Batman: Detective, Martial Artist, and Pragmatist? No really! It's true! This character is the penultimate pragmatist in fiction. Batman is a character that makes mistakes like you or I do, yet manages to stay true to his life's goal of eradicating crime. Pragmatism is defined as : "character or conduct that emphasizes practicality," or "a philosophical movement or system having various forms, but generally stressing practical consequences as constituting the essential criterion in determining meaning, truth, or value." http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pragmatism Batman is at his simplest: a man that fights crime. He is on a one-man crusade to eliminate criminals to prevent tragedy and injustice in the world. Batman is pragmatism defined.
Though he is a very driven man, he makes mistakes and pays for those mistakes dearly. Batman prides himself as the world's greatest detective and has honed his intellect to incredible levels in order to combat and eliminate threats as they happen. Batman is also a highly-trained martial artist, the pinnacle of human strength and fighting ability. Through years of pushing his body to the physical and mental limits, he has become the ultimate human being. This fills the definition of "practical consequences determining meaning, truth and value." Though he uses his considerable wealth and power to achieve these means, he is still an ordinary man pushing his superhuman intellect and physical prowess to their limits to succeed.
This determined nature also proves to be his undoing on many occasions as well. This is most evident in the 1980's story line A Death in the Family. Batman is vehemently against his partner's (Jason Todd) desire to discover his birth-mother, but is distracted with The Joker's (Batman's arch-rival) criminal empire reaching the Middle East. The two divergent plot threads intersect as Batman discovers that Jason has been set up by his two-timing birth-mother and captured by The Joker. He is left for dead with a time-bomb ticking ever closer to detonation, only for Batman to arrive too late to save his apprentice. Batman's driven nature is the main reason why Jason dies, and from this point forward, Batman becomes an even more focused detective, albeit more damaged as a result. The "practical consequences" in this sense have a marked and profound change in how Batman operates, and it is many years until a third apprentice, Tim Drake, will be accepted as Batman's partner when he accepts the lesson of Jason's death after learning it's "truth, meaning and value." http://www.comicvine.com/batman-a-death-in-the-family-batman-a-death-in-the-family/37-148619/
This character, like many others in long-form narratives, has profoundly deep emotions that define his humanity. The caveat to this character is that tragedy defines Batman. His campaign to eliminate crime, bring about justice and prevent tragedy defines his pragmatic nature. Christopher Nolan, the recent director of Batman Begins, and The Dark Knight, had this to say about the character and his humanity: "We did not want his quest to be for vengeance, we wanted it to be for justice. That’s what sends him looking for an outlet for his rage and frustration. What he chooses to do with it is, I believe, selfless, and therefore, heroic. And that, to me, is really the distinction—selfishness versus selflessness—and that is very noble. But it is a very fine distinction. Because Batman is limited by being an ordinary man, there’s a constant tension between pragmatism and idealism." http://www.scottholleran.com/interviews/christopher-nolan.htm
Batman is only an ordinary man, but a man at his physical and mental peak. Being such a driven man has it's consequences, but his true strength is the ability to learn from these mistakes. The world's greatest detective can handle nearly any situation using careful planning, while reflecting on previous wrongdoings to continue his quest to seek justice and eliminate crime. Batman is the ultimate pragmatist of comic book fiction.
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