Ethics

In recent years moral philosophers have turned with increasing frequency to Greek ethics as an alternative to Christian-based and Kantian moral theories. Indeed, one contemporary philosopher has even claimed that ‘‘the basic ethical ideas possessed by the Greeks were different from ours, and also in better condition’’ (Williams 1993,4). Whether in the form of ‘‘virtue ethics’’ or in the analysis of shame (as opposed to guilt) as a sophisticated ethical concept, Greek ethics is seen to offer a liberation from traditional Christian-Kantian concerns, such as free will and duty, while at the same time encouraging the study of all moral codes within their particular historical and cultural contexts. Moreover, as is increasingly realized, Greek ethics is to be studied not only in the writings of the philosophers, but also in epic, tragedy, and historiography (compare the use of Herodotus and Thucydides by Williams 2002, 151-71), for these genres present related ethical debates in narrative and dramatic form: Is revenge justified? How can the emotions be controlled? How is one to live well? The exploration of these and other ethical issues in tragedy is particularly stimulating, since the variety of characters, attitudes, principles, and emotions presented in each play generates a moral universe which provokes, and challenges, the sympathies and moral judgments of the audience.

Despite its playful tone of daring myth-revision, Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen has a serious premise, namely the fundamental moral and judicial idea that one cannot be blamed for something that one was forced to do. Questions of culpability were of particular interest to the Athenians, given the litigiousness of their society, and are canvassed by all three tragedians. In Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus argues that he is both legally and morally innocent since his crimes (killing his father and sleeping with his mother) were unintentional (266-74, 521-23, 546-48, 976-77, 985-90): it was, he claims, the gods who led him to such suffering (964, 998). Of course, that his actions were ‘‘fated’’ in these terms does not stop them being his actions, and Oedipus must live with the consequences (pollution and exile). Similarly, Artemis tells Theseus ‘‘your ignorance frees your mistake of wickedness’’ (Euripides, Hippolytus 1334-35), but it still requires Hippolytus’ personal pardon to cleanse Theseus of the pollution of his murder (1448-52). In Aeschylus the issue of responsibility frequently focuses on the tension between freedom and necessity, and specifically on the idea of parallel causation among gods and humans (cf. Patinella 1986, 69-95). Clytemnestra’s claim that she merely embodies an alastor (‘‘spirit of revenge’’) stemming from the crime of Atreus does not, the chorus insists, absolve her of responsibility for the murder of Agamemnon (Agamemnon 1497-1508). Eteocles goes voluntarily to his death, even though the curse of Oedipus drives him on (Seven against Thebes 686-719). So too in Sophocles, curses do not negate autonomy (cf. Oedipus at Colonus 964-65, Antigone 582-603, Electra 504-15).

Another Greek idea that has enriched contemporary ethical theory is the concept of ‘‘moral luck,’’ the insight that a good or happy life depends on a number of factors often outside our control (cf. Hurley 2003). Yet perhaps the most enduring insights of Greek ethics concern the issues of moral knowledge and lack of moral resolve ( akrasia). Socrates famously claimed that no one knowingly does wrong, since if one knew the right thing to do, that knowledge would ensure that one did it, making weakness of the will (akrasia) impossible (cf. Plato, Protagoras 352b-358a). Both Medea and Phaedra contradict this position (Euripides, Medea 1078-80, Hippolytus 380-87), yet one need not see Euripides engaging in specifically anti-Socratic polemic, since a moral situation ofknowing what is right but not doing it was relevant to all Athenians (Allan 2002, 90-92). Equally provocative was tragedy’s exploration of the ethics of revenge (for example, Sophocles, Ajax 1318-73) and the idea that an individual’s arete (excellence) could be divorced from his or her social position (Euripides, Electra 380-85, Andromache 636-38; Sophocles fr. 667). Finally, the plays also reflect Protagorean moral relativism (‘‘man is the measure of all things,’’ DK 1: cf. Euripides, Phoenician Women 499-502) and the developing concept of an internal moral conscience (Sophocles, Philoctetes 902-3; Euripides, Helen 1002-3, Orestes 396; Democritus, DK 84, 174, 215, 244, 264).

In its dramatization of divine and heroic myths of conflict and suffering, tragedy addresses issues of knowledge, politics, religion, and ethics in ways that overlap with early Greek philosophy. Like the interlocutors of a philosophical dialogue, the characters of tragedy present various points of view on these complex issues (cf. Blondell 2002a, 1-52), yet each play, taken as a whole, does not lead the audience to a single definitive answer: rather than expound dogma, tragedy provokes further questions. Although no tragedian sought to elaborate a philosophical system, their works appropriated and explored various philosophical problems. This tendency is clearest in the plays of Euripides, since his characters are generally more analytical and outspoken, yet even here, as with Aeschylus and Sophocles, philosophical ideas are integrated into the drama, and do not stand out as extraneous intellectual display.

Much recent scholarship has insisted on the importance of tragedy’s civic and political setting. It is equally crucial not to neglect its wider intellectual context (cf. Williams 1979, 16), nor reduce its interrogatory range to issues of collective ideology. Questions such as ‘‘Can I know anything?’’ and ‘‘How should one live?’’ are no less important to tragedy’s intellectual depth, and underlie its continuing capacity to interest audiences throughout the world. Though it would be misleading to claim that tragedy ‘‘establishes theoretical thinking’’ (so Liuzzi 1992, 16), tragedy did develop the insights of early Greek philosophy over a wide range of intellectual issues. And just as a play may show a character undergoing a process of (painful) learning (Admetus in Euripides’ Alcestis, for example), so the genre itself, through the presentation of conflicting arguments and values, may point the audience toward a more reflective appreciation of what it is to be human; of what it is to be, as Oedipus expresses it, ‘‘a child of Chance’’ (Sophocles, Oedipus the King 1080). The tragedians not only maintained the poet’s traditional role as a figure of wisdom, but also contributed significantly to the development of Greek thought.