There is a concern that the widespread deployment of autonomous machines will open up a number of ‘responsibility gaps’ throughout society. Various articulations of such techno-responsibility gaps have been proposed over the years, along with several potential solutions. Most of these solutions focus on ‘plugging’ or ‘dissolving’ the gaps. This paper offers an alternative perspective. It argues that techno-responsibility gaps are, sometimes, to be welcomed and that one of the advantages of autonomous machines is that they enable us to embrace (...) certain kinds of responsibility gap. The argument is based on the idea that human morality is often tragic. We frequently confront situations in which competing moral considerations pull in different directions and it is impossible to perfectly balance these considerations. This heightens the burden of responsibility associated with our choices. We cope with the tragedy of moral choice in different ways. Sometimes we delude ourselves into thinking the choices we make were not tragic ; sometimes we delegate the tragic choice to others ; sometimes we make the choice ourselves and bear the psychological consequences. Each of these strategies has its benefits and costs. One potential advantage of autonomous machines is that they enable a reduced cost form of delegation. However, we only gain the advantage of this reduced cost if we accept that some techno-responsibility gaps are virtuous. (shrink)

The Orphan of Zhao" exemplifies a quintessential Chinese tragedy that encapsulates the values of loyalty and kindness, deeply rooted in Chinese cultural and philosophical traditions. This study embarks on an exploration of the ethnic and cultural nuances of this tragedy, contrasting it with Western dramatic forms to elucidate divergent philosophical foundations and religious influences. Central to this analysis is the comparison of cultural backgrounds, thematic focus, value systems, structural compositions, and narrative techniques that distinguish Chinese tragedies from their Western counterparts. (...) The distinctions between Chinese and Western dramatic tragedies are profoundly influenced by their respective cultural and historical milieus—Confucianism in China and Christianity in the West. These foundational beliefs shape the narrative structures and stylistic expressions of tragedies in each culture. For instance, Chinese tragedies typically employ a retributive justice framework reflective of Confucian ethics, whereas Western tragedies often explore dramatic conflicts and moral confrontations rooted in Christian theological themes. The Orphan of Zhao" not only showcases the characteristics of Chinese tragic narratives but also bridges understandings with Western dramatic forms, thereby serving as a fertile ground for cultural exchange and deeper mutual appreciation. Through a detailed examination of "The Orphan of Zhao" and its comparative analysis with Western tragedies, this paper illuminates the universal themes of tragedy while highlighting distinct philosophical and religious dimensions. Such comparative studies enrich our comprehension of global tragic expressions and inspire contemporary theatrical writing across cultures. In essence, "The Orphan of Zhao" offers a distinctive lens through which to view the interplay between tragedy and the philosophical and religious contexts that shape it. By dissecting the similarities and differences in tragic storytelling across cultures, this study contributes valuable insights to the ongoing discourse on the role of philosophy and religion in the arts, enhancing our understanding of how tragedies can transcend cultural boundaries yet remain deeply rooted in their ethnic and philosophical origins. (shrink)

This paper outlines and defends a notion of tragic-remorse. This moral emotion properly accompanies those actions that involve unavoidable moral wrongdoing in general and dirty hands scenarios in particular. Tragic-remorse differs both phenomenologically and conceptually from regret, agent-regret and remorse. By recognising the existence of tragic-remorse, we are better able to account for our complex moral reality which at times makes it necessary for good persons to act in ways that although justified leave the agent with a (...) moral stain and a particular emotional response. (shrink)

In many tragic plays, the protagonist is brought down by a disaster that is a consequence of the protagonist's own error, his or her hamartia, the tragic flaw. Tragic flaws are disconcerting to the audience because they are not known or fully recognized by the protagonist—at least not until it is too late. In this essay, I take tragic flaws to be unreliable belief-forming dispositions that are unrecognized by us in some sense. I describe some different (...) types of flaws and consider what we might do about them. Then I examine three types of policies for managing our tragic flaws: doxastic, dispositional, and methodological. (shrink)

This book examines Whitehead’s process aesthetics focusing the penumbral beauty of darkness and the tragic beauty of perishability, while establishing parallels with the Japanese sense of evanescent beauty. It clarifies how both traditions develop a religio-aesthetic vision of tragic beauty and its reconciliation in the supreme ecstasy of peace.

