by Josef Steiff
So, Watson and Holmes have deep affection for each other, and their love is such that they each want the best for the other, even at their own expense. Yet, Aristotle’s account would have us conclude that the two cannot be true friends. How is this possible?
The problem, according to Aristotle’s account, is that he holds that true friends must be “equal in goodness.” He says, “Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves” (Nichomachean Ethics, Book VIII). Here is where we run into a problem for Watson and Holmes. Aristotle’s moral philosophy holds that “the Good” is a single, unified object, something that individuals can be more or less alike with regard to.
Aristotle thinks that true friends must be equally good, for if one friend is morally better than the other, the superior friend’s goodness will be diminished by spending time with the worse friend. This makes a lot of sense if you buy into Aristotle’s understanding of the way humans develop morally. Remember when your parents didn’t want you to hang out with the “wrong crowd”? That’s because Aristotle’s view, that we model our behavior on those around us, has been highly influential in Western thought and culture. If you have a “bad friend,” chances are, that friend is going to pull you down, and a friend who would corrupt you is no true friend at all.
Good for Me, Good for You
But wait a minute, you might be saying. Aren’t Holmes and Watson both good? Maybe, but they are certainly not both good in the same way. Aristotle’s account of morality holds that good people must conform to a particular model of virtue, and for him, the good of a friend is that the friend helps you to perfect yourself in a virtuous way. He explains that friends should serve as mirrors, allowing each other to see their moral flaws in a more objective way, so that they can work to correct them, constantly seeking to better themselves morally. But who’s the mirror to whom in the Holmes and Watson friendship? Should Watson try to be more like Holmes, or should Holmes strive to model himself on Watson? You might think that there’s no right answer—that neither should have the goal of becoming more like the other. The problem with trying to understand the way the relationship of Holmes and Watson fits into this account stems largely from the fact that the two men hold entirely different moral codes.
Aristotle was a moral naturalist. Moral naturalism holds that there are objectively right and wrong ways for human beings to behave, and that the standards of human behavior can be known through a scientific study of the kind of biological beings we are. Sometimes an individual might not realize what’s best for himself, but what is best for him is an objective fact, whether he knows it or not.
A moral naturalist would say that Watson is right to continually condemn Holmes’s cocaine habit, even though cocaine was not seen as a particularly objectionable substance at the time. Regardless of what individuals or society think, there are objective standards of behavior to which we ought to conform, and we behave immorally when we choose to behave differently. Good actions are those that promote human flourishing, and bad actions are those that thwart it. Cocaine use is wrong, on a naturalistic account, because it inhibits the body’s ability to flourish.
Some examples, like that of cocaine, make Aristotle’s account seem correct, but is there really always one clear answer regarding what is good for a human? We all need food, shelter, rest, and so forth, but what about all those values we disagree about? Is a life of physical exertion more valuable than a life of intellectual study? Does telling the truth always lead to human flourishing, or do we sometimes flourish better through the use of a selective white lie? Should humans try to promote their own goodness, or should we strive to maximize the social good? Many people, called moral pluralists, think there is no single right answer to questions regarding what is best for a human being.
If you hold that there are objective truths about morality, and that these truths are the same for everyone, regardless of their personal values and beliefs, Aristotle’s rule about friends needing to be equal with regard to goodness makes some sense. However, moral pluralists do not think that there’s one objective standard of the Good that is the same for everyone, and so it’s not necessary or even desirable to choose only friends who “match” you morally. Moral pluralists believe that there can be more than one moral code that a human could follow and live a good life, and just because I choose to follow one path, this does not mean that you must follow the same path.
What’s more, there are many possible “good lives,” and they are not the sorts of things that can be measured against each other, as there is not just one Good that applies to everyone, but rather there is “good for me” and “good for you.” “Good for Holmes” might include the ingestion of a hearty amount of lung blackening and mind-altering substances, while “good for Watson” would include fastidious dedication to the purity of his internal organs. A good human life involves attention to the many factors that feed into the overall best life for each of us. The pleasure Holmes derives from tobacco and cocaine is considerable, but Watson derives no such pleasure from these things. Watson experiences a good from his devotion to clean living that Holmes would experience merely as unpleasant deprivation. According to moral pluralism, there is no “good for humans,” but rather “good for this human” and “good for that human.”
Moral pluralists are likely to find Aristotle’s claim that friends must be equally good a little puzzling. After all, how can a plurality of goods be measured? Who’s better, the hearton-shirtsleeves physician sidekick, or the tough-as-nails loner detective? Are you a better person if you work within the law, allowing many guilty people to go free, or outside of it, using methods that allow you to bring more criminals to justice? Is it better to adhere to an unbreakable code of conduct, or to hold that good ends justify questionable means?
