(she agreed with me on this issue, but told me privately because she was afraid to do so openly)

I can certainly understand fans being skittish to discuss the subject, especially those who were in the fandom while the show was airing. I can imagine what the furor was like. And if you'd rather move this sub-thread to email, please let me know. Your journal, your rules.

(The notion of soulless redemption never occurred to me and really doesn't interest me.)

I'm interested in both.

The way we're presented with the concept of soul in the Buffyverse, it seems to be mostly an organ of guilt. It's the soul which lets humans feel guilty for their misdeeds, and since vampires have their souls removed, they're sort of spiritually disabled, lacking one of their senses.

But there are a lot of reasons to choose not to do evil (or, actively choose to do good) besides guilt. We can want to avoid the consequences of bad actions, want good people to praise us, want to please someone we care about, want someone to owe us, want to make the world a different place. All of those reasons are available to Spike even before he gets his soul back.

So I love AU's like Rahirah's Barbverse where Spike struggles with whether and how he can be good without a soul. And I also enjoy more canon-compliant stories with souled Spike, where he struggles with his guilt and regrets.

I think souls are more than just the thing that lets us feel guilty, but I do agree with one thing I believe Joss shows through Angel's and Spike's stories: guilty self-loathing makes a rotten moral compass.