will in order to embark on their crime sprees, but that doesn’t mean he’s just going to beat them up. As stated before, Batman tries to save those he comes into contact with, and that’s seen in this situation. When he can’t save them as Batman, he saves them as Bruce Wayne.
This brings the idea of free will vs determinism to mind. For that crook, he used his free will to choose a life of crime, but at the same time he lives in Gotham City, an area riddled with crime. When you live somewhere like that, where crime is all you see, it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that is all you can do. Especially when you have someone as crazy as the Joker telling you that’s what you should be doing. Those outside factors determined what the crook did with his life. At the same time, though, he was given an opportunity from Bruce Wayne and he exercised his free will when he took it. He was given a second chance, and he used it to live a better life. Bruce Wayne helped save him, but by his own accord did he choose to be saved. Although Batman isn’t perfect, he is able to use his identity as Bruce Wayne to pick up some of the pieces. Whether it be him paying for Two Face's reconstructive surgery or offering a criminal a job, he saves people when he’s able. Even though the war goes on, he is working to end it one person at a time. His no-kill rule pushes him to save those he encounters as Batman, and that makes him Gotham City’s savior, not its agitator.
Batman’s willingness to save even the worst of the worst is what makes him different from other heroes. He isn’t exacerbating Gotham City’s criminality, he’s fighting against it. He wins battles, but the war goes on. Gotham can’t be changed overnight, but Batman shows that it can be chipped away at. There are those who work to challenge his crusade, and his no-kill rule, but one battle at a time, Batman is becoming the remedy. He strikes fear in criminals while working tirelessly to save them, and for that, he is a hero.
Sources
David Johnston, “A Brief History of Justice,” February 2011.
Matt Reeves, The Batman. March 2022
Michael Otsuka, “Kamm on the Morality of Killing,” October 1997
Brandon Vietti, “Batman: Under the Red Hood,” July 2010
Mark D. White and Robert Arp, “Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul,” June 2008
Christopher Nolan, “The Dark Knight,” July 2008
Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, Eric Radomski, Boyd Kirkland & more, “Batman: The Animated Series,” September 1992-September 1995
Safiyya Ahmad, “Vigilantism In Moral Philosophy,” August 2017
Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, Alan Burnett, “The New Batman Adventures, September 1997-January 1999
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