The Impossibility of Ethical Examples

Abstract

In discussions of ethics it is common to furnish readers with examples of what would constitute an ethical act with the examples often being drawn from myth and classical literature. Foremost amongst such examples is Sophocles’ play Antigone and its central, titular character. Ostensibly Sophocles’ drama concerns the story of Oedipus’s daughter, Antigone, who refuses the order to leave her brother unburied outside the city walls. The city of Thebes, following the exile of Oedipus, was to be ruled in alternate years by Oedipus’ sons Polynices and Eteocles. When Eteocles refuses to allow Polynices his turn on the throne, Polynices determines to engage in war with the city. The war results in the two brothers dying at each other’s hands and, in the aftermath of the war, the throne being assumed by their uncle, Creon. Deeming Polynices an enemy of the state and Eteocles the defender of the state, Creon pronounces an edict that, while Eteocles will be honoured by a full state burial, Polynices is to be left as carrion outside the city walls. Antigone, the sister of Polynices and Eteocles, refuses this edict and determines to bury Polynices. Before his attack on the city and before the events which form Antigone, Polynices had asked Antigone to bury him, to guarantee him ‘the honored rites of death’ (Sophocles, Oedipus At Colonus: 366, line 1600). Antigone, the play, thus opens with Antigone’s first determination to follow her promise to her brother, to fulfil her duty and bury him. What is striking about Antigone’s stance is that she determines to do so even in the face of certain death. Creon’s edict is unwavering. Anyone who attempts to cover or remove the body of the traitor shall be executed.