Jim wrote:
"And while he may not cite any specific theologicial or
philosophical standard to support his position, the way he
expresses himself ("When a man's partner is killed, he's
supposed to do something about it.") suggests that he
believes not only that he's doing what he's supposed to be
doing, but that he's doing what he believes is EXPECTED of
him. So, by extension, he must believe that some larger
philosophical standard, or at least some societal
expectation, undergirds his position, even if he's not
capable of expressing it."
Spade is quite capable of expressing exactly why he turns
Brigid over. That's not the whole speech. "Supposed to" is
only the first on a long list of reasons, followed by:
"Then it happens we were in the detective business. Well,
when one of your organization gets killed it's bad business
to let the killer get away with it."
As has already been mentioned, that's professionalism. I
suppose it could be argued that he's bowing to societal
expectations here, but only due to simple economic
self-interest.
"It's bad all around -- bad for that one organization, bad
for every detective everywhere."
Okay, there he recognizes a reason beyond himself, but it's
still professionalism, based at least as much on materialism
as morality.
"Third, I'm a detective and expecting me to run criminals
down and then let them go free is like asking a dog to catch
a rabbit and let it go."
Definitely essentialism, if not existentialism.
"Fourth, no matter what I wanted to do now it would be
absolutely impossible for me to let you go without having
myself dragged to the gallows with the others."
Practical self-preservation -- recognizing social
consequences and acting on that knowledge is not the same as
morality.
"Next, I've no reason in God's world to think I can trust you
and if I did this and got away with it you'd have something
on me that you could use whenever you happened to want to.
That's five of them. The sixth would be that, since I've got
something on you, I couldn't be sure you wouldn't decide to
shoot a hole in me some day."
Very practical concerns based on self interest.
"Seventh, I don't even like the idea of thinking that there
might be one chance in a hundred that you'd played me or a
sucker. And eighth -- but that's enough."
Self-image, no one would know but the two of them.
"All those on one side. Maybe some of them are unimportant. I
won't argue about that. But look at the number of
them."
That is a whole lot of reasons, and "Because it's right" is
not one of them.
"Now on the other side we've got what? All we've got is the
fact that maybe you love me and maybe I love you."
I love that "the fact that maybe." Spade does not trade in
abstracts like love, truth and morality.
Mark
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