Resolved: The Actions of the Vigilante Known as Batman are Justified

I would like to begin by thanking axM62 for this debate. ----- I negate the resolution "The actions of the vigilante known as Batman are justified". ----- I will now refute my opponent's contentions. 1: My opponent claims that vigilantism was necessary on Mr. Wayne's part due to the state of anarchy in Gotham City. However, Gotham was not in a state of anarchy. There was still an active government and police force. While the government may not have been adequately combating crime, Mr. Wayne still could have avoided vigilantism, an illegal activity [1]. With Mr. Wayne's considerable finances [2] and stealth capabilities [3], he could have pursued alternative methods of ensuring the apprehension of criminals. I will detail these alternatives later in my statement. 2: While there may have been failure by the government, this failure had not yet caused true lawlessness and disorder. The fact that there was still a police force for Mr. Wayne to subdue criminals for shows that the law still remained. I will show that there were alternative ways for Mr. Wayne to reduce Gotham's significant crime rate that did not require vigilantism. 3. While I acknowledge that Mr. Wayne did reduce the crime rate in Gotham City and that a less purehearted vigilante may have eventually emerged, Mr. Wayne is still a vigilante, meaning he is a lawbreaker by nature. Since he is a violent lawbreaker who has the alternative of nonviolence, his actions are inherently unjust. While the argument can be made that he was still acting righteously, I will prove that there were viable alternatives to Wayne's vigilantism and that his activities as "Batman" serve mostly as a method of carrying out his personal vendetta against Gotham's criminals. ----- Now for my own contentions: Contention 1: Batman is a vigilante; thus, by definition, his actions are in violation of the law. Thus, while he may have had benevolent intentions, he violates the very laws he is trying to uphold in his war against criminals. By hunting criminals, Mr. Wayne's actions show him to hold the law as a standard of what is just. By breaking the law, Batman himself violates his own standard of what is just. Batman's actions are justified neither by the law nor his own moral standards. Vigilantism is illegal for a reason: the government wishes for the police to combat crime rather than private citizens doing so. While Batman's actions were well-intentioned, they were not lawful. The only possible justification remaining is that they were the only way to prevent crime in Gotham from becoming worse. However, this supposed justification is invalid, as there were alternative ways for Mr. Wayne to prevent crime in Gotham, ways that did not involve violation of the law. Contention 2: Since there were alternative ways for Mr. Wayne to prevent or reduce crime in Gotham, his actions as Batman are not justified. As Batman, Mr. Wayne often assaulted criminals to apprehend them for police. However, Mr. Wayne was acting without legal sanction to do so. One may attempt to justify these actions by claiming they were the most viable and perhaps the only way to reduce crime in Gotham; however, this is untrue. Mr. Wayne is a master of stealth [3] and a billionaire [2]. With his stealth capabilities, Mr. Wayne could have obtained incriminating evidence against Gotham's various mobs and brought it to the District Attorney's office. This evidence could have been used to bring down the mobs in Gotham. Furthermore, Mr. Wayne could have used similar methods to out corrupt cops to Jim Gordon, Rachel Dawes, and Harvey Dent. Jim Gordon is a member of the Gotham Police Force [4], Rachel Dawes is an Assistant District Attorney [4], and Harvey Dent is a District Attorney [5]. These three are clearly in a position to fight the mobs and corruption in the police force. By using nonviolent methods to aid in the removal of corrupt police officers and to bring down the mob, Mr. Wayne could have reduced crime without using violence. Mr. Wayne could also have used his wealth as a weapon against crime in a number of ways, such as helping elect non-corrupt officials through donations, promoting the passage of certain laws, and funding various charity programs to "clean up" the city, such as by reducing the rate of homelessness. A decrease in homelessness would clearly lead to a decrease in crime, as well as the election of non-corrupt officials and the passage of laws. These methods are all perfectly viable and certainly more so than comandeering military technology [6] for vigilantism. The fact that there were nonviolent, more viable alternatives to the Batman's activities shows that Mr. Wayne's activities were not justified. Contention 3: Mr. Wayne's activities as the Batman are a way for him to carry out a personal vendetta against the criminal world. When Mr. Wayne was young, his parents were murdered before his eyes [7]. Their murders clearly impressed upon him a strong desire for vengeance against criminals, as shown by his plot to murder their killer [7]. While Batman traveled the world to study the criminal mind, he never overcame that vendetta against criminals. While he does not engage in murder of criminals, Batman still uses violence against them. The fact that there are nonviolent alternatives to this use of violence shows that Mr. Wayne's activities as the Batman allow him to carry out a vendetta against the criminals of Gotham. Though Mr. Wayne could use his wealth and training to prevent crime nonviolently, he instead uses his training and wealth for violence against criminals as a way to carry out his vendetta against them. The fact that Mr. Wayne chose violence as the Batman over nonviolence through the more viable methods I earlier described show that his actions lack both moral and legal justification. ----- To summarize the debate thus far: I have refuted all of my opponent's contentions and supplied three of my own. They are as follows: 1. Batman's activities are illegal, meaning they are not justified by the law. 2. There are more viable nonviolent alternatives to the violence Batman uses. 3. The fact that Batman chooses violence over more viable nonviolent methods means his actions lack both moral and legal justification. In conclusion, Batman's activities lack justification. Since none of my opponent's contentions stand and all of mine stand, I urge viewers to begin considering a CON vote. ----- I will end by thanking my opponent for this debate. ----- SOURCES: [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://dc.wikia.com...(Nolanverse) [3] http://dc.wikia.com...(Nolanverse)#Abilities [4] http://dc.wikia.com...(Movie)#Characters [5] http://dc.wikia.com...(Movie)#Plot [6] http://dc.wikia.com...(Nolanverse)#Trivia [7] http://dc.wikia.com...(Nolanverse)#Batman_Begins_Time_Fram