Reference no: EM132407294

This question is based on the "Ferry Dilemma", from Christopher Nolan's, "The Dark Knight".

A quick re-cap: The Joker has been managed to force Gotham authorities to load two ferries - one with citizens, the other with criminals. While in the water we see that the Joker has rigged each ferry with explosives and given the detonators to each boat. The detonators, we are told, are linked to the other boat's explosives. Each boat has until midnight to detonate the other ship's ordnance or BOTH ferries will be destroyed.

Each ferry has to make a choice: kill or be killed - confess or stay silent. And the clock is ticking.

*SPOILER* Of course, neither ferry is able to carry through with the deed and both detonators are left un-activated.

However, according to the Dilemma, each ferry must still pay a price - there are no free rides once you are forced into this position. What price is it that the people on each ferry have to pay? Perhaps the price is living with the uncomfortable knowledge that you considered confessing - killing - to save your own life. 

What is critical to the point of The Dark Knight is the role that this dilemma plays in the strengthening of community (indeed, human) bonds that maintain the denizens of Gotham. 

"The likelihood of defection in a population may be reduced by the experience of cooperation in earlier games allowing trust to build up. Hence self-sacrificing behavior may, in some instances, strengthen the moral fibre of a group. If the group is small the positive behaviour is more likely to feed back in a mutually affirming way, encouraging individuals within that group to continue to cooperate."

On top of the already difficult situation the Joker put the ferry passengers in, they cannot be sure whether the Joker himself will adhere to the rules he set up. This turns the situation into a Bayesian game where decision makers on both ferries need to form expectations not just about the action which will be taken by the other ferry, but also the probability with which the Joker will follow through on his promise to set free one ferry which blows up the other or to destroy both ferries if neither detonates the other.

• What would you do if you were on the civilian ferry?
• What could make you change your mind?
• Do you think that the majority of people on your ferry would agree with you?
• How would your answers to the above change if you were on the prisoner ferry?