In simple words, philosophy of The Dark Knight is based on : “Society functions on lies and deception”. Joker and most of the “good” characters in this film frequently keep lying and hide information from each other. Joker manipulates people by telling lies about how he got his scars and deceives Batman by telling the wrong location of Rachel. Gordon hides the identity of his “friend” when he first meets Harvey Dent. Harvey Dent lies claiming that he is behind the mask of Batman. Further, Gordon stages his own death and Joker keeps on deceiving people with his tricks. However, the biggest and most important of them all is the one told by Batman - taking the blame for Harvey’s killings. He believed it was necessary for an authority figure to lie to maintain people’s trust in the system. In his heroic voice, he address Gordon “You’ll hunt me. You’ll condemn me, set the dogs on me. Because that’s what needs to happen. Because sometimes…the truth isn’t good enough. Sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded”. As Vinit Masram explains in his analysis[1], this philosophy resembles A Noble Lie - a lie knowingly propagated by an elite to maintain social harmony or to advance an agenda - which was coined by Plato in The Republic. Plato believed societies thrive on a belief system and whether that belief system is true or false is irrelevant. Gordon supports and propagates Batman’s lie because he believes that a stable society doesn’t necessarily need a foundation of a truth. Turns out this philosophy works very well. It leads to The Dent Act which gets passed after the death of Harvey Dent and wipes out the organized crime , until Bane walks outside the Blackgate Prison and exposes the truth in The Dark Knight Rises.

References:

  1. The Dark Knight | Nolan’s Republic ↩︎