Sherlock Holmes and Philosophy Part 5

"Ah yes. Let us call it 'A Scandal in Lanka'."

"Let us. You will recall in the story, Rama is set to become king of Ayodhya in northeast India. Before this happens however, his wife Sita is kidnapped by a mysterious man disguised as an ascetic."

"As with the Bohemian gentleman, Holmes might have deduced this masked man was the king of Lanka in the south of India."

"For the bulk of the story, Rama forges his way southward through the forests of the subcontinent. On the way he forms alliances with forest dwellers to battle an array of demons and evil doers, all the while gathering clues as to the whereabouts of his beloved Sita. Throughout the story, Rama is portrayed as the representation of order in the world. Indeed he is the very incarnation of order, the manifestation of the supreme G.o.d Vishnu, although he forgets this for most of the epic. After a year of subduing the non-Vaishnavites of south India, spreading wide what is represented as righteous social stratification in gender and caste . . ."

"This is generally termed imperialism."

". . . he discovers where Sita is being held. In the climactic battle, Rama kills Ravana and regains Sita. The story ends not there however. After their return to the north and subsequent coronation, the people of Ayodhya begin to wonder if Sita was not raped or, what is apparently worse, if she had willingly succ.u.mbed to Ravana's charms. After all, she was with him for over a year."

"I suppose succ.u.mbing to his charms means she became attracted to chaos or at least came to reject certain aspects deemed essential to civilization."

"You have hit directly upon the matter. The danger faced by Rama, Sita and all of us according to the Ramayana and the Bhagavad Gita, is adharma, the violation of dharma or righteous duty. The motivating factor in the story is the maintenance of cosmic order. It is for this the sacrificer keeps his fire ablaze, the warrior battles even faced with defeat, the householder reproduces society, all for fear of chaos courted by the renunciate, Ravana and the long-haired ones."

"I now believe your snuff box to be of Lankan design. A reward advance for the present cultural dissemination I surmise. And what of Sita?"

"When Rama asks her of her trials she denies being touched. But the people are not convinced. Rama asks Agni, fire, to test her. Sita is insulted but walks through fire thereby receiving Agni's testimony on her behalf. Yet Rama and his subjects persist in conventional, civilized cruelty and Rama finally casts out his queen. This tragic event is considered the utmost sacrifice for the sake of social order."

"It is also punis.h.i.+ng the victim, is it not? Which is truly more dangerous, ruling with truth or by upholding a lie to placate subjects? It is a strange application of deontology indeed, this strict adherence to rules at the expense of breaking a few."

"An alternate outcome to the story appears in the recent Hindi film adaptation called Raavan. The film features two glamorous stars, Aishwarya Rai as a Sita character named Ragini and her real-life husband Abhishek Bachchan as the Ravana persona named Beera, meaning Brave. In the film, Dev, a modern police detective whose name means G.o.d, reminding us of Rama, investigates his wife's kidnapping. This leads him to south India and the criminal Beera he has indicted before. Beera has kidnapped Dev's wife to show the injustices of the detective past and present, charging that Dev only persecutes south Indians because they are poor and uneducated. As time goes on, Ragini comes to realize the truth in this and sees that her husband's obsession with Beera is stronger than his desire for her release. As in the Ramayana, once his wife is returned, the detective questions her fidelity and rejects her. But here Ragini returns to Beera. Dev then kills Beera even as Ravana is killed. Again, conventional social order triumphs. But in this case the outsider dies with a smile, the ideological winner for having gained both the love of Ragini and the audience."

"What of Holmes, then? Does he plummet at Reichenbach Falls with a smile on his face? And, if he does, is it because he has enforced order in society, or because Moriarty's defeat is also a defeat of the ideology that those who are 'respectable' are in fact deserving of respect?"

"Ah, but my dear Doctor Wittkower, you have all the evidence you need to form the proper conclusion, and if I spell everything out for you, we both shall find it so painfully dull!"

Chapter 9.

I Suppose I Shall Have to Compound a Felony as Usual.

Mihaela Frunz and Anatolia Bessemer.

HOLMES: You don't mind breaking the law?

WATSON: Not in the least.

HOLMES: Nor running a chance of arrest?

WATSON: Not in a good cause.

HOLMES: Oh, the cause is excellent!

-"A Scandal in Bohemia"

Sherlock Holmes is a much better detective than the best of Scotland Yard. So it's no surprise that Holmes has scant respect for their investigative abilities. As he caustically remarks in The Sign of the Four, "When Gregson, or Lestrade, or Athelney Jones are out of their depth-which, by the way, is their normal state . . ."

But not only does Holmes deride the official law enforcers' a.n.a.lytic skills, he also feels free to over-ride the typical policeman's sense of justice, and even to go against the law itself. Holmes often commits crimes and gets away with it. He freely engages in fraudulent deception, breaking and entering, or suppression of evidence, whenever he believes that "the cause is excellent."

When he pretends to be an innocent clergyman in order to trace the disputed memento of a royal personage ("A Scandal in Bohemia") he clearly misleads his victims in order to induce them to show what they are trying to hide. (In this case it is Holmes's client who has done wrong, not the woman, Irene Adler.) Occasionally, he commits trespa.s.s on property ("The Greek Interpreter") in order to accomplish his detective work. Sometimes he fools the authorities in order to protect a lady against a ruined reputation ("The Adventure of the Second Stain"). He has even been known to let persons guilty of a serious crime get off scott-free (most notably in "The Adventure of the Abbey Grange" but also in "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" and "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot").

By contrast with Holmes, the police seem to always want to stick to the letter of the law. "Now, gentlemen," says Lestrade, "the forms of the law must be complied with . . ." (A Study in Scarlet). The police in the Holmes canon are dull-witted but honest; we never see them planting evidence or deliberately twisting an investigation to arrive at a particular outcome.

Occasionally the police will indulge Holmes and Watson by permitting something strictly irregular (though not seriously unlawful), as when Athelney Jones in The Sign of the Four, permits Watson, at Holmes's suggestion, to bring the supposed Agra treasure to Miss Mary Morstan. But much of what Holmes decides to do is never brought to the attention of the police, because he is so much better at concealing crime than they are at finding it.

Whose Justice?

When someone decides to put their own sense of justice above the law, how can we adjudicate? If we may sometimes flout the law, what court of appeal can decide when this is right and when it's wrong?

The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has proposed in his book Whose Justice? Which Rationality? that modern man has lost any common sense of justice. There is no longer a universal tradition which everyone respects, so appeals to justice tend to become mere camouflage for pursuit of self-interest or groupinterest. Conflicts between different conceptions of justice seem to be beyond the reach of any judicial verdict.

There is no standing ground, no place for enquiry, no way to engage in the practices of advancing, evaluating, accepting, and rejecting reasoned argument apart from that which is provided by some particular tradition or other. (Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, p. 350) MacIntyre's solution to the problem is, not to recapture an all-embracing theory of justice, but to understand each separate tradition of justice. MacIntyre tells us that a diversity of perspectives on justice is not necessarily a bad thing. It is rather the normal way of being. It is not only natural and normal to have many views on justice, those views may be incompatible because they are justified by a certain way of reasoning. And this very habit of reasoning is different from one category of persons to another, and even from person to person.

The Holmes Tradition.

But to which tradition does Sherlock Holmes belong? We could link him with the tradition of late-nineteen-century England. But we could also place him in the tradition of fictional private detectives, who have always worked around the law when it suited their own sense of morality.

Holmes has predecessors (Poe's Auguste Dupin) and famous successors (Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot). These characters and many others belong to the same tradition because they all contribute to a peculiar, independent way of accomplis.h.i.+ng justice: not by relying on the tools of external law and its police officers, but by relying on their own logical and physical powers Holmes claims that "from a drop of water, a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or Niagara without having seen or heard of them" (A Study in Scarlet). The image of the exceptional, almost magical detective has become an icon of the mystery story.

What these fictional characters also share is their pa.s.sionate commitment to their work. Although both Holmes and Poirot end up by supporting themselves financially from their hobby (Dupin was an aristocrat), they would do this job even in the absence of a material reward, for the sheer pleasure of doing it. This places them in opposition to the police detectives, who are only doing their job, and are not always motivated by an inner impetus. In exchange for a salary, they agree to follow the rules. Hence, different social and economic situations generate divergent traditions.

Holmes's Law.

While prepared to disobey the law, Holmes also often thinks of himself as an instrument of the law, and always as an instrument of justice.

In "The Adventure of Shos...o...b.. Old Place," Holmes coldly informs the baronet Sir Robert Norberton that "my business is that of every other good citizen-to uphold the law." And after he has heard the baronet's explanation and is somewhat more sympathetic, he still insists that "the matter must, of course, be referred to the police," even though Norberton did not kill his aged sister, but merely concealed her death for a few weeks.

The story which gives us the most detailed insight into Holmes's sense of justice is "The Adventure of the Abbey Grange." Here we have Holmes's clear statement that he regrets having brought some criminals to justice, that it is his conscience which induces him to flout the law, and that this conscience is basically utilitarian: "No, I couldn't do it, Watson," said he, as we re-entered our room. "Once that warrant was made out, nothing on earth would save him. Once or twice in my career I feel that I have done more real harm by my discovery of the criminal than ever he had done by his crime. I have learned caution now, and I had rather play tricks with the law of England than with my own conscience."

Holmes gives the official detective Hopkins a vital piece of evidence, but holds back from helping him any further, to put the police on the track of the resourceful killer. Holmes explains to Watson: "You must look at it this way: what I know is unofficial, what he [Hopkins] knows is official. I have the right to private judgment, but he has none. He must disclose all, or he is a traitor to his service. In a doubtful case I would not put him in so painful a position, and so I reserve my information until my own mind is clear upon the matter."

And having finally confronted the guilty man, Captain Croker, Holmes gives him a trick question, which the forthright Captain answers with a splendid display of chivalrous honor. Holmes decides to let him off because he's a decent fellow at heart: "I was only testing you, and you ring true every time. Well, it is a great responsibility that I take upon myself, but I have given Hopkins an excellent hint and if he can't avail himself of it I can do no more. See here, Captain Croker, we'll do this in due form of law. You are the prisoner. Watson, you are a British jury, and I never met a man who was more eminently fitted to represent one. I am the judge. Now, gentleman of the jury, you have heard the evidence. Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?"

"Not guilty, my lord," said I.

"Vox populi, vox dei. You are acquitted, Captain Croker. So long as the law does not find some other victim you are safe from me. Come back to this lady in a year, and may her future and yours justify us in the judgement which we have p.r.o.nounced this night!"

This exchange brings out very clearly an invariable feature of Holmes's transgressions of the law: when Holmes breaks the law, Watson always agrees with him, Conan Doyle always agrees with him, the reader always agrees with him, and no doubt Lestrade, Gregson, Athelney Jones, Hopkins, and the rest would always agree with him, if only they were not bound by their professional code.

Probably Holmes's most dubious occasion for letting the criminal go free is in "The Adventure of the Three Gables." Holmes tells the femme fatale Isadora Klein "I am not the law, but I represent justice so far as my feeble powers go." Her own story shows that she was desperate, but still reveals her as ruthless and inclined to employ brutal methods.

"Well, well," says Holmes, after hearing her side of it. "I suppose I shall have to compound a felony as usual." He lets Klein off, only demanding a check for five thousand pounds, which he will pa.s.s on to Mrs. Maberley, the mother of Klein's latest victim, so that Mrs. Maberley can take the round the world trip she has always yearned for. Here we see Mr. Justice Holmes holding his own court, evidently one guided more by principles of rest.i.tution than retribution-or more likely, by the Victorian gentleman's acute sense of gallantry when confronted by a pretty ankle.

An Eye for an Eye.

Very often the criminals have their own sense of justice, which, like Holmes's, may contradict the law of the land. In A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, and several of the short stories, the criminals defend their actions by reference to a code of justice which is at variance with the law.

At their most sympathetic, the criminal's motivation is revenge, or personal retribution for past wrongs. John Sholto, the murder victim in The Sign of the Four, had once committed a horribly treacherous act that partly motivates Jonathan Small's later revenge.

The most dramatic case of justified revenge is the motivation of Jefferson Hope in A Study in Scarlet. Hope remarks to Holmes and Lestrade: "You may consider me to be a murderer, but I hold that I am just as much an officer of justice as you are."

In deference to his own sense of retributive justice, Jefferson Hope doesn't simply kill Drebber and Stangerson, but makes them choose one of two pills, one poisoned, the other harmless. And so G.o.d, not Hope, decides who dies. "Let the high G.o.d judge between us. Choose and eat."

Enoch Drebber and Joseph Stangerson, the two victims, were actually the perpetrators of murder and oppression in Jefferson Hope's Mormon past. As Hope states: "I knew of their guilt, . . . and I determined that I should be judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one."

Holmes must understand this, because he too is often judge, jury, and executioner.

Chapter 10.

The Game Has Virtually Stumbled.

Tom Dowd.

I can't be Sherlock Holmes. And I'm somewhat annoyed by that.

Well, obviously I can never really be any fictional character in the truest sense, short of a full schizophrenic break (They Might Be Giants, anyone?). The best I can hope for is to settle into a comfortable chair with a good book or television show-or do similarly in a darkened movie theater-and in a figurative or literal sense watch the experiences of a fictional character and be engaged.

But I'm not that character. I'm an observer, not a partic.i.p.ant The story, the plot, and the actions of the people on the screen or on the page are all predetermined. Yes, in some circ.u.mstances, I can pause, rewind or fast-forward, but that actually changes nothing. The only control I really have is to watch or not to watch, which only affects me, not the narrative I was experiencing before I disgustedly stabbed that red b.u.t.ton on my remote. I detach, but somewhere else the story goes on.

But can't I be the master of disguise, too? Well, no. I can choose my favorite incarnation of Sherlock Holmes and garb myself up in his likeness-cla.s.sical Paget, cinematic Rathbone, televised Brett, contemporary c.u.mberbatch, or a mult.i.tude of other manifestations-but that's the best I can do. The costume remains a costume, and the self that I am doesn't change because of it. In a sympathetic company or environment others may play along, but in the end I am I and not he.

In my imagination, of course, I can be whoever I want.

Interpreting the Facts.

When we act as the pa.s.sive observer of a narrative while reading or viewing we're (hopefully) carried along. We may attempt to interact sometimes by inappropriately shouting commands ("No, you idiot! Don't open the door!"), but for the most part we're strapped into the roller-coaster and along for the ride. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's idea of flow-single-minded immersion that brings about a loss of self-consciousness and a distorted sense of time-is in full control.

When we're the observer, we identify with the characters in the narrative before us, perhaps even sympathize or go so far as to empathize, but we do not project ourselves onto them right then and there. That comes later, in our after-the-fact minds, when we place ourselves into the role of the character, seeing what they've seen, saying what they've said, doing what they do, with our own spin. We reproduce our interpretation of the story or events in our imagination and adjust things to our liking.

And when I'm out and about with friends, I can act the part and quote and misquote with dramatic abandon. With a wry smile I can scan once-over my good friend-or if I'm feeling daring-the pretty young thing at the bar-and spin them some yarn about what I can deduce from looking at them . . . more than enough to hang myself with, unless I am very, very good or somehow already in the know (which works best, trust me).

Alternatively, leaning back, I can imagine myself as Sherlock Holmes. The textures and sounds (and heaven help me, the smells . . .) of Victoria's London roll out before me in my mind. I can place myself there, in Holmes's shoes, and be the Great Detective as I wish him to be. All of the pieces are mine to control-the plot, the characters, the setting, all respond to my machinations. I notice the pale scuff mark, deduce adultery with the handsome cab driver, and of course I'm right. Of course.

We're back to immersion again, yes? It is a sensation we're all familiar with from a good book, or movie, or game. We speak about becoming lost in a good book, and everyone relates. We become lost because the world conjured up on the page or by the image on the screen envelopes us and we settle into it willingly. It surrounds us, and because we believe enough in that world we can imagine peaking around the corner and being satisfied with what we find there.

Lost in Reality.

Marie-Laure Ryan looks into the question of narrative and immersion in her book Narrative as Virtual Reality, but flips the usual direction of the a.n.a.lytical lens and looks at prior narrative art (among other things) in the context of virtual reality, primarily in the contexts of immersion and interactivity. This expression of "virtual reality" occurs entirely within the mind and it is the place that a good successful narrative takes us. It's that place we become lost within. Ryan argues that this has always been the case and that any type of art has the ability to transport us to a "virtual reality" that is defined by what we can see in the art and what we can imagine as lurking around the corner.

One of the clear successes of the Conan Doyle stories is the ability to conjure up that reality. It's a simplified evocation of the actual time and place of Victorian London, certainly, but in many ways it lives and breathes. That is what we draw from when we imagine ourselves as Holmes . . . but it's difficult to sustain (again, short of that full schizophrenic break). We can generate moments of satisfaction as both mental author and character, but it is only fleetingly satisfactory and difficult to maintain for a prolonged time.

A curious part of the problem is that there is no challenge. The pale scuff mark leads to adultery every time because I choose that it does, and therefore I'm right, every time. The game is not afoot; it is in fact quite rigged. For some that may be enough, but . . .

Where can I be Sherlock Holmes with the requisite challenges to overcome?

In a video game, or interactive narrative, of course.

But there's a catch . . .

Realization Hits.

In interactive narrative (which video games are a kind of) the concept of agency refers to, using Janet Murray's explanation from Hamlet on the Holodeck: The more realized the immersive environment, the more active we want to be within it. When the things we do bring tangible results, we experience the second characteristic delight of electronic environments-the sense of agency. Agency is the satisfying power to take meaningful action and see the results of our decisions and choices.

Agency has become a powerful term in discussion of virtual reality and interactive narrative. Regardless of the term employed, this sense of being able to take a meaningful action and observe the result of that action is critical to interactivity. That, coupled with Donald Norman's concept of "perceived affordance," or those possible actions the user perceives as achievable within his or her current environment, are the foundations for the interactive part of interactive narrative.

Affordance, however, is perceptual-it is not just all possible uses or actions, but those deemed most likely within the user's personal context. (There's that self again.) Agency and affordance are both tools and goals of the author of a piece of interactive narrative. A significant point of interactive narrative is the sense of partic.i.p.ation, that interaction allows the user to create a new narrative by changing the sequence of events (plot) or the emotional, contextual underpinnings (story).

Traditional narrative devices, such as books, film, or television, are examples of linear narrative, where the order of events in the plot or story play out in chronological order, some use of flashbacks notwithstanding. Works of nonlinear narrative, such as the movies Memento or Pulp Fiction, or the TV series Lost, use non-chronological storytelling as their primary structure. Very often, games are referred to as having a nonlinear narrative and although a few may have, most have a story expressed in as linear a manner as any movie or television show. Games, especially story-driven games, often have nonlinear gameplay, which means that the player can travel through the world using any route he chooses and undertake various subplots in nearly any order, though the main story remains nearly linear.

So what does this have to do with Sherlock Holmes and my not being able to be him?

Run, Jump, Shoot, Screw . . . but Don't Think.

Interactive narratives, and especially video games, do a great job at providing agency and affordance for certain acts. I can shoot a gun like a Black Ops sniper, skip across the rooftops of Venice as a highly-trained a.s.sa.s.sin, take a tight corner at Le Mans as a pro racer, or even hop, skip and bounce my way across the world grabbing gold rings as a blue-haired hedgehog. Games provide mechanisms that allow a new set of affordances and a different sense of agency from that which I have in real life. I am not expected to be able to ride a horse like an Old West outlaw seeking vengeance in real life in order to be just that in Red Dawn Redemption. Nor am I expected to have the smooth moves required to get me some sweet inter-species lovin', like in Ma.s.s Effect.

Video games, however, fall back to the abilities of the player when it comes to reasoning. Many games, especially role-playing games, give characters sets of knowledge skills that come into use during the game, but these are most often simple indicators that determine if the character can or cannot perform a physical, intellectual, or knowledge task. For example, in Fallout 3 the Science skill is used to determine if the player can or cannot fix a broken robot. I don't need to know how to fix the robot; the game mechanic handles it for me.

Abstract reasoning-deduction-is entirely up to me. And I am, therefore, screwed.

The Art of Deduction.

I can't ever satisfactorily play Sherlock Holmes because my brain doesn't work like his does, and video games provide no mechanisms to a.s.sist me. To date, there have been dozens of various forms of computer game adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, the oldest in 1984. Many of them have been casual hidden object or simple puzzle-solving games, but a number have been story-driven adventure game attempts to portray Sherlock Holmes with a truly interactive structure. While all of these have had nonlinear gameplay, at least to some limited extent, none have had a truly interactive story where the outcome varies based on the player's actions.

That said, they have all attempted to create the Sherlock Holmes experience with varying degrees of success. They've all, however, avoided requiring real deductive reasoning to resolve the story. The puzzle or problem solving in games like Sherlock: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels, The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Rose Tattoo, or the more recent Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis is primarily there as an obstruction to physical progress (solve the puzzle to open the secret pa.s.sage) or plot progression (solve the puzzle to trigger the story-advancing movie segment).

The most recent release, Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper (2009), introduces the concept of a "Deduction Board" where the player can organize clues (objects and observations obtained at a crime scene), literally form links between them and then draw conclusions based on those links. The system does help the player out by allowing him to connect strings of clues, but ultimately he can reach the conclusions by simply finding everything and arranging and rearranging until successful. It's a step in a better direction, but ultimately there's no true deductive reasoning in that it helps the player follow the clue trail a little easier, but it does not allow the intuitive leaps that Holmes is best known for. It's not truly abstract and deductive reasoning, but maybe, though, that's for the best.