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Spies, Detectives and Philosophers in Divided Germany: Reading Cold War Genre Fiction from a Kantian Perspective

Shahan, John S, Jr.
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6631-6428
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1511800100648654

Abstract Details

2017, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: Germanic Languages and Literature.
In this dissertation I focus on two types of genre fiction as viewed through the lens of Kantian ethics and social contract theory. The two types of genre fiction include detective novels written by a German speaking Swiss author named Friedrich Durrenmatt, as well as two spy novels by John le Carre. All of these novels are set in the second half of the twentieth century and in le Carre’s case, during the height of the Cold War. Durrenmatt is well-known throughout the German literary canon for both his plays and his prose. I argue that he tends to differ from other writers of detective fiction because he focuses less on the mystery of the murder itself and more on the interaction of the characters, as well as the philosophical ramifications of what is happening in the story. The first Durrenmatt novel, Justiz, focuses on the conflict between a failed lawyer, named Spat, and an influential member of Swiss high-society, Dr.h.c. Isaak Kohler, who has been convicted of shooting his friend, Dr. Winter, in a crowded restaurant. This novel focuses on Spat’s tortured quest for justice, in that Kohler is able to elude justice. This first chapter sets up the idea of the Kantian hero and Kantian villain. Kantian heroes and villains differ from conventional heroes and villains in that they are judged not by conventional standards but by ideas of duty, or deontologically based ethics, as well as how they treat the inherent dignity of their fellow humans. This conflict between Kantian hero and villain continues into the second chapter, which is also a detective novel by Durrenmatt, called Der Richter und sein Henker. The villain in this story is just as villainous as the hero is heroic, and again I will work with Kantian ideas of ethics to enhance the ideas of what makes a hero or villain. By this point it will be the case that conventional methods of defining heroes and villains are quite different from Kantian standards. In the third chapter, I bring in the spy fiction of John le Carre, specifically the first and third novels of the “Quest for Karla Trilogy,” or as is commonly also called “the Karla Trilogy.” In these books, ideas of good and evil become very nebulous, and on both sides of the Cold War, spies and espionage agencies combat each other, trying to gain the upper hand. In this case, conventional heroes and villains differ, but from a Kantian perspective, all of the intelligence operatives are simply doing their duty towards their institutions. Looking again at the Kantian social contract, as well as looking again at Kantian ethics, in addition to what Kant had to say about spying in general, will provide the analysis. In this dissertation I attempt to re-evaluate ideas of heroism and villainy as demonstrated by what Kant had to say about ideas of duty, about human dignity, and about how states should relate to each other within the categorical imperative.
Harold Herzog, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Werner Jung, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Tanja Nusser, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Richard Schade, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
255 p.
Germanic Literature
Durrenmatt detective fiction; Kantian ethics and German genre fiction; Kantian view of spy fiction; heroes and villains in le Carre spy fiction; heroes and villains in Durrenmatt; Cold War genre fiction and Kant

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Shahan, Jr., J. S. (2017). Spies, Detectives and Philosophers in Divided Germany: Reading Cold War Genre Fiction from a Kantian Perspective [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1511800100648654

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Shahan, Jr., John. Spies, Detectives and Philosophers in Divided Germany: Reading Cold War Genre Fiction from a Kantian Perspective. 2017. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1511800100648654.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Shahan, Jr., John. "Spies, Detectives and Philosophers in Divided Germany: Reading Cold War Genre Fiction from a Kantian Perspective." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1511800100648654

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1511800100648654
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© 2017, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Spies, Detectives and Philosophers in Divided Germany: Reading Cold War Genre Fiction from a Kantian Perspective by John S Shahan Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.