Should BATMAN kill the JOKER?

Regardless of what joker does , there are some

lines that good people do not cross , and for
batman, killing difinitely falls on the wrong side of
that line.
If you have the ability to stop a killer but you don't. Are
you morality pure because you didn't kill or are you
moraly dirty because you refused to do what needs to
be done?
In that scenario we are more looking in the characteristics of
Batman as a Kantian. It is derive from the school of thoughts
that is layed out by a german philosopher Immanuel Kant that
is known as Kantianism. Kantianism is all about sticking to the
moral rule book and Batman as you may observed tries his
best to stick to his moral code.
It focuses of the results or consiquences, of our actions, and
treats intentions as irrelevant.
GOOD CONSIQUENCES = GOOD ACTIONS
What is a good consiquences?

Utilitarianism is founded in the 18th Century by British phillosophers

Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill but the theory came from the
philosophical ancestors and greek thinkers such as Epicurus. They
agreed that, ACTIONS SHOULD BE MEASURED IN TERMS OF
THE HAPPINESS, OR PLEASURE, THAT THEY PRODUCED.
Utilitarians also agree that moral theory should apply equaly
to everyone. But they though the way to do that was to
ground it in something that's really intuitive - and there is
really nothing more basic than the primal desire to seek
pleasure and avoid pain.
It is also said that utilitarianism is more of HEDONISTIC moral
theory, it means “The good is equal to the pleasant”. But
utilitarianism is not what you'd call egoistic theory. Becuase
egoism says that everyone is ought to moraly pursue their
own good, in contrast to that utilitarianism is “other-
regarding” meaning we should pursue pleasure or happiness
not just for ourselves but for as many sentient being as
possible.
“WE SHOULD ACT ALWAYS SO AS TO PRODUCE THE
GREATEST GOOD FOR THE GREATEST NUMBER”
PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY
1. Pleasure or Happiness Is the Only Thing That Truly Has
Intrinsic Value.

Utilitarianism gets its name from the term "utility," which in this
context does not mean "useful" but, rather, means pleasure or
happiness. To say that something has intrinsic value means that it is
simply good in itself. A world in which this thing exists, or is possessed,
or is experienced, is better than a world without it (all other things
being equal). Intrinsic value contrasts with instrumental value.
Something has instrumental value when it is a means to some end. For
example, a screwdriver has instrumental value to the carpenter; it is
not valued for its own sake but for what can be done with it.
2. Actions Are Right Insofar as They Promote Happiness, Wrong
Insofar as They Produce Unhappiness.

This principle is controversial. It makes utilitarianism a form of

consequentialism since it says that the morality of an action is decided
by its consequences. The more happiness is produced among those
affected by the action, the better the action is. So, all things being
equal, giving presents to a whole gang of children is better than giving a
present to just one. Similarly, saving two lives is better than saving one
life.
3. Everyone's Happiness Counts Equally.

This may strike you as a rather obvious moral principle. But when it was
put forward by Bentham (in the form, "everyone to count for one; no-
one for more than one") it was quite radical. Two hundred years ago, it
was a commonly held view that some lives, and the happiness they
contained, were simply more important and valuable than others. For
example, the lives of masters were more important than slaves; the
well-being of a king was more important than that of a peasant.
Forms of Utilitarianism:

• ACT UTILITARIANISM (Classical Utilitarianism)

• RULE UTILITARIANISM

• IDEAL UTILITARIANISM
ACT UTILITARIANISM (Classical Utilitarianism)

Act utilitarianism is a utilitarian theory of ethics which states that

a person's act is morally right if and only if it produces the best possible
results in that specific situation. Classical utilitarians, including Jeremy
Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and Henry Sidgwick, define happiness as
pleasure and the absence of pain.
Example:
British philosopher Bernard Williams offered this thought experiment in which
he created a scenario:

Jim is on a botanical expedition in south america when he happens uppon a

group of 20 indigenous people and a group of soldiers. The whole group of
indigenous people is about to be executed for protesting their oppresive
regime. For some reason, the leader of the soldiers offers Jim the chance to
shoot one of the prisoners, since he's a guest in their land. He says that if he
shoot one of the prisoners, he'll let the other 19 go. But if Jim refuses then the
soldier will shoot all 20 prisoners.

so the question is “ What would you do if you are Jim?”

RULE UTILITARIANISM

Rule utilitarianism is a form of utilitarianism that says an action is right

as it conforms to a rule that leads to the greatest good, or that "the
rightness or wrongness of a particular action is a function of the
correctness of the rule of which it is an instance".
For rule utilitarians, the correctness of a rule is determined by the
amount of good it brings about when followed. In contrast, act
utilitarians judge an act in terms of the consequences of that act alone
(such as stopping at a red light), rather than judging whether it
faithfully adhered to the rule of which it was an instance (such as,
"always stop at red lights"). Rule utilitarians argue that following rules
that tend to lead to the greatest good will have better consequences
overall than allowing exceptions to be made in individual instances,
even if better consequences can be demonstrated in those instances.
IDEAL UTILITARIANISM

• A utilitarian theory which denies that the sole object of moral

concern is the maximising of pleasure or happiness. In G.E. Moore's
version of ideal utilitarianism in Principia Ethica 1903, it is aesthetic
experiences and relations of friendship that have intrinsic value, and
therefore ought to be sought and promoted, while consciousness of
pain, hatred or contempt of what is good or beautiful, and the love
admiration or enjoyment of what is evil or ugly are the three things
that have intrinsic disvalue and should therefore be shunned and
prevented.
• It was Hastings Rashdall (1858-1924) in The Theory of Good and Evil
1907 who first used 'ideal utilitarianism' for non-hedonistic
utilitarianism of this kind.