Of other ancient writers, call into question the traditional view that katharsis in the Poetics is a homeopathic process - one in which pity and fear affect emotions like themselves. She maintains, instead, that Aristotle considered katharsis to be an allopathic process in which pity and fear purge the soul of shameless, antisocial, and aggressive emotions. While exploring katharsis, Tragic Pleasures analyzes the closely related question of how the Poetics treats the.

The aim of the current article is to analyze the concept of tragic cases and its different implications based on Manuel Atienza, one of the jurists who specially addressed the issue, and on Robert Alexy, whose work is one of the main references in contemporary Legal Philosophy. According to parameters exposed by Alexy (correctness, rationality, legal argumentation, human rights), some of Atienza’s central assertions about tragic cases (lack of correct answer, legal rationality limitation, option for the lesser evil) (...) are herein demonstrated as inadmissible. Based on Alexy’s work, it is possible to justify the opposite conclusion about tragic cases, i.e., cases where there is more than one correct answer and these answers are opposed to each other. (shrink)

The aim of the current article is to analyze the concept of tragic cases and its different implications based on Manuel Atienza, one of the jurists who specially addressed the issue, and on Robert Alexy, whose work is one of the main references in contemporary Legal Philosophy. According to parameters exposed by Alexy, some of Atienza’s central assertions about tragic cases are herein demonstrated as inadmissible. Based on Alexy’s work, it is possible to justify the opposite conclusion about (...) tragic cases, i. e., cases where there is more than one correct answer and these answers are opposed to each other. (shrink)

This book argues that Christian ethics urgently needs the category of tragic dilemmas. The author argues for a definition of tragic dilemmas that responds to philosophical concerns in a Christian context, using insights from the Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions, and in light of psychological evidence of moral injury after combat. Jackson-Meyer suggests that in a tragic dilemma an agent deliberates on, with sufficient knowledge, an issue that involves non-negotiable moral requirements in line with Christian obligations to (...) protect human life and the vulnerable. The agent is morally responsible for the harm caused and/or the obligation not acted upon. However, culpability is mitigated due to the constraints of the situation as long as the agent acts with, what Aquinas calls, "repugnance of the will." Tragic dilemmas are often the result of sin, a reality to which the Augustinian tradition is keenly attuned. When involvement in a tragic dilemma produces emotional harm, this has the power to undermine character because passions and the moral life are inextricably related. In turn, the agent's life is marred. In light of this harm, it is incumbent on Christian communities to offer opportunities for moral healing after tragic dilemmas. (shrink)

The present article is an attempt to describe the cultural determinants of the categoryof tragicality, the determinants considered in relation to the very generally conceived cultural systems of the West and East (particularly the Anglo-European tradition, on the one hand, and the Japanese and Chinese ones, on the other, as the most characteristic for the discussed problem). The particular parts of the article concentrate on various differences in approaching the notions of transcendence, individualism, natural and normative law. Summing up, the (...) author makes a list of the features conditioning, in a given culture, the development of a tragic consciousness that influences the formation of a specific vision of the universe. (shrink)

A world awash in little understood chemicals tragically harms adults and children alike. Laws keep health agencies in the dark about toxicants, slow, well motivated research hampers protections, and strenuous vested opposition exacerbates the harm. How science is used in the tort law can facilitate or frustrate redress of harm. This book recommends better approaches.

