Alden Kelley Section 9 Post 2 of 3

Philosophy within Batman

Thought Experiments cont.

Once again we see another one of the most well known thought experiments, this one being the classic Prisoner's Dilemma. This excerpt was taken from Wikepedia:

Two men are arrested, but the police do not possess enough information for a conviction. Following the separation of the two men, the police offer both a similar deal—if one testifies against his partner (defects/betrays), and the other remains silent (cooperates/assists), the betrayer goes free and the cooperator receives the full one-year sentence. If both remain silent, both are sentenced to only one month in jail for a minor charge. If each 'rats out' the other, each receives a three-month sentence. Each prisoner must choose either to betray or remain silent; the decision of each is kept quiet. What should they do?

The scene in The Dark Knight, is the exact same thing but instead of the prisoners you have two ferries and instead of being sentenced to prison, they die. Joker was trying to prove to Batman that everyone has some evil in them, but was proven wrong when neither one of the ferries blow sky high.