Because moral pluralists say there is no single answer to these questions, and that most of the answers will depend on the particular values and preferences of the individual moral agents involved in the business of living their lives, we often can’t tell whether those who live according to differing moral codes are “better” or “worse”—in fact, there might not even be an answer. Holmes might sleep very well at night knowing he spent his day deceiving and manipulating innocent people, because at the end of it all a criminal is behind bars, and those he harmed are at peace. Watson’s more reverent attitude toward the law means some of the methods acceptable to Holmes are unacceptable to Watson.
Sometimes, differences in moral codes determine whether two individuals will become or be interested in or able to maintain a friendship. For example, James Moriarty’s values are so much at odds with Holmes’s that it seems unlikely that the two could ever be friends. Mutual affection cannot shine through a complete revulsion for the other person’s life goals and projects. Even so, it is not typically the case that friends’ moral codes exactly line up. Many of us probably count among our friends someone whom we think goes wrong on at least one moral point. Given this, we are left with an interesting question. How ought we to respond when our friends profess and enact values that are different from our own?
An Act of Persuasian
One option is to be a proselytizing friend—to try to persuade your friend to adopt your own values. This approach is tempting, as most people who have given careful thought to their moral code think is the best path to follow, otherwise, they wouldn’t accept it themselves. Thus, having come to this wisdom, a person might feel the need to share it with those he cares about.
This is the approach that Watson accepts. Not only does he reject the ingestion of cocaine into his own body, he does his best to talk Holmes out of using it as well. Watson complains when he thinks Holmes is behaving inappropriately, judging him with the familiar refrain, “Surely you have gone too far!” The proselytizing friend sees himself as looking out for the best interests of his friend. He’s interested in helping him develop and act in acc
ordance with what he sees as the “right” moral code. Although he recognizes differences between his friend’s values and his own, the proselytizing friend deems his own values to be superior to his friend’s, at least with regard to some matters (the ones he proselytizes about). This model of friendship seems to be about helping those you care about to make moral progress, but this progress must be on the proselytizer’s own terms.
Recognizing the Difference
In contrast to proselytizing friends, some friends recognize differences between their own values and the values of their friends, but do not seek to modify the friend’s values to match their own. While the proselytizing friend sees himself as helping his friend recognize the error of his current way of thinking, this type of friend, which I will call “integrity-promoting,” is interested in helping his friend live up to his own moral code. This sort of friend demonstrates a great deal of humility, as he does not assume that he has all of morality figured out. This friend, though living according to an alternative moral code, does not suppose that his code is necessarily superior to that of his friends.
What’s important to the integrity-promoting friend is that he and his friend are internally consistent and that they live lives of integrity. Internal consistency means not endorsing contradictory moral beliefs (beliefs that cannot possibly both be true), such as believing that homosexual behavior is an abomination because it says so in Leviticus and every word of the Bible is God’s law to be followed explicitly, but also believing there is nothing wrong with eating a bacon cheeseburger (which double-violates the dietary laws laid out in Leviticus). Those striving to be internally consistent, while they might not think there is one right answer to how one ought to live, think they should modify their belief set when it turns out to be self-contradictory, as contradictory beliefs means at least one of them is necessarily wrong. Internal consistency, then, is to be valued because it helps us eliminate false beliefs and get closer to truth.
Integrity means living in accordance with your own belief system. People who lack integrity are those who act against their moral code—they believe one thing but do another. It seems that this is just what the proselytizing friend is asking us to do, and this is just what the integrity-promoting friend encourages us not to do. Now, the proselytizing friend will probably protest that he doesn’t want you to act against your own belief system, but rather that he wants you to modify your belief system so that it’s more like his. Maybe so, but it is likely that he would take as a second choice that you merely modify your actions, if you can’t manage to modify your beliefs. Let’s think about Watson again for a minute—surely his first choice would be for Holmes to adopt his belief that he ought not ingest cocaine. However, since it seems Holmes simply will not be brought around to this belief (given Watson has been hounding him for years), certainly Watson prefers that Holmes merely act against his own belief system and in accordance with Watson’s, and lay off the drug. This lends further support to the thesis that Watson is a proselytizing friend.
Holmes, on the other hand, is concerned to help Watson stick to his own moral code, even when his beliefs don’t match Holmes’s. In “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton,” Holmes strives to convince Watson to stay home while Holmes breaks into Milverton’s house to steal the letters he is using to blackmail a woman. Holmes almost certainly wants Watson to accompany him and provide back up on this dangerous excursion—this would be in Holmes’s own best interest. Yet, he urges Watson not to accompany him, because Watson has already voiced his belief that the act of breaking and entering is wrong and ought not be done. Rather than pressure Watson to conform to Holmes’s moral code, Holmes actually pressures Watson to stick to his own code! This is what an integrity-promoting friend does.