Tragic moral conflicts are situations from within which whatever one does—including abstaining from action—will be seriously wrong; even the overall right decision involves violating a moral responsibility. This article offers an account of recovery predicaments, a particular kind of tragic conflict that characterizes the current extinction crisis. Recovery predicaments occur when the human-caused extinction of a species or population cannot be prevented without breaching moral responsibilities to animals by doing violence to or otherwise severely dominating them. Recognizing the (...) harm of acting from within recovery conflicts adds force to appeals for interrogating and dismantling the systems of thinking, valuing, and acting that bring species to the brink of extinction. (shrink)

_Tragic Play_ explores the deep philosophical significance of classic and modern tragedies in order to cast light on the tragic dimensions of contemporary experience. Romanticism, it has often been claimed, brought tragedy to an end, making modernity the age _after_ tragedy. Christoph Menke opposes this modernist prejudice by arguing that tragedy remains alive in the present in the distinctively new form of the playful, ironic, and self-consciously performative. Through close readings of plays by William Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, Heiner Müller, (...) and Botho Strauss, Menke shows how tragedy re-emerges in modernity as "tragedy of play." In _Hamlet_, _Endgame_, _Philoktet_, and _Ithaka_, Menke integrates philosophical theory with critical readings to investigate shifting terms of judgment, curse, reversal, misfortune, and violence. (shrink)

Tragic choices arise during the COVID-19 pandemic when the limited resources made available in acute medical settings cannot be accessed by all patients who need them. In these circumstances, healthcare rationing is unavoidable. It is important in any healthcare rationing process that the interests of the community are recognised, and that decision-making upholds these interests through a fair and consistent process of decision-making. Responding to recent calls (1) to safeguard individuals’ legal rights in decision-making in intensive care, and (2) (...) for new authoritative national guidance for decision-making, this paper seeks to clarify what consistency and fairness demand in healthcare rationing during the COVID-19 pandemic, from both a legal and ethical standpoint. The paper begins with a brief review of UK law concerning healthcare resource allocation, considering how community interests and individual rights have been marshalled in judicial deliberation about the use of limited health resources within the National Health Service (NHS). It is then argued that an important distinction needs to be drawn between procedural and outcome consistency, and that a procedurally consistent decision-making process ought to be favoured. Congruent with the position that UK courts have adopted for resource allocation decision-making in the NHS more generally, specific requirements for a procedural framework and substantive triage criteria to be applied within that framework during the COVID-19 pandemic are considered in detail. (shrink)

_A moving meditation on recent geopolitical crises, viewed through the lens of ancient and modern tragedy__ “Spare, elegant and poignant.... If there is a single contemporary book that should be pressed into the hands of those who decide issues of war and peace, this is it.”—John Gray, _New Statesman_ “It is tragic that Robert D. Kaplan’s luminous _The Tragic Mind_ is so urgently needed.”—George F. Will_ Some books emerge from a lifetime of hard-won knowledge. Robert D. Kaplan has (...) learned, from a career spent reporting on wars, revolutions, and international politics in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, that the essence of geopolitics is tragedy. In _The Tragic Mind_, he employs the works of ancient Greek dramatists, Shakespeare, German philosophers, and the modern classics to explore the central subjects of international politics: order, disorder, rebellion, ambition, loyalty to family and state, violence, and the mistakes of power. The great dilemmas of international politics, he argues, are not posed by good versus evil—a clear and easy choice—but by contests of good versus good, where the choices are often searing, incompatible, and fraught with consequences. A deeply learned and deeply felt meditation on the importance of lived experience in conducting international relations, this is a book for everyone who wants a profound understanding of the tragic politics of our time. (shrink)

