A Social Ethical Interpretation Of The Relation Between Sherlock Holmes And The Society

Because of the attractive plots and the ethical thinking of detective in The Complete Novels and Stories of Sherlock Holmes,Arthur Conan Doyle has become one of the most important detective writers of the detective circles.Since ethics became the common study of literary circle,the application of literary ethics has been very popular in the research of the stories of The Complete Novels and Stories of Sherlock Holmes.Many previous studies have analyzed the hero's reasoning logic,scientific approach and the historical background from the perspective of literary ethics,but few studies mention the social ethics when they argue about the relation between Sherlock Holmes and the society.Generally speaking,people often mix the concepts of“ethics”and“morality”,thinking that there are not many differences between them.But actually,in Social Ethics,Song?2007?points out that ethics should be separated from morality.The ethics,which is different from morality,is called social ethics^?1?.From the perspective of social ethics,this thesis tries to explain the relation between the hero Sherlock Holmes and the society that he lived in.First,this thesis discusses the rights and the obligations of Sherlock Holmes.The society not only gave Holmes the rights to find the evidence in the objective world during the period of solving of the cases,but also required him to help the society to catch the criminals.Second,it explains the social contractual ethics of Sherlock Holmes.As an individual,Sherlock Holmes had total freedom in the context of the contractual relation with the society.As a citizen,he had to help the police to investigate the clues and protect the police's honor.Third,it expounds the moral spirit and communicative ethics of the protagonist.He was the hero of the country,but not perfect,so he needed to communicate with others to learn new things and enrich his spiritual world.In addition,the society was not perfect,and the police needed to learn many things from Sherlock Holmes by tolerating his oddity.Therefore,this thesis has come to the conclusion.First,in order to achieve his value,Sherlock Holmes needed to integrate himself into the society,and made contributions to the society when he was satisfied with his own needs.Second,in the case of absolute freedom,he did not forget his responsibility,and committed himself to the society.Third,it was not easy for Sherlock Holmes to get along with the people and the society harmoniously,so he needed time to learn new things.At the same time,the society needed to tolerate different people,and renew its rules according to different situations,and the people should not forget their obligations as citizens.The implication of this study lies in the fact that by using this social ethical criticism to discuss the relation between the protagonist and the society,this thesis provides a new approach to help readers and critics to better understand Conan Doyle's works.This thesis is composed of three parts.The first part is introduction with the sections of the motivation and the significance of the study,the literature review and the critical approach.The second part is the discussion,which includes three chapters,namely,the rights and the obligations of Sherlock Holmes,the social contractual ethics of Sherlock Holmes and the moral spirit and communicative ethics of Sherlock Holmes.The third part is the conclusion of the thesis.