Christopher Nolan’s Joker as a Consistent Naturalist (And That’s Still a Bad Thing)

In this article, we discuss C. S. Lewis’s description, and critique, of metaphysical naturalism, and apply this to our reading of the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. We argue that Nolan’s Joker is the most ethically consistent type of naturalist, and that this makes his ethical positio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Religions
Authors: Barkman, Adam 1979- (Author) ; Korvemaker, Aaron (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: MDPI 2023
In: Religions
Year: 2023, Volume: 14, Issue: 12
Further subjects:B Ethics
B Christopher Nolan
B The Dark Knight
B Supernaturalism
B Miracles
B Joker
B Batman
B Sam Harris
B Naturalism
B C. S. Lewis
B Elizabeth Anderson
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Description
Summary:In this article, we discuss C. S. Lewis’s description, and critique, of metaphysical naturalism, and apply this to our reading of the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. We argue that Nolan’s Joker is the most ethically consistent type of naturalist, and that this makes his ethical position at once more praiseworthy than that of numerous naturalistic moral thinkers, such as Sam Harris, insofar as it is consistent, and yet blameworthy in that other naturalistic ethicists, inconsistent though they may be, at least, reasonably, assume a kind of objective morality via implicit supernaturalist assumptions about “right” and “wrong”.
ISSN:2077-1444
Contains:Enthalten in: Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.3390/rel14121535