Peter Szondi´s pathbreaking work is a succinct and elegant argument for distinguishing between a philosophy of the tragic and the poetics of tragedy espoused by Aristotle. The first of the book´s two parts consists of a series of commentaries on philosophical and aesthetic texts from twelve thinkers and poets between 1795 and 1915: Schelling, Hölderlin, Hegel, Solger, Goethe, Schopenhauer, Vischer, Kierkegaard, Hebbel, Nietzsche, Simmel, and Scheler. The various definitions of tragedy are read not so much in terms of their (...) specific philosophies, but rather in the way their views assist in analyzing tragedies with an aim to establish a general concept of the tragic. The second part presents exemplary analyses of eight tragedies: Sophocles’Oedipus Rex, Calderon´s Life Is a Dream, Shakespeare´s Othello, Gryphius´ Leo Armenius, Racine´s Phaedra, Schiller´s Demetrius, Kleist’s The Schroffenstein Family and Büchner’s Danton's Death. The readings neither presuppose a concept of the tragic determined by context (as in Hegel's idea of the conflict between two orders of right), nor do they focus exclusively on the texts´ explicit contents. Instead, they elaborate the dialectical or aporetic structures at the heart of the tragic. The works analyzed represent the four great epochs of tragic poetry: the age of Greek tragedy; the Baroque era in Spain, England, and Germany; French Classicism; and the age of Goethe. (shrink)

This article presents an innovative approach to tragic irony, particularly in Euripides, highlighting how epistemic asymmetry—the unequal access to knowledge—is key to understanding this phenomenon. Three distinct types of tragic irony are identified. Partial irony arises when at least one character knows the truth; it can be controlled (when the character is aware of the irony) or uncontrolled (when the character unknowingly triggers it). Total irony occurs when no character fully understands the situation, but the audience does. Retroactive (...) irony implies the audience itself lacks control over what unfolds upon first viewing, which becomes discernible only through subsequent rewatching. The classification of irony into partial and total reveals distribution patterns, especially in terms of gender. Total and uncontrolled irony is more commonly associated with male characters, while controlled irony is more frequent in female characters. There are intriguing exceptions that confirm the rule, like Electra in her eponymous play and Dionysus in Bacchae. Partial irony is especially rich in dramatic effect, producing conversational polyphony—utterances that simultaneously carry different meanings for the characters and for the audience. This raises questions about how such polyphony integrates into the linearity of conversation. Partial irony typically emerges at the margins of the conversation, particularly at scene closures. In sum, this article argues for the relevance of the term ‘tragic irony’ as an essential tool for analysing tragic style, character construction and plot development. (shrink)

This short but thought-provoking volume asks the question 'What is it that tragedy makes us know?'. The focus is on tragedy as a mode of representing the experience of radical suffering, pain, or loss, a mode of narrative through which we come to know certain things about ourselves and our world--about its fragility and ours. Through a mixture of historical discussion and close reading of a number of dramatic texts--from Sophocles to Sarah Kane--the book addresses a wide range of debates: (...) how tragedy is defined, whether there is such a thing as 'absolute tragedy', various modern attempts to rework the classical heritage and the relation of comedy to tragedy. There is also a fresh discussion of whether religious--particularly Christian--discourse is inimical to the tragic, and of the necessary tension between tragic narrative and certain kinds of political as well as religious rhetoric. Rowan Williams argues that tragic drama both articulates failure and frailty and, in affirming the possibility of narrating the story of traumatic loss, refuses to settle for passivity, resignation, or despair. In this sense, it still shows the trace of its ritual and religious roots. And in challenging two-dimensional models of society, power, humanity and human knowing, it remains an intrinsic part of any fully humanist culture. (shrink)

_Tragic Play_ explores the deep philosophical significance of classic and modern tragedies in order to cast light on the tragic dimensions of contemporary experience. Romanticism, it has often been claimed, brought tragedy to an end, making modernity the age _after_ tragedy. Christoph Menke opposes this modernist prejudice by arguing that tragedy remains alive in the present in the distinctively new form of the playful, ironic, and self-consciously performative. Through close readings of plays by William Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, Heiner Müller, (...) and Botho Strauss, Menke shows how tragedy re-emerges in modernity as "tragedy of play." In _Hamlet_, _Endgame_, _Philoktet_, and _Ithaka_, Menke integrates philosophical theory with critical readings to investigate shifting terms of judgment, curse, reversal, misfortune, and violence. (shrink)

