Clem is altruistic. He honestly wants to help Buffy and Dawn even when it doesn't involve any benefit to himself. My issue with the "no soul = altruism impossible" thing is that vamp-Spike displays altruism at times.
Like I agree with Tara's indirect assessment in "Crush" when she describes Quasimodo: until Buffy dies pretty much everything Spike does that is 'good' is centered around getting into her good graces rather than actual altruism. But once she's dead, his behavior no longer makes sense in that context. It's legitimate altruism that compels him to protect Dawn, because what does he stand to gain from that? In fact, you could honestly argue this goes all the way back to "Forever", when he leaves flowers for Joyce without a card.
The idea that "soul = all capacity for good" is laid down in S1 during a time when the show has very black and white morality. It's also laid down by Giles, who is toeing the Watchers' Council party line at that point. There's no reason it couldn't have been complicated later, much like everything else the Watchers' Council believed about the good fight.
D'Hoffryn explicitly says that the sacrifice required is 'the life and soul of a vengeance demon' when he slays Halfrek, so clearly the vengeance demons have souls in general if Halfrek has one. And if Anya didn't have a soul while she was a demon, why would she feel bad about slaughtering frat boys?
Now, Clem and Lorne and characters like them I tend to assume are just 'closer' to humanity than other demons and do in fact have souls, because otherwise it doesn't make sense that Jasmine could control Lorne and not soulless vampires -- clearly her power is somehow dependent on souls.
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Like I agree with Tara's indirect assessment in "Crush" when she describes Quasimodo: until Buffy dies pretty much everything Spike does that is 'good' is centered around getting into her good graces rather than actual altruism. But once she's dead, his behavior no longer makes sense in that context. It's legitimate altruism that compels him to protect Dawn, because what does he stand to gain from that? In fact, you could honestly argue this goes all the way back to "Forever", when he leaves flowers for Joyce without a card.
The idea that "soul = all capacity for good" is laid down in S1 during a time when the show has very black and white morality. It's also laid down by Giles, who is toeing the Watchers' Council party line at that point. There's no reason it couldn't have been complicated later, much like everything else the Watchers' Council believed about the good fight.
D'Hoffryn explicitly says that the sacrifice required is 'the life and soul of a vengeance demon' when he slays Halfrek, so clearly the vengeance demons have souls in general if Halfrek has one. And if Anya didn't have a soul while she was a demon, why would she feel bad about slaughtering frat boys?
Now, Clem and Lorne and characters like them I tend to assume are just 'closer' to humanity than other demons and do in fact have souls, because otherwise it doesn't make sense that Jasmine could control Lorne and not soulless vampires -- clearly her power is somehow dependent on souls.