Batman Begins: The Philosophy of Ra's al Ghul

True Justice (according to Ra's al Ghul)

Ra's al Ghul refers to True Justice in a Retributive sense. 

Retributive Justice states that the right response to crime is to punish the person who committed the crime, normally with a severity that is proportional to the severity of the crime committed. To complete his initiation into the League of Shadows, Bruce Wayne is asked by Ra's al Ghul to murder a murderer.

The reasoning behind Retributive Justice might include a conception of Justice as “balance” (al Ghul 2005). Justice, in this sense, could be likened to Newton's Third Law of Motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

It could also be said that in the same way Newton's Third Law is understood as a universal Physical Law determining the interaction between physical objects, the principle of Retribution could be understood as a universal Moral Law determining the requisite response to immoral behaviour. This appeal to a universal moral Law is rooted in a form of reasoning called Deontology.

Retribution usually includes the concept of moral desert. Those who commit an act of immorality deserve to suffer a corresponding punishment. The implication here is that the individual who committed the criminal act is exclusively responsible for that act. It is the criminal alone who rightfully receives retribution as it is the criminal alone who is to blame. 

However, al Ghul appears to contradict this:

Here, al Ghul asserts that Bruce Wayne's father was responsible for his parent's murder. This could be suggesting that the person who committed the act of murdering Bruce Wayne's parents is actually without blame and that it is the victims responsibility to prevent another individual performing an act of crime against them. However, al Ghul's philosophy does not automatically contradict.

It could be argued that the individual has both a responsibility to not carry out a crime and to not allow a crime to be carried out against them. In the example of the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents, al Ghul does not deny that the murderer himself deserves to be murdered. However, Bruce Wayne's father simultaneously deserves to be murdered precisely because he did not prevent himself from being murdered. 

In the example of Person A stealing an item from Person B, perhaps Person A deserves a corresponding punishment, for example something of similar value to be stolen from them, but Person B does not deserve to have the stolen item returned to them as they allowed Person A to steal it from them. However does this logic hold up if Person B was not in the proximity at the time in which the item was stolen?

Looking at al Ghul's example, if Person X is murdered, they deserve to have been murdered and have therefore received what they deserve (and the murderer, Person Y, also deserves to be murdered). It follows then that if Person X successfully prevents themselves from being murdered then they deserve to remain alive, however what about Person Y who still intended to murder Person X? Does Person Y deserve punishment or not?

Al Ghul claims that when it comes to preventing a crime, “training is nothing, will is everything”. The concept of Bruce's father possessing the will to actively prevent his own murder could be read as being rooted in Metaphysical Libertarianism which states that free will can override physical causality. Al Ghul however could be referring only to the specific case. Bruce's father, being an able bodied man, possibly physically, mentally and intellectually stronger than his opponent, should have possessed “the will" to actively and successfully disable his opponent. Given Bruce's father's physiology, he is consequently responsible for the crime.

Ra's al Ghul extends the concept of Victim Responsibility beyond The Individual to that of Society, or The City – The City is responsible for its own acts of criminality carried out by individuals or institutions within that city against individuals or institutions within that city. 

When talking about crime on a society-wide level, Ra's al Ghul acknowledges the existence of institutional crime in the form of corruption and decadence:

“The League of Shadows has been a check against human corruption for thousands of years. We sacked Rome. Loaded trade ships with plague rats. Burned London to the ground. Every time a civilization reaches the pinnacle of its decadence we return to restore the balance” (al Ghul 2005).

The function of the League of Shadows is to exercise Retributive Justice on a Society-wide scale. Punishment is to be carried out on any Society that in itself could be called a Criminal entity. Ra's al Ghul maintains that like other cities before it, Gotham “has become a breeding ground for suffering and injustice. It is beyond saving and must be allowed to die”. Gotham has been morally destroying itself and therefore its punishment is to be physically “destroyed”.

If the punishment is directed at society in its entirety this implies that all members of society are responsible for society's criminality, all members of society are responsible for ensuring that crime, including institutional crime, is not perpetrated or perpetuated. If crime takes root in their society, all individuals, whether villain or victim, are equally guilty.

The underlying implication in al Ghul's argument is that individual consciousnesses can transcend their bio-psycho-socio-economic-historical situations and simply will themselves to stop criminality from occurring or continuing. Ra's al Ghul's philosophy could therefore be conclusively characterised as Libertarian in the metaphysical sense, pertaining to the idea that nothing is determined and free “will is everything”. The exception to this of course would be morality itself and the moral Laws that determine behaviour, however it would be, according to al Ghul, within the individual's power to choose to prescribe to those Laws or not.