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Nightrunner said I'm one of the biggest fanatics that The Dark Knight has, but I disagree in saying that his vigilante ways are an acceptable cost for the harm he causes. In the beginning, Batman had no intention to prevent mass bombings or fight massively powerful ghouls like Solomon Grundy. He intended to avenge his parents murder. This may have led to him saving humanity multiple times, and though I guarantee that he wouldn't refuse an opportunity to prevent an extinction, on a personal level, generally speaking, he does more harm than good. First off is the fact that he uses terror as a primary method. His tactics have not only directly led to the creation of the Joker among others, but he has reinforced the idea that justice is an idea to fear and that must be fought in the same way that citizens would be expected to fear supervillains. Also, his shock n' awe create both mental instabilities and PTSD, but also inspire copycats instead of allowing the judicially-guided (for the sake of an argument let's pretend that it works) system to handle obvious legal problems that they personally do have the manpower to stop (Two-Face, Falcones, Scarecrow, Joker, Holiday, Maronis, etc.).
I believe, with the mugger particularly, that intent, action, and repercussions should all be judged independently of one another only in combination with the person they are associated with and his personal history. If the mugger robs someone every day to feed his family, he probably could've gotten a legitimate job. If it's a one time thing and he's only doing it to care for his kids, he should've avoided a family where he'd create a situation similar to his own.
We could rule that Batmans original motivation in that sense was not a white issue. But his original motivation, and his current motivation and effects of being Batman are different things. Those are two seperate cases that require seperate analysis. As for terror as a method? That goes back to what Jorick was mentioning on grey areas where you use personal values and such as a scope/lens to view grey areas through. How do you feel fear should be used/applied?
Personally, I think we'd be better if people were good because they all wanted to and not due to fear. But fear also works, when it comes to fear of being a villain.
It becomes one of those "The Technology is not evil, it is the one who uses it" situations. A government using fear to control the citizens to be mindless servants? Evil. An abusive spouse using fear to prevent their partner from defending themselves or leaving? Evil. A parent using a fear rather than logic/reason to make their child listen to them? Evil. Using fear on those who cause harm, to prevent innocents from being harmed? Not so evil.
It changes from being purely something used to control an individual into something used to protect other innocents from pain and suffering. Pain and suffering that would happen without said fear being used. Though at the same time, when a person reduce's themselves to being a murder, kidnapper, rapist etc I tend to lose all respect for them as human beings and stop caring for their well being, so my analysis of this may be a bit bias.
As for Batman creating over villains? That is a black/bad result, but it is not an intended one. Batman does not be batman for the sake of making villains, that was an unforeseen side effect of becoming Batman. Saying the Batman is Dark/evil for that is the same as saying something like "A mother has a son who is suffering from severe cancer. He sends his son in for treatment, making all the sacrifices needed on herself (loses her home, her job etc.) to make him better. A purely selfless act (for the sake of hypothetical, let's assume afterwards they both have a place to stay and be safe, relative, welfare etc.). But by doing so, caused a rather skilled doctor to invest all his time on that one child, a doctor whose since he was so occupied with the one was unable to save several other children who needed similar treatment". Did the mother overall cause harm to society? Yes, she saved one child, but indirectly caused others to die. But morally, and in terms of intention she is clear. She never went in thinking she would let other kids die for her own son, she simply saved her son.
Nightrunner said I would agree in saying that everyone, as individuals, have their own personal system of beliefs and values as well as reasons for them. And I would say that many people are decidedly comfortable without a definite right or wrong. But I do not believe that their laziness determines that their lack of perception is just or even valid.
I'd agree here. Being to lazy to give a proper observation is just that, laziness and not having a proper observation.
If they can't take the time to be properly aware of the situation, they should be treated as valid responses to said issue.
However, just because most people are too lazy (or simply not capable) of making such moral choices doesn't mean there's no grey.
It just means people are unwilling to question the grey, and make the choice to sacrifice some morality, knowledge and awareness for the sake of having slightly less demands and issues in their life.
Nightrunner said As with oil and water, density, or more appropriately, significance is something else to consider. In the case of the man you'd called ambiguous, who'd pirated a movie to entertain his friends, one might say that the joy received from doing so outweighs the possible financial loss suffered by the studio who'd created the 'contraband'. I don't think that right & wrong is always obvious, but I do believe that according to a concrete set of beliefs, it can be calculated to an exact degree. I wouldn't feel the same about valuing a glass who was 51% Oil the same price as a glass who was 75% Oil. I feel that the little details make all the difference when it comes to finding accurate and valid answers.
To have such things though we need to assign values and weights to certain acts.
Such as how evil is say rape compared to murder? How much points/percentage is each act given? Why are they given? What are the exact modifiers given due to different circumstances? This may sound contradicting to what I just said about laziness though. It is important to delve into these issues and gain better abilities to evaluate and judge them, but it is not an exact numerical science. There will be multiple ways to evaluate it, multiple answers and none of them may be wrong or right. Just all closer to being accurate than many other evaluations.