The Philosophy of Sherlock Holmes

Passionate Objectivity in Sherlock Holmes

133 Passionate Objectivity in Sherlock Holmes Charles Taliaferro and Michel Le Gall The detective novel as we now know it has its origins in the nineteenth century . It was very much a phenomenon contemporary with the dissemination of Auguste Comte’s (1758–1857) positivist philosophy, a rigorously scientific approach to problem solving.1 Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49)—one of several authors heralded as the creator of the detective novel—was himself both taken with and skeptical of the powers of reason. In his short essay “Instinct vs. Reason—A Black Cat,” Poe remarked, “The leading distinction between instinct and reason seems to be, that, while the one is infinitely more exact, the more certain, and the more far-seeing in its sphere of action—the sphere of action in the other is of the far wider extent.”2 Put simply, reason has its limits, while instinct is less limited in the range of its application. This debate that Poe initiated—which carries on in the opening paragraphs of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”—finds more than a counterpart or counterpoint in the stories of Sherlock Holmes. In fact, Conan Doyle both advances and elaborates this debate to encompass a broader ethical challenge. What is more important when making an ethical decision: to be analytical, impartial, cool, and dispassionate, or to be passionate and emotionally engaged with and committed to those about whom you care most? In ethical theory today, there is a clear clash between those who maintain that resolving an ethical question or dilemma requires a vigorous impartial point of view (let’s be detached and unbiased) and those who support particular loyalties (let’s first support those we love and then think about others) while holding that such loyalties are not necessarily in conflict with ethical decision making. At first meeting, Sherlock Holmes with his devotion to logic seems to be in the first camp, as evidenced by a newspaper article 134 Charles Taliaferro and Michel Le Gall he wrote and the conclusions of which Dr. Watson described in A Study in Scarlet as “infallible as so many propositions of Euclid.”3 Nevertheless, there are some hints that Holmes may have taken up a philosophically interesting andnonethelessrigorousanduncompromisingmiddlegroundinthisdebate. The Objectivity of Mr. Holmes In The Sign of Four, Holmes sets out his methodology of detection, which often starkly contrasts with Watson’s accounts and analyses of Holmes’s cases. Watson portrays detection in a way that is (for Holmes) too suffused with romance and emotion. Holmes’s cool-headed approach to inquiry seems to go along with his narrowly chosen fields of interest and his solitary lifestyle. In social terms, too, Holmes seems to be just short of the perfect hermit who occasionally makes his way into society to procure the necessities of life and at his discretion to solve baffling crimes. As we know clearly from Watson’s testimony, Holmes does not cultivate a wide scope of friends, nor does he seek out female companionship and courtship—though he does find some female clients interesting, in a somewhat detached fashion. Sir Conan Doyle once said, “Holmes is as inhuman as a Babbage calculating machine and just as likely to fall in love.”4 Holmes is explicit about and conscious of the need to avoid particular commitments or relationships interfering with his reasoning. In The Sign of Four, Holmes maintains that it is of the first importance, not to allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities. A client is to me a mere unit—a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellant man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.5 The context for Sherlock’s analysis here is his denial of having observed the attractiveness of Miss Mary Morstan. Watson understandably thinks it’s a bit inhuman of Sherlock to be so detached and impartial, perhaps especially because Holmes had just cast in such callous and cold, impersonal terms the woman Watson would end up marrying. Watson, in contrast with Holmes, wished to indulge his thoughts about “her smiles,” “the deep rich tones of Passionate Objectivity in Sherlock Holmes 135 her voice,” her sweet and amiable expression, and her...