As genealogy has gained greater disciplinary recognition over the last two decades, it has become increasingly common to call any historically oriented philosophy, such as Theodor W. Adorno’s, “genealogy.” In this article, I show that Adorno’s philosophy indeed performs genealogy’s defining functions of “problematization” and “possibilization.” Moreover, it does so in unique ways that constitute a significant contribution to genealogical practice. Adorno’s method, here called “tragic genealogy,” is particularly well-suited to the genealogical analysis of traditional philosophical problems and to (...) the critical reanimation of declining, but ethically significant, values. Nevertheless, I also argue that Adorno’s philosophy cannot be assimilated into genealogical practice without rejecting or revising some of its Hegelian influences, particularly its philosophy of history and its modal metaphysics. (shrink)

Tragic Beauty in Whitehead and Japanese Aesthetics evolved from a paper Steve Odin delivered at the 1984 Conference for the International Society of Process Philosophy at Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan. This book will be intriguing and stimulating not only to those scholars who engage in Whitehead studies but also to those who are concerned with the development of an East–West dialogue on aesthetics and aesthetic education. In this volume, Odin compares Alfred North Whitehead's axiological process metaphysics, including his (...) concept of aesthetic experience and a doctrine of beauty, with the aesthetics of Zen Buddhism and offers readers a fresh cross-cultural understanding of Whitehead's process philosophy.In... (shrink)

The acknowledged masterpiece of Unamuno expresses the anguish of modern man as he is caught up in the struggle between the dictates of reason and the demands of his own heart.

The tragic or ‘instantaneous’ aorist usually has a paragraph to itself in the grammar books, as a distinct but not especially important use of the aorist. It is most common in Athenian drama of the second half of the fifth century, although there are possible examples in Homer and some learned revivals later. The present article offers an entirely new account of these aorists, and entails a new interpretation of the tone of some 75 lines of tragedy and comedy.

In his discussion of the tragic act in Poet. 14. 1453b15 ff. Aristotle separates the pity which we feel at mere suffering from pity roused by the way in which this suffering is or will be brought about. The revenge of an enemy is not in itself pitiable. We pity, if victim and agent are closely related to one another as members of the same family, but only if the action is of a certain kind. Four possible ways of (...) presenting the tragic act are therefore distinguished: attempted but not performed, with knowledge of the relevant facts ; performed with knowledge ; performed but in ignorance, recognition following later ; attempted in ignorance but not performed, since recognition occurs in time to prevent it. Of these four variations the first is censured on the ground that it is morally shocking without being tragic, since it lacks πάθος. The second is mentioned in b27 as the favourite of the older poets, but is here passed over without comment. The third is explicitly approved on the ground that it avoids moral shock and has the emotional κπληξις of the recognition. But for some reason which he does not state, Aristotle prefers the last, where recognition is in time to prevent the tragic suffering from actually taking place. (shrink)

Humanitarian healthcare work presents a range of ethical challenges for expatriate healthcare professionals, including tragic choices requiring the selection of a least-worst option. In this paper we examine a particular set of tragic choices related to the prioritization of care and allocation of scarce resources between individuals in situations of widespread and urgent health needs. Drawing on qualitative interviews with clinicians, we examine the nature of these choices. We offer recommendations to clinical teams and aid organizations for preparing (...) and supporting frontline clinicians in their efforts to determine the least-worst option, and in their responsibility for making such choices. (shrink)

An hypothesis about the tragic sense of four thoughts in the philosophy of Slavoj Žižek: subject, ideology, capitalism and democracy. These are some of the transversal arguments in the polyhedral work of the famous Slovenian philosopher and are essential for a minimum overall understanding of his thinking. To reinforce and illustrate this tragic hypothesis of Žižek's background, a review of his recent work Antigone (2016). A version with a clear ethical - political intentionality of the tragedy of Sophocles (...) that confirms that tragic current that underlies and unifies to a certain extent the philosophical project of Žižek. (shrink)

