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Moral Depth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

John Kekes
John Kekes
Affiliation:
State University of New York at Albany
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Extract

Few would disagree that depth is an admirable, highly desirable, and yet rare quality. One would expect to find, therefore, that much has been written on the subject. But this is not so. Perhaps the topic appears forbidding, because the nature of depth is itself a deep and difficult question, since it forces those who ask it to decide what is ultimately worth caring about. Be that as it may, I shall venture on to this rarely explored ground. My strategy is to begin with some introductory remarks about depth in general and about moral depth as a particular form of it; then discuss Sophocles' dramatic treatment of the development of Oedipus toward, as I shall interpret it, greater depth; and then go on to formulate a more discursive account based on Sophocles' poetic intimations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 65 , Issue 254 , October 1990 , pp. 439 - 453
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1990

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References

1 The only contemporary treatment of the subject I know of is Savile, A., The Test of Time, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), Chapter 7Google Scholar; this contains a useful survey of some historical discussions of depth, but it concentrates on depth as an aesthetic notion. Nevertheless, my discussion is indebted to Savile's.

2 See the title essay in Black, M., The Prevalence of Humbug, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985).Google Scholar

3 It is only in this rather tenuous sense that I can agree with Savile's claim that depth involves the approximation of truth; see The Test of Time, 126–132.Google Scholar

4 I simply assert the point here. The arguments supporting it are in my The Examined Life (Cranbury, N.J.: Bucknell University Press, 1988)Google Scholar and Moral Tradition and Individuality, (Princeton University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

5 Sophocles, , The Three Theban Plays, tr. Fagles, R., (New York: Viking, 1982)Google Scholar. References in the text are to the lines of this translation.

6 My claim for this interpretation is very modest. It is only a possible reading of one aspect of these two plays. There are many other aspects about which I say nothing. And even of the same aspect, other readings are possible.

7 Nagel, T., The View From Nowhere (Oxford University Press, 1986).Google Scholar

8 For an illuminating study tracing the Greek view of this notion, see Lloyd-Jones, H., The Justice of Zeus: (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983).Google Scholar

9 For an exploration of this theme, see Nussbaum, M. C., The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge University Press, 1986)Google Scholar and my own Facing Evil, (Princeton University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

10 Tolstoy, L., The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stones, tr. Maude, A., (New York: Signet, 1960), 131–132.Google Scholar

11 The best account I know of is Hampshire, S., Thought and Action, New edition (University of Notre Dame Press, 1983).Google Scholar

12 See the undeservedly neglected work by Walsh, V. C., Scarcity and Evil, (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1961).Google Scholar

13 See the interesting discussion by Wolgast, E., The Grammar of Justice (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), Chapters 6–7.Google Scholar

14 By way of illustration, here is a list of some exceptional people who possessed moral depth. They are all authors whose depth we can infer largely from the works they produced. Sophocles of the Theban plays, Shakespeare of King Lear, Montaigne of the last book of the Essays, Spinoza and Hume of their philosophical works, George Eliot of Middlemarch, Conrad of Nostromo and Victory, Lampedusa of The Leopard are some examples of what I have in mind.

15 I am grateful to Chong Kim Chong for help with this paper.