Liberty

This chