{"id":12700,"date":"2011-01-16T22:33:37","date_gmt":"2011-01-17T03:33:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=12700"},"modified":"2011-01-16T22:36:02","modified_gmt":"2011-01-17T03:36:02","slug":"was-oedipus-culpable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2011\/01\/was-oedipus-culpable\/","title":{"rendered":"Was Oedipus Culpable?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As I noted in an\u00a0earlier post on Sophocles\u2019 <\/a>Oedipus Rex<\/a><\/em>, I am (very slowly) working my way through the ancient Greek tragedies. \u00a0I recently finished the sequel to\u00a0Oedipus Rex<\/em>,\u00a0Oedipus at Colonus<\/em>. \u00a0One of the central questions in\u00a0OC<\/em> is the extent to which Oedipus was truly culpable for killing his father, King Laius, and sleeping with his mother, Queen Jocasta. \u00a0And, indeed, to modern sensibilities (or at least my modern sensibilities), Oedipus suffers far in excess of his blameworthiness. \u00a0After all, he did not know that Laius and Jocasta were his father and mother \u2014 he was raised by the King and Queen of Corinth, and they never told him that they were not his biological parents. \u00a0The whole patricide and incest thing was an accident. \u00a0So why should Oedipus suffer blindness, exile, and life as a wandering beggar \u2014 how he can deserve such a fate?<\/p>\n

To be sure, Oedipus did massacre Laius and his attendants following a dispute over whose chariot had the right of way \u2014 what seems to be an ancient instance of road rage. \u00a0Even if he did not know that Laius was his father, we might say Oedipus was culpable for a hyper-violent overreaction to a minor slight. \u00a0<\/p>\n

But, if we are to be fair to Oedipus, we need to think about his culpability from the standpoint of the values and beliefs of his culture. \u00a0This was a premodern society in which male honor was a paramount value \u2014 think of Achilles, that Greek hero par excellence, sulking in his tent over a slight from his commanding officer while his comrades are being slaughtered on the plains of Troy. \u00a0And, indeed, I get no sense from either <\/em>OR\u00a0or <\/em>OC <\/em>that Oedipus was at all blameworthy for the crossroads massacre per se. \u00a0It was only the fact \u2014 unknown to Oedipus \u2014 that his father was the victim that made the event the horrifying moral transgression that it was.<\/p>\n

If anything, Oedipus\u2019s culpability may have been in the nature of what we would now call recklessness \u2014 consciously proceeding in the face of a substantial and unjustifiable risk. \u00a0Oedipus may not have known the truth, but he did get warnings \u2014 a rumor that the King and Queen of Corinth were not his biological parents, a prophecy that he would kill his father and sleep with his mother. \u00a0We might conclude that Oedipus must have been aware of a risk of patricide any time he used deadly force against an older man, and a risk of incest any time he slept with an older woman. \u00a0Knowing the risks, it was at least arguably culpable of him not to back down at the crossroads and not to decline the hand of Jocasta in marriage.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, we must still contend with the costs of dishonor that Oedipus might have suffered at the crossroads. \u00a0Our concept of recklessness requires not only a substantial risk, but also an\u00a0unjustifiable risk. \u00a0The dishonor of backing down at the crossroads might have been so high as to justify the risk of patricide that Oedipus assumed by fighting. \u00a0It\u2019s also possible that Oedipus would have suffered dishonor by refusing the opportunity to step into the position of the dead King Laius (including his position in Jocasta\u2019s marital bed), although I\u2019m much less confident about that interpretation.<\/p>\n

Even granting a recklessness-type culpability, there are still proportionality questions \u2014 the severity of Oedipus\u2019s punishment should match the degree of his blameworthiness. \u00a0Although recklessness is blameworthy, we would regard it as a significantly lesser form of culpability than intentional wrongdoing. \u00a0Yet, in a society in which male honor is the highest value, Oedipus suffers what may be fairly characterized as a fate worse then death. \u00a0He is condemned to wander the country as a beggar, led around by his daughters. \u00a0His utter helplessness and dependence on two females must have been seen as among the most extreme forms of degradation imaginable. \u00a0Can recklessness really merit this fate?<\/p>\n

Cross posted at Life Sentences Blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I noted in an\u00a0earlier post on Sophocles\u2019 Oedipus Rex, I am (very slowly) working my way through the ancient Greek tragedies. \u00a0I recently finished the sequel to\u00a0Oedipus Rex,\u00a0Oedipus at Colonus. \u00a0One of the central questions in\u00a0OC is the extent to which Oedipus was truly culpable for killing his father, King Laius, and sleeping with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-popular-culture-and-law","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}