Dashiell Hammett
Dashiell Hammett was the creator of the “hard boiled” detective stories. As it often happens with pioneers, the quality of his work was underestimated during his life. Now he is regarded as one of the finest mystery writers of all time.
Hammett left school when he was 14 years old and had several jobs: messenger, paper deliverer, night watcher, production foreman, stevedore and industrial machine operator. From 1915 to 1922 he worked for Pinkerton National Detective Agency and it was this job that supplied him many of the ideas that he used as a writer.
Hammett had his own code of ethics, that transcended the ordinary laws and rules. A good example of his ethics can be observed at the end of one of his short stories, when the girl who had schemed the criminal operation is unmasked by the detective who tells us everything in the first person and does not even have a name:
“No one else knows what you know...”, she said. “There is a wealth in that cellar beneath the garage. You may take whatever you ask.”
I shook my head.
“You aren’t a fool!” she protested. “You know – ”
“Let me straighten this out for you,” I interrupted. “We’ll disregard whatever honesty I happen to have, , sense of loyalty to employers, and so on. Now I’m a detective because I happen to like my work. It pays me a fair salary, but I could find other jobs that pay me more. Now I pass up this extra honest gain because I like being a detective, like the work. And liking the work makes you want to do it as well as you can. Otherwise there’d be no sense to it. I don’t know anything else, don’t enjoy anything else. Money is a good stuff. I haven’t anything against it. But in the past eighteen years I’ve been getting my fun out of chasing crooks and tackling puzzles and solving riddles. It’s the only sport I know anything about, and I can’t imagine a pleasanter future than twenty-some years more of it. I’m not going to blow that up!”
To me, Medical Ethics are just like that, centered on our love for our profession. The practice of Medicine has now many problems, facing aggressive health insurance organizations and governments. And yet we continue to see that physicians are always fighting to enrich their knowledge and reach the highest possible standard of medical practice.
I am sure that Medical Ethics are transmitted genetically, since Hippocrates. The world has always had bad physicians. But the great majority is honest and dedicated. Our codes of Ethics have to be changed, from time to time, to become adjusted to new living conditions. True Ethics, as Dashiell Hammett’s Ethics, will never change.
Hammett, D.: The Big Knockover. Edited by Lillian Hellman. 1972; New York, Vintage Books.
Hammett left school when he was 14 years old and had several jobs: messenger, paper deliverer, night watcher, production foreman, stevedore and industrial machine operator. From 1915 to 1922 he worked for Pinkerton National Detective Agency and it was this job that supplied him many of the ideas that he used as a writer.
Hammett had his own code of ethics, that transcended the ordinary laws and rules. A good example of his ethics can be observed at the end of one of his short stories, when the girl who had schemed the criminal operation is unmasked by the detective who tells us everything in the first person and does not even have a name:
“No one else knows what you know...”, she said. “There is a wealth in that cellar beneath the garage. You may take whatever you ask.”
I shook my head.
“You aren’t a fool!” she protested. “You know – ”
“Let me straighten this out for you,” I interrupted. “We’ll disregard whatever honesty I happen to have, , sense of loyalty to employers, and so on. Now I’m a detective because I happen to like my work. It pays me a fair salary, but I could find other jobs that pay me more. Now I pass up this extra honest gain because I like being a detective, like the work. And liking the work makes you want to do it as well as you can. Otherwise there’d be no sense to it. I don’t know anything else, don’t enjoy anything else. Money is a good stuff. I haven’t anything against it. But in the past eighteen years I’ve been getting my fun out of chasing crooks and tackling puzzles and solving riddles. It’s the only sport I know anything about, and I can’t imagine a pleasanter future than twenty-some years more of it. I’m not going to blow that up!”
To me, Medical Ethics are just like that, centered on our love for our profession. The practice of Medicine has now many problems, facing aggressive health insurance organizations and governments. And yet we continue to see that physicians are always fighting to enrich their knowledge and reach the highest possible standard of medical practice.
I am sure that Medical Ethics are transmitted genetically, since Hippocrates. The world has always had bad physicians. But the great majority is honest and dedicated. Our codes of Ethics have to be changed, from time to time, to become adjusted to new living conditions. True Ethics, as Dashiell Hammett’s Ethics, will never change.
Hammett, D.: The Big Knockover. Edited by Lillian Hellman. 1972; New York, Vintage Books.
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