In the wake of postmodern critiques of the totalizing project of Western philosophy, cultural theorists have had to reconsider the ethical dimensions of their engagement with the other’s singular alterity without subsuming it within the epistemic coordinates of the Western subject. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s Death of a Discipline (2003) is an important intervention in reformulating this question within the institutional politics of Comparative Literature in the American academia. In imagining a “new comparative literature,” based not on globalization but on “planetarity,” (...) Spivak highlights the ethico-political stakes of translation and the risks that must be taken in reaching out to the subaltern other. -/- This essay locates Spivak’s text in the larger ‘politics of love’ that philosophers like Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida have tried to limn through their work on the other’s irreducible figure. In her writings, Spivak posits the intuitive openness of love as an alternative to hyper-rational, Enlightenment modes of dealing with nature and the environment. It is only by supplementing political activism with the patient, attentive, often painful, act of love that it is possible to establish ethical singularity with the other, even if it is equally possible that this love will not be returned, even if the consummation of this love remains an impossibility. In this essay, I read Amit V. Masurkar’s Hindi film Newton (2017) in the light of Sean D. Kirkland’s distinction between dromoscopic and aporetic temporalities and argue that this act of love is infused with intimations of the tragic, a ‘double bind’ that leads to an acknowledgement of the aporetic dimension of the endeavor, at the end of which there are no ways (Gk. poros) left, and yet an impossible translation remains the only ethical imperative. -/- Keywords: Spivak; planetarity; translation; tragedy; Bollywood. (shrink)

In Plato’s Republic, Socrates takes it that the best regime is doomed to fail. This failure is often attributed to inevitable errors in the rulers’ eugenic calculations. I propose that the city’s constitution must decline not because the eugenic calculations go wrong, but because the calculations must have always been wrong, and this on account of congenital errors in the city’s establishment. In this dramatic arc, from noble founding to destined fall, the reversal arguably reveals the city to be a (...) tragic figure. The Republic, then, would not be, as some read it, a prescription for authoritarianism or totalitarianism, but a reflection on political lies, human sacrifice, and the tragedy of politics. (shrink)

Pandemic-related restrictions can be especially tragic for people whose lives are ending; it seems that the needs and desires of people who are dying should be given extra consideration. Given an additivist view of well-being, however, the last weeks of a person's life can only matter so much relative to the rest of the life they had. This article reflects on the end of my mother's life during the Covid-19 pandemic in order to make the case that the additive (...) view of well-being is part of a broader trend of dehumanizing emergency ethics. (shrink)

A discussion of the tragic from a Heideggerian perspective. Oedipus Rex, Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound, Hamlet, Faust, An Enemy of the People, Death of a Salesman, and The Flies are examined in separate chapters. The rhetoric makes for difficult reading, and the analyses themselves turn out to be somewhat conventional. More interesting are the author's concluding suggestions: he argues forcibly for the need to find some deeper ground underlying both tragic "experience" and tragic "expression."—G. D. D.

(2004). A Tragic Ethos: The Irresponsibility of the Host in Martin Heidegger's ‘the Ister’. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology: Vol. 35, Heidegger and Husserl, pp. 157-167.

In my taxonomy, the tragic outlook is one of four types of outlooks, beside organological, mechanistic and personalistic. Its essence is the idea of non-integrity of being, non-integrity of man, and a dissonance between the quality-ridded scene of the becoming being and the creative actor. The tragic knowledge is a vital component part of the tragic outlook; it is inherent in Carl Jaspers and Christianity’s beliefs but as something transcended in the concept of salvation from the (...) class='Hi'>tragic. The Nietzschean challenge could be this “Be an affirming, creative way of life” upon seeing which the becoming “will not vomit.”. (shrink)