Despite Holmes’s urging, however, Watson repeatedly violates his own moral code in the name of friendship. He thinks breaking into the house is wrong, but scampers along after Holmes anyway. He thinks Holmes’s cocaine habit is wrong, but enables him by providing care when the drug gets the better of him. These actions suggest that Watson, despite his friend’s efforts, lacks integrity. He puts friendship ahead of morality, and asks Holmes to do the same. This is characteristic of a proselytizing friend, and antithetical to the integrity-promoting friend, who feels that, rather than friendship getting in the way of one’s efforts to behave morally, part of the responsibility of friendship is to help each other maximize their own conception of moral goodness. While Watson clearly thinks these two values come into conflict, and require a choice, Holmes doesn’t see it this way. In respecting Watson’s opposing moral code, Holmes recognizes that this means he and Watson will not always engage in the same behaviors, and he feels that part of being a good friend involves not asking your friend to act against his own conscious.
The Best Kind of Friend
Although Watson is a loyal and loving friend, Holmes provides us with a better model of friendship. He demonstrates a respect for Watson that Watson doesn’t return. A person who helps his friend become the kind of person he wants to be is better than one who tries to make his friend over into the kind of person he thinks he should be. The proselytizing friend assumes an attitude of moral superiority that is actually quite demeaning, even though it is done with a spirit of goodwill. The Watson model of friendship assumes a friend who follows an alternative moral code cannot possibly know what is best for himself, and thus seeks, out of love, to “fix” his behavior. Holmesian friendship respects the friend’s ability to choose the best life for himself, and works to help him stay on that path when challenges come his way. Holmes’s interactions with Watson throughout Doyle’s stories provides us with a powerful model of respectful and integrity-promoting friendship.
Chapter 14
Out of House and Holmes
Julia Round
When Lord Robert Baden-Powell launched the British Boy Scout movement with his book Scouting for Boys (1908), he advised scoutmasters to demonstrate “Sherlock-Holmesism” and to use examples from Conan Doyle’s stories as puzzles for their boys to solve.
Holmes’s rationality, logic and comradeship with Dr. Watson are masculine traits that helped set the pattern for masculinity at the start of the twentieth century. But how would Holmes fare in today’s society?
The American television series House pays homage to Holmes in various ways, not least through its antisocial, drug-taking lead character—but has also made significant changes. What does this tell us about the changes that have taken place over the past century?
Model of Perfection
Victorian masculinity was strongly associated with rationality, logical thought, and a lack of emotion. Although Holmes is not a scientist, he’s introduced to the reader in a scientific laboratory and chapters called “The Science of Deduction” appear in both A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four. Holmes also uses the logic and language of medicine—for example when finding a key clue he says: “It confirms my diagnosis” (The Sign of the Four). He claims that his theories “are really extremely practical—so practical that I depend on them for my bread and cheese” (A Study in Scarlet). Defining his intellectual activity as everyday work also emphasises his masculinity.
Logic and rationality form the basis of Sherlock’s thought processes, and are emphasised throughout the stories. In The Sign of the Four, Holmes claims he values “true, cold reason . . . above all things.” Watson describes his friend’s mind in “A Scandal in Bohemia” as “cold, precise but admirably balanced” and Holmes as “The most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has ever seen”—in fact their mutual friend Stamford says he is even “a little too scientific for my tastes—it approaches cold-bloodedness” (A Study in Scarlet).
Sherlock Holmes is a man of science and reason; the perfect model of Victorian masculinity. Or is he? Did such a model ever really exist?
The Essential Man
The nineteenth century was marked by a “crisis of masculinity” in society. The industrial r
evolution had affected men’s lives more than any other change in history by moving work outside the home. This reduced contact between boys and men, challenging patriarchy, which should have provided more diverse options for male behavior. But in fact this meant that men of all classes stubbornly clung to basic notions of what a “real man” should be, with what Peter Stearns (in Be a Man!) describes as a “self-conscious assertiveness.” So Baden-Powell could endorse the Holmes tales because they confirm qualities associated with the masculine: “observation, rationalism, factuality, logic, comradeship, daring and pluck.”
Asserting set male characteristics in this way is a clear example of essentialist masculinity. Essentialism is the idea that everything can be precisely defined and described, and that each thing has a set of characteristics or properties that all things of that kind must possess. So, there are set characteristics of being “male” that all men will possess, regardless of their particular situation or personality type; equally there is an inherent “Englishness” that can be defined.
But this idea is difficult to reconcile with Victorian masculinity, which (despite the simplistic definition offered above) was a troubled concept, for instance regarding class, sexuality, and nationality. The accepted general view is of the bloodless and repressed Victorian man, cultured and upper-class; and the working-class proletariat, illiterate and often dishonest, who lived in abject poverty. But both types are only a half-story. The upper classes were not all repressed sophisticates; the lower classes were not all thieves and drunks.