Batman Meets Aristotle

“Robin, by the furrows on your brow, as you bend and squint over that book, I gather that you are troubled,” said Bruce Wayne to his ward Robin in the spacious living room of palatial Wayne Manor.

“I am, Bruce. It’s Philosophy 101 that I’m enrolled in at Gotham City University. Our teacher has asked us to write a critique of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics for next week. Why do I have to go to college? It takes so much time away from the joy of crime fighting BIFF, BAM, WHOP."..

“When I became your guardian, I pledged that I would make sure you got the best education possible so that you wouldn’t be an ignoramus. What does Nichomachean mean?”

.Nichomachus is the name of Aristotle’s son, who was killed in battle when still a lad.”

“How sad. If he had had someone like me as a partner, that wouldn’t have happened.”

“That’s for sure. I was thinking of asking Alfred for help. He’s a walking encyclopedia.”

“Don’t bother Alfred. He’s in the garage cheking out the batmobile. I can help you.”

“You? Have you read the Nichomachean Ethics?”

“No, and I don’t intend to. Just tell me what that dude said, and I’ll give you my critique. You can take it from there.”

“Okay, Bruce. Aristotle starts out by saying that the highest human good is happiness. That’s what we strive for. He said that happiness depends on ourselves and is a goal in itself. Living a genuinely happy life requires the fulfillment of a number of conditions, including physical and mental well-being.”.

“I’m not sure that everyone strives for happiness. Some people, Christians and Buddhists, for example, think the world sucks and that you can’t find happiness in this vale of tears. You haven’t told me exactly what happiness is.”

“It’s an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue. The virtues are qualities like courage, temperance, liberality, magnificence, self-respect or right pride, and friendliness as the most important ones. You’ve got to train yourself so that these virtues become part of your character, so to speak. You’ve got to work at it so that they become habits.”

“You’ve said a mouthful, Robin. Even if I accept what you’ve said, which I think is questionable, how is this desirable state to be achieved?”

“Aristotle says that for every virtue there is a vice that straddles it on the extremes of too much and too little. You’ve got to steer between these two extremes and try to find the golden mean in your actions.”

“It sounds sort of wishy-washy to me. Give me some examples.”

“let’s take courage.You should like that one. Having too little courage is cowardice, having too much is rashness or foolhardiness.”

“So the golden mean is not to stand back and not to stick your neck out, as I understand it?”

“That’s right.”

“That attitude wouldn’t help us much in confonfronting the likes of Deathstroke, Ra’s al Ghoul, and the Joker, would it? If we confronted them, that would be called rashness?”

“It would have to be, Bruce.”

“And when Alexander with a small army attacked the vast Persian empire or when Columbus, whose Day we no longer celebrate, refused to turn back when his men were ready to mutiny or when Cortez burnt his ships so that his soliders couldn’t turn back, those were all rash actions, weren’t they?”

“Aristotle would think so, I believe.”

“If everyone cultivated the virtue of courage as a golden mean, the world would never advance. Society would stagnate, as under Biuddhism. Many mountain climbers fall to their deaths, but someone always reaches the top. A touch of madness or rashness is an essential characteristic of the human soul.”

“Can I quote you on that, Bruce?”

“You’d better not. Throw me another virtue.”

“Liberality is a virtue between the vices of miserliness and prodigality or wastefulness. I think he’s syaing you shouldn’t spend too much or too little.”

“I protest. Let’s take misers first. I don’t like them, but do they do any harm to anyone but themselves? Can misers be happy? I don’t have first-hand knowledge, but the miser in the novel Eugenie Grandet, her father, seemed quite happy counting his gold coins every night. And as far as spending too much is concerned, does that mean that I should reduce donations to the Bruce Wayne Foundation? And what about people like St. Francis and other saintly people who gave away everything they had and became mendicants? Were they unhappy after they had done such a generous act, which Aristotle calls wasteful?”

“Well, I don’t know, Bruce, but it seems to me that they weren’t unhappy.”

“Then steering for the golden mean in our actions isn’t the only way to happiness, as we see from these examples. Aristotle’s advice may be sound for average persons, but it would shackle outstanding individuals. Leaders lead, and they never adhere to the norm or the golden rule, as Aristotle calls it. It’s certainly not for Batman and Robin”

“It doesn’t seem to be, Bruce. Can I quote you?”

“Before you turn your paper in, I suggest that you show it to Alfred. That way you’’ll be sure of not getting flunked.”

“Maybe I should just buy an essay. You can buy a really good one online for a couple of hundred bucks.”

“Hold on there, Robin. You’ve been talking to me about Aristotle’s ethics and happiness as acting in accordance with virtue, which consists of good habits in finding the golden mean. What kind of a habit will you be cultivating if you take the easy way out and buy an essay?”

“Well, I don’t know Bruce.”

“You will be cultivating the habits of shirking challenges and dishonesty. And here’s a question for you. Is there a golden mean between honesty and dishonesty? Can you be only a little dishonest or a little honest? And if you hit the mean and are a little of one and a little of another, will you be happy?”:

“It seems to me that very few people are one-hundred percent honest. In this world of ours, such people get the short end of the stick.”

“You’ve told the names of some pairs of contrary vices that contrast with each of the virtues, but where or how should I draw the dividing lines? In some cases, we shouldn’t search for the golden mean but aim for the stars., And in this world of ours, what people do is more important than what they are. Good men can sometimes do bad things, and bad men can sometimes do good things. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. That is my main critique of Aristotle’s virtue-based ethics.”

“I’m pretty sure that now I can write something sensible about Aristotle’s ethics. My teacher will be pretty sure that I didn’t plagarize it.”

“As a final rejoinder to Aristotle’s ethics, which are circular and don’t help you very miuch to draw the line between the two extremes, let me bring forth Martin Luther.”

“Why him, Bruce?”

“Because no matter what you think of him, in his person he contradicts Aristotles ethics one-hundred percent. There is a portrait of him by Lucas Cranach that shows Luther in all of his bulk of 150 kilos. Of himself, he said, I swill like a Czech and gorge myself like a German. He probably practiced every vice that Aristotle named, from lewdness, surliness, effrontery, gluttony, and overweening pride. As if that wasn’t enough, he said that he was looking to commit a sin so enormous that it would astonish even the Devil. By that means he intended to put to the test his doctrine that faith alone matters and deeds are of no conseuqnence if one believes strongly enough. Christ has a broad back. What’s a few more sins to him, Luther said? So you see, Robin, Luther violated the golden mean at every turn, but he started a revolution, created the German language, and, for better or worse, became the spiritual father of Germany.”

“But if he violated the golden mean in so many cases, was he happy?”

“If there were any doubts about that, they were dispelled after he married Katherine von Bora, a runaway nun, in 1525. Luther and she suited each other, and she started a new vocation, the pastor’s wife.”

“Are you saying, Bruce, that you can be happy if you don’t follow the golden mean?”

“As we see from the examples that I have given, only men who risk going too far will learn how far they can go.”

“More people who violate the golden mean fail than succeed, however.”

“Phaeton, Apollo’s son, insisted on driving his father’s chariot. He couldn’t control it and drove too close to the Earth, threatening to set it on fire before Zeus killed him with a thunderbolt. Phaeton failed, but his name will never die.”

“Gosh, Bruce. You sure are full of interesting facts that I can put in my report.”

“Go put on your fancy threads, Robin. We’re expecting Commissioner Gordon, his wife, and daughter Barbara for dinner.” ,