RésuméDe nombreux philosophes ont soutenu que l'existence du mal gratuit est la plus sérieuse objection contre l'existence d'un Dieu absolument parfait. Je soutiens que l'idée d'un dilemme moral (ou, plus précisément, d'un dilemmetragique) peut (1) fournir une justification morale pour que Dieu permette l'existence du mal gratuit, ou (2) offrir une théodicée de la tragédie divine pour expliquer pourquoi les maux de ce monde ne sont pas nécessairement gratuits ou, s'ils le sont, pourquoi ils ne peuvent pas fournir une preuve (...) décisive permettant de rejeter l'existence d'un Dieu absolument parfait. (shrink)

This book offers a resolution of the paradox posed by the pleasure of tragedy by returning to its earliest articulations in archaic Greek poetry and its subsequent emergence as a philosophical problem in Plato's Republic. Socrates' claim that tragic poetry satisfies our 'hunger for tears' hearkens back to archaic conceptions of both poetry and mourning that suggest a common source of pleasure in the human appetite for heightened forms of emotional distress. By unearthing a psychosomatic model of aesthetic engagement (...) implicit in archaic poetry and philosophically elaborated by Plato, this volume not only sheds new light on the Republic's notorious indictment of poetry, but also identifies rationally and ethically disinterested sources of value in our pursuit of aesthetic states. In doing so the book resolves an intractable paradox in aesthetic theory and human psychology: the appeal of painful emotions. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to illustrate how the disciple of Dionysus intends, based on a fiery defense of Greek tragedy, to evict the most uncomfortable of guests: nihilism. Faced with a long tradition that maintains that life is worthless and distancing himself from his educator, Nietzsche combats pessimism, a symptom of that nihilistic movement that shows the discontent of our culture. His tragic wisdom makes an unparalleled praise of existence despite the suffering, loneliness and melancholy that marked (...) his life. (shrink)

If the tragic interpretation of experience is still so current, despite its disastrous ethical consequences, it is because it shapes our subjectivity. Instead of contradicting the ideals of autonomy and freedom, a modern subjectivity based on self-victimization in effect enables them. By embracing subjection to an alienating other (the Law, Power) the autonomous subject protects its sameness from the disruption of real people. Seductions of Fate stages a dialogue between this tragic agent of political emancipation and the unconditional (...) ethical demands it seeks to evade. (shrink)

Free Will & The Tragic Predicament : Making Sense of Williams -/- The discussion in this paper aims to make better sense of free will and moral responsibility by way of making sense of Bernard Williams’ significant and substantial contribution to this subject. Williams’ fundamental objective is to vindicate moral responsibility by way of freeing it from the distortions and misrepresentations imposed on it by “the morality system”. What Williams rejects, in particular, are the efforts of “morality” to further (...) “deepen” or “refine” the notion of the voluntary, with a view to securing “ultimate justice”. It is these aims and aspirations, he argues, that take us to the precipice of scepticism. In Shame and Necessity (1993) Williams advances a vindicatory genealogy that unmasks the “illusions” and “fantasies” of our current ethical ideas as they relate to agency and responsibility. What we are then left with is the task of “recasting our ethical conceptions” . It is here that Williams is especially insistent on the importance and value of historical consciousness and reflection. The role of our reflections about the Greeks and tragedy is precisely to show that in order to move forward, into the future, we need to first look back at where we have come from. The value of these “untimely” observations is that they provide us with alternatives and options that we might otherwise lack. What we discover, when we consider the Greeks, is their commitment to a “pessimism of strength” that rests on rejecting scepticism. It is this two-sided perspective on our ethical predicament that delivers a more truthful account of our human situation, one that will help us discard those illusions and fantasies of "morality" that we are “better off” without. An account of this kind refuses to accept an optimism that insists that any form of responsible ethical life must be one that is immune to the influence of luck and fate. This is the fundamental lesson that we can learn from the ancient Greeks and that Williams seeks to “recover” for us. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue by example for the possibility of genuine dilemmas internal to Christian ethics. My example is the life of Sebastian Rodrigues, who is the protagonist of Shusaku Endo's moving novel "Silence". The first part of the paper is devoted to retelling Endo's story, highlighting salient ethical and religious features of the life of Rodrigues. The latter half of the paper argues for an interpretation of the story according to which Rodrigues confronts a real conflict between the (...) obligation to love God with total devotion and the obligation to love one's neighbor as oneself. I conclude with the suggestion that the outcome of this conflict is not ultimately tragic because it serves providentially to move Rodrigues closer to Christ in suffering love. (shrink)

This paper seeks to shed fresh light on the aesthetic and stylistic affiliations of Lycophron'sAlexandra, approaching the poem from two distinct but complementary angles. First, it explores what can be gained by reading Lycophron's poem against the backdrop of Callimachus’ poetry. It contends that theAlexandrapresents a radical and polemical departure from the Alexandrian's poetic programme, pointedly appropriating key Callimachean images while also countering Callimachus’ apparent dismissal of the ‘noisy’ tragic genre. Previous scholarship has noted links between the openings of (...) theAetiaand of theAlexandra, but this article demonstrates that this relationship is only one part of a larger aesthetic divide between the two poets: by embracing the raucous acoustics of tragedy, Lycophron's poem offers a self-conscious and agonistic departure from Callimachus’ aesthetic preferences. Second, this article considers another way of conceiving the aesthetics of the poem beyond a Callimachean frame, highlighting how Lycophron pointedly engages with and evokes earlier Aristotelian literary criticism concerning the ‘frigid’ style: theAlexandraconstructs its own independent literary history centred around the alleged name of its author, ‘Lycophron’. The article proposes that this traditional attribution is best understood as a pen name that signposts the poem's stylistic affiliations, aligning it not so much with the Ptolemaic playwright Lycophron of Chalcis but rather with Lycophron the sophist and a larger rhetorical tradition of stylistic frigidity. Ultimately, through these two approaches, the article highlights further aspects of theAlexandra's aesthetic diversity. (shrink)

My purpose in this paper is to argue that we are not vulnerableto inescapable wrongdoing occasioned by tragic dilemmas. I directmy argument to those who are most inclined to accept tragicdilemmas: those of broadly Nietzschean inclination who reject``modern moral philosophy'''' in favor of the ethical ideas of theclassical Greeks. Two important features of their project are todeny the usefulness of the ``moral/nonmoral distinction,'''' and todeny that what are usually classified as moral reasons always oreven characteristically ``trump'''' nonmoral reasons in (...) anadmirable agent''s deliberations.I show critics of modern moral philosophy such as BernardWilliams that their acceptance of tragic dilemmas underminestheir project of denying the moral/nonmoral distinction and thepriority of moral reasons. The possibility of tragic dilemmasrequires an account of practical deliberation in which moralreasons appear as already in-force obligations, with blame andguilt ready to be invoked, while nonmoral reasons appear as merereasons. This makes moral reasons importantly different fromnonmoral reasons in how they achieve their deliberative weight,and also makes them characteristically weightier. Thus,accommodating tragic dilemmas reinforces the moral/nonmoraldistinction and the priority of moral reasons, the very thingsthese critics want to deny. By accepting the possibility oftragic dilemmas, these critics are undermining their own project.The standard normative theories are dead set against tragicdilemmas, and the critics of modern moral philosophy shouldreject tragic dilemmas for the good of their project. Thus we allshould reject tragic dilemmas. (shrink)

This essay reconsiders the distinction between tragic heroes and tragic heroines through Walter Benjamin's account of fate, guilt, and speechlessness. Reading Sophocles' Oedipus and Antigone, Aeschylus' Agamemnon, and Euripides' Medea, it argues that male heroes articulate the tragic dimension through the nexus of desire and guilt, while female figures like Antigone and Medea enact a refusal of the "forced choice" that binds desire to guilt. Their acts mark a different ontology of the tragic—one in which desire (...) and negation coincide. In contrast to the heroes' loss, heroines embody the point where desire itself appears as the sign, and embodiment, of a lack of being. (shrink)