Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul	1
	CONTENTS	7
	ACKNOWLEDGMENTS	11
	INTRODUCTION	13
	Part I: DOES THE DARK KNIGHT ALWAYS DO RIGHT?	15
	Chapter 1: WHY DOESN’T BATMAN KILL THE JOKER?	17
	Meet the Joker	17
	Is Batman a Utilitarian or Deontologist? (Or None of the Above?)	19
	To the Bat-Trolley, Professor Thomson!	20
	Hush Will Love This Next Story...	22
	Top Ten Reasons the Batmobile Is Not a Trolley...	22
	“I Want My Lawyer! Oh, That’s Right, I Killed Him Too”	24
	So, Case Closed—Right?	26
	Chapter 2: IS IT RIGHT TO MAKE A ROBIN?	29
	What Should a Batman Do?	29
	The Duty of the Superhero	30
	Using Robin for the General Good	32
	Crime Fighting and Character	33
	Can Batman Train Robin in Virtue?	36
	Sometimes Heroes Fail	37
	Chapter 3: BATMAN’S VIRTUOUS HATRED	40
	Batman Hates	40
	Vice and Hatred	41
	Is Batman Virtuous, or Does He Do Virtuous Things?	42
	Batman’s Hatred Is Virtuous	45
	Batman’s Hatred Is Not in His Self-Interest	47
	Lacking Balance	48
	Part II: LAW, JUSTICE, AND THE SOCIAL ORDER: WHERE DOES BATMAN FIT IN?	51
	Chapter 4: NO MAN’S LAND: SOCIAL ORDER IN GOTHAM CITY AND NEW ORLEANS	53
	No Man’s Lands: Gotham City and New Orleans	53
	The Road to No Man’s Land	54
	Survival over Justice: Villains, Gangs, and Hobbes’s State of Nature	56
	William Petit versus Jim Gordon: Violence in the Quest for Justice	58
	The Witness of Nonviolent Humanitarians	60
	“This Is My Town”: Batman and the Restoration of Order	63
	The Thin Veil	65
	Chapter 5: GOVERNING GOTHAM	67
	Gotham Made Me Do It	67
	Do We Need Any Stinking Badges? Legitimacy and Violence	68
	From Crime Alley to Sin City: Hobbes and Gotham	71
	''Two” Little Security	73
	The Anti-Batman: Nietzschean Rebellions	75
	The Real Dynamic Duo: Batman and Gordon	77
	Theorizing Government	80
	Chapter 6: THE JOKER’S WILD: CAN WE HOLD THE CLOWN PRINCE MORALLY RESPONSIBLE?	82
	Laugh and the World Laughs with You—or Does It?	82
	Clearing Out Some Bats in the Belfry	84
	Putting One More Card on the Table (Don't Worry, It’s Not a Joker)	86
	Taking the Plunge: The Fall from Freedom	89
	Who Has the Last Laugh?	92
	Part III: ORIGINS AND ETHICS: BECOMING THE CAPED CRUSADER	95
	Chapter 7: BATMAN’S PROMISE	97
	Batman Begins	97
	The Nature of the Promise	98
	Promises and Morality	102
	Making Promises to the Dead	104
	Batman Returns	109
	Batman Forever?	111
	Chapter 8: SHOULD BRUCE WAYNE HAVE BECOME BATMAN?	113
	What to Do with So Much Time and Money?	113
	Not Going Gentle into That Dark Knight	114
	“The Singer”: Batman’s First Real Nemesis	115
	Batman versus the Singer: The Battle over Aiding Gotham	117
	Batman versus the Singer (Round Two): No Supererogatory Superheroes	120
	The Singer’s Victory: Letting the Light of Reason Illuminate the Bat-Cave	122
	But This Ruins Everything!	124
	Chapter 9: WHAT WOULD BATMAN DO? BRUCE WAYNE AS MORAL EXEMPLAR	126
	Moral Exemplars	126
	Batman’s Virtues	127
	The Unrealistic Objection	128
	The Language Objection	129
	The Exaggeration Objection	131
	To the Defense: Incomplete Information	133
	But Then Again...	134
	Batman the Icon	136
	Batman Is a Moral Exemplar	137
	Part IV: WHO IS THE BATMAN? (IS THAT A TRICK QUESTION?)	139
	Chapter 10: UNDER THE MASK: HOW ANY PERSON CAN BECOME BATMAN	141
	So, You Wanna Be Batman?	141
	Will the “Real” Batman Please Step Forward?	142
	Building a Batman	144
	Arkham Asylum and the Construction of Truth	145
	Your Turn, Batman!	147
	How Batman Sees Through the Lies about Identity and Reality	148
	Batman and—Well, Uh, You Know—Bats	151
	Can You Face the Bat?	152
	Chapter 11: COULD BATMAN HAVE BEEN THE JOKER?	154
	A Modal Question	154
	Some Not-So-Secret Things about Identity	155
	Picking through Possible Worlds	157
	Necessary Secret Identities	160
	“The Batman” and “The Robin”	161
	Fictions and Possible Worlds	164
	All Joking Aside, This Is a Modal Muddle	166
	Chapter 12: BATMAN’S IDENTITY CRISIS AND WITTGENSTEIN’S FAMILY RESEMBLANCE	168
	Comics, Conditions, and Counterexamples	168
	Wittgenstein and Language Games	172
	Games and Gotham	174
	Robin? Who’s That?	175
	Keeping It in the Family?	177
	Chapter 13: WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE A BATMAN?	179
	Answering the Batphone	179
	What It’s Not Like to Be Batman	180
	Bats and Thomas Nagel	182
	Freedom and Conflict	184
	One Bad Day	186
	What It Is Like to Be Out of the Asylum	189
	Part V: BEING THE BAT: INSIGHTS FROM EXISTENTIALISM AND TAOISM	193
	Chapter 14: ALFRED, THE DARK KNIGHT OF FAITH: BATMAN AND KIERKEGAARD	195
	The Saint	195
	Justice: Law and Fairness versus Love and Devotion	197
	The Absurdity of It All	199
	Absurdity, Irony, and Faith	201
	Batman, the Knight of the Infinite Resignation	202
	Alfred, the Knight of Faith	204
	Paradox and Peace	208
	Chapter 15: DARK NIGHTS AND THE CALL OF CONSCIENCE	210
	Does Batman Have a Conscience?	210
	Conscience and Authority	211
	Money, Hot Tubs, and Life’s Tough Decisions	213
	Seeing Things Clearly with Better Bat-Vision	215
	Feeling Guilty (or “How to Battle the Blues”)	218
	Dark Nights and the Call of Authentic Conscience	220
	Conclusions, Capes, and Cowls	222
	Chapter 16: BATMAN’S CONFRONTATION WITH DEATH, ANGST, AND FREEDOM	224
	A Determined Batman?	224
	Alfred and Appearance	226
	Thrown into Our Worlds	229
	Death and the Dark Knight	231
	I Shall Become a Bat	233
	Determinism and the Dark Knight	235
	Part VI: FRIEND, FATHER,...RIVAL? THE MANY ROLES OF THE BAT	237
	Chapter 17: WHY BATMAN IS BETTER THAN SUPERMAN	239
	Backstory: Bat-fans’ Bane	239
	Donning the Philosophical Persona	239
	The Origin Story: How We Make Evaluative Comparisons	242
	Lurking Villainy: Begging the Question	244
	Justice Restored: Superheroes and Bravery	247
	To Be Continued...	250
	Chapter 18: WORLD’S FINEST... FRIENDS? BATMAN, SUPERMAN, AND THE NATURE OF FRIENDSHIP	251
	World’s Finest	251
	That Superman—What a Guy!	253
	Superman the Aristotelian	254
	What Kind of Friend Is Batman—or Bruce Wayne?	257
	Batman the Nietzschean	259
	When Friends Fall Out: Batman versus Superman	261
	BSFs: Best Superfriends Forever?	264
	Chapter 19: LEAVING THE SHADOW OF THE BAT: ARISTOTLE, KANT, AND DICK GRAYSON ON MORAL EDUCATION	266
	A Superhero without Superpowers	266
	Aristotle and Learning-by-Doing	267
	Is Batman a Morally Exemplary Human Being?	268
	Authority Shmauthority!	269
	Let’s Call This the “Gordon-Yindel Disagreement”	270
	And in the Other Corner...Kant!	271
	Dick Grayson and How to Become an Autonomous Human Being (or Your Money Back!)	274
	Leaving the Shadow of the Bat	276
	Chapter 20: THE TAO OF THE BAT	279
	CONTRIBUTORS	291
	INDEX	297