Audience of One

The Dark Knight

Tom and I got absolutely soaked on the way to see the Dark Knight last night. About twenty seconds before we were due to leave, it started pouring with so much rain I felt I was back in the tropics – even in rainy Bristol this was impressive! The roads in the city centre became like shallow rivers in places, and the water came up above the toes of my shoes. We arrived, epitomising the word bedraggled, and fortunately found there were still tickets left.

Once the film had started, we didn’t notice any more, because it’s one of those films that doesn’t let up the pace throughout the (almost three hours long) film. In terms of reviewing the film, I’ve not much to say; I enjoyed it a lot, Heath Ledger is as good as the reviewers say he is, and there’s lots of action, good dialogue and fun set-pieces. As before, though, one of the best parts of the film was some of the moral questions it raises. (Spoilers follow.)

The most interesting one came towards the end, with the introduction of Two-Face, the corrupted district attorney (read “chief prosecuting lawyer”) Harvey Dent. Dent is driven mad by the death of his girlfriend at the hands of the Joker; the concept of what is “fair” emerges, and Dent’s conclusion is that the only thing that’s fair is to leave things up to chance:

You thought we could be decent men in an indecent world. But you were wrong; the world is cruel, and the only morality in a cruel world is chance. Unbiased. Unprejudiced. Fair.

Morality is only determined by chance; in the end, we don’t make the moral decision, but chance decides. That is the only way to be fair.

Now, this isn’t the morality the film portrays, but as a result Tom and I got discussing where morality comes from.

In the world of the film, Batman is portrayed as morally good, despite being a violent, law-breaking vigilante. Why? He wants to save people from pain, fear and death, and in his view the end justifies his means. Here, the highest good is to improve life for humans, in some sense whatever the cost. Batman’s moral philosophy, then, is a form of humanism. When thinking about this I was struck with a similarity to the Operative from the Firefly universe:

The Operative: I believe in something greater than myself. A better world. A world without sin.
Mal Reynolds: So me and mine gotta lay down and die… so you can live in your better world?
The Operative: I’m not going to live there. There’s no place for me there… any more than there is for you. Malcolm… I’m a monster. What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be done.

Both the Operative and Batman do what might be considered morally wrong (the Operative more so), in order that a better society might emerge – a society that, ironically, they can have no part in given what they do. It’s not quite the same with Batman, who can merely leave the cape behind and return to a normal life, but the parallel struck me nevertheless.

So Batman is a humanist, who sees a greater morality than individual actions – the long-term good justifies the short-term wrong. I guess in this situation we have to ask: who decides that this is right? Who decides whether this long-term good is the right one, if it’s at the expense of (even minor) short-term wrong?

I’m going on for far longer than I’ve planned, so I’ll not go into the humanist understanding of where morality comes from. I don’t find it convincing, however, to think that humans can logically deduce what is right and wrong; I can’t see how the concepts of good and evil make any sense in an atheistic worldview. This quotation by Richard Dawkins is probably the most commonly used by Christians, but it fits here:

In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.

If this is the case, then Two-Face might just be right that chance is the only morality. If that leaves an unpleasant taste, that’s because it’s not true. Not only does morality come from a loving, perfect God, this loving, perfect God is sovereign over everything – and so a pragmatism in morality like Batman’s is unnecessary. We’re called to live morally in whatever situation; God will sort out the outcome. We can trust him that in the end, all will be well.

Matthew @ 12:29, July 29, 2008 to Discussions | Comments (0)