Free Quentin Tarantino and Philosophy by Richard Greene, K. Silem Mohammad

situation
in the first place than we are with the principle that innocent people can sometimes be sacrificed. Even Mr. Orange, the undercover police officer, kills an innocent person when she endangers his life.
    Blonde, when confronted about his murder spree, attempts to excuse his actions by placing responsibility on the victims. “I told ’em not to touch the alarm. They touched it. I blew ’em full of holes. If they hadn’t done what I told ’em not to do, they’d still be alive.” While we think he is wrong about this, the moral logic is appropriate: if he were a police officer warning someone not to reach into their coat, and the victim were a suspected murderer, then the killing would be excused. His attempt to justify his actions seems to prove that he views the situation in terms of right and wrong and that he has a moral identity he is trying to protect.
    When we see others suffering we often invent stories to place the responsibility on those suffering individuals, just as Blonde does with his victims. We distance ourselves from the bad in the world to avoid thinking poorly of ourselves. In this way, we protect our moral identity. When violence becomes necessary and commonplace, we dehumanize those we cause to suffer. During war, soldiers routinely invent dehumanizing slurs to describe their opponents. The Dogs use such dehumanizing strategies on the police: when White casually mentions that he killed “a few cops,” Pink asks, “No real people?” and White responds, “Just cops.”

“What You’re Supposed to Do Is Act Like a Fuckin’ Professional”
    The Dogs don’t really live by their own code, at least not in the sense that each makes rules for himself. Mr. Pink tries that in the opening scene and is rebuffed. The Dogs are supposed to act like professionals. Repeatedly throughout the movie, they appeal to professionalism to influence and evaluate one another’s behavior. As professionals, they have a plan. Mr. Blonde deviates from the plan in the store, and is criticized. When Pink begins to think that the plan is going to endanger him, he argues that he should deviate from it, claiming very reasonably that: “the plan became null and void once we found out we got a rat in the house.”

    A professional avoids unnecessary violence. When discussing Blonde’s murders, White states, “What you’re supposed to do is act like a fuckin’ professional. A psychopath is not a professional. You can’t work with a psychopath, ’cause ya don’t know what those sick assholes are gonna do next.” In this way the code restricts their behavior for the benefit of other gang members.
    When violence is necessary, there are still rules. Just as soldiers distinguish combatants from non-combatants, the Dogs distinguish police officers, whom they deem to be legitimate targets, from the protected category of “real people.” Police officers exist to put them out of business, so there is no possibility of rules emerging for the benefit of both parties. On the other hand, if the officers were more interested in money than fighting crime, then a truce would be highly likely. Since that isn’t the case, there is no reason to come to a truce with the police officers, and so their professional code does not extend to cover them. It does cover “real people” but offers them only weak protection. The real value in the code is protecting the gang (the more violence, the more trouble they are likely to encounter) and helping to resolve disputes among themselves. Recall how Pink jumps between White and Blonde, invoking the professional code, as a way of reducing tensions between them.
    Just as non-combatants can sometimes be harmed, so can unco-operative store managers. “If you wanna know something and he won’t tell you, cut off one of his fingers. The little one. Then you tell him his thumb’s next.” Like Blonde, White rationalizes this violence by claiming unco-operative managers deserve what they get: