No flaming from me on this one-partially because I’m trying to put together the page for the LOLjoker contest, but mostly because I actually agree a lot. I’m far from a strict rat-choicer (much more on the sociology side of Poli Sci than the econ side), but leaned primarily on Axelrod for the sake of brevity. I totally agree with the reading that include altruism within the boundary of a political community as a key component of the western political tradition.

What is even more interesting to me is that there is emerging evidence that this logic may in fact be a universal component of all societies. The best work in this vein is being done by the foundations of human sociality project, an interdisciplinary effort bringing together behavioral economists with anthropolgists. By playing experimental games (variants on the prisoner’s dilemma, plus related games such as the dictator game and the ultimatum game) in societies all over the world, these researchers present really convincing evidence for the importance of other-regarding preferences and fairness norms as the glue that hold human societies together.

If I have time later, I’ll try to pick up on some of your other points about where TDK fits in to ongoing normative debates.

This is going to be long, so go ahead and flame me if you don’t like what I have to say- at least you read it.

The roots of modern (western) liberal (and not in the dirty word sense) political theory reach back to, of course, Ancient Athens and Rome, both of which held onto two core principles for their own beginnings: security and, believe it or not, altruism. The purpose of establishing a government is to protect the citizens under its care and to have that government care for them once it exists. Hence the establishment of borders and services. The latter aspect of government is usually ignored, but delving deep into ancient as well as not-so-ancient theories like those of the Stoics to Locke or even contemporaries like Berlin and Arendt show that ideas of protection and security inherently lead to ones about servicing and assisting one’s fellow citizens.

The problems arise in/with government when one aspect begins to overshadow the other. If government begins doing too much in EITHER case, it becomes corrupt and starts on its way down a spiraling waterslide of doom and into a deep, toxic pool of its own creation. If it takes to too much “protection,” it becomes a terror state and can lead to a government of fear and violence (Hitler’s Germany); if it becomes too involved in “services,” it can become nothing more than a corporation and way for a small elite to have everything while the majority is barely surviving (modern China). So the question is about positive versus negative freedom: how much can I do without infringing on the liberties of someone else? And how much can GOVERNMENT do without overstepping its bounds?

TDK goes after this problem and leaves it ambiguously unanswered. There are various forms of the conflict throughout the film that hearken to real debates still going on right now. For example, the conflict between the Friedman/Chicago School (free market/privatized infrastructure) economists versus the Keynesian School (government regulations/ state-owned infrastructure) economists is represented in the subplot involving Lau.

I think the point being made by Nolan is that it is impossible to find a perfect system in which there is no corruption, no unhappiness, and everyone is able to have what they need and hopefully some of the things they want because of human nature and the invariably inevitable bad apple in the bunch. Hobbes wasn’t the first to say people are greedy: it’s something we’ve known about ourselves since even before we could write (Homer, for example). But we are not inherently evil, either. We do also have a desire for happiness, not only for ourselves, but for others, too, even if only because we instinctively know that if others are happy, it will be easier for our own happiness to come to fruition. So we come up with ideas that on paper or in our heads look absolutely beautiful and utopian. But then when people actually become involved, they do not work. Nolan uses Batman as his own symbol of the altruistic part of humanity, the part that comes up with that utopia and is willing to do what it can to combat the corrupt part of humanity. Batman’s desire for peace and harmony is a utopian goal that he probably realizes will never happen. But, like those that establish governments, he also realizes that while it may not be actually reachable, the closer to it society can come, the better. (You can also think of it in terms of Platonic forms: we can never reach the Perfection of a true Form, but our goal in life should be to strive to coming as close to it as we can.) And he also, by admitting he’s an outsider and NEEDS to be an outsider for any of his efforts to have meaning, places himself in the same category as political leaders that speak out and even die for their causes in the name of the people they serve in the face of opposition. (So to end on a rather light but real note, Arlen Specter is the Batman of the Senate.)

I think you’re absolutely right that the Joker’s unreliably changes the basic structure of the game, but I don’t think it totally obliterates the Prisoners’ Dilemma framework. Tather it shifts the setup of the game to what could be called a bayesian prisoner’s dilemma. That is, there is a whole branch of game theory devoted to solving for Nash equilibria when there is incomplete information or uncertainty. Using the framework developed by John Harsanyi, you would diagram this interpretation of the ferry bomb game by having “nature” (in this case, the joker) rig up the detonators and then having the passengers decide to press the button or not. If the ferry passengers believe that the Joker is unreliable, then all they know is that the detonator triggers the bomb on their boat with probability p and the bomb on the other boat with probability (1-p).

My game theory solution skills are a little rusty, so I’m not going to work out the Nash equilbrium here. However, my intuition is that this uncertainty could provide another rational-choice-based explanation for why the ferries don’t explode; because the passengers are unsure whether they are in the state of the world where they will be blowing up themselves or the other boat, they are more likely to choose to not trigger the bomb. I invite anyone who does game theory more frequently or has a good basic text book to chime in with the solution.

The more I think about it though I don’t think the prisoners dillema in any way can be found in the ‘ferry bomb game’. The film sets up the Joker as somebody who lies, and who doesn’t follow the rules of his own games. The Jokers only consistency is inconsistency. He made good on the kill snitch or blow up hospitol game, but he lied in the save Harvey or Rachel game. He tells multiple stories of how he got his scars. He isn’t somebody that can be believed and so it isn’t really the prisoner’s dillema. It is simply a moral choice of whether or not you would save yourself but be responsible for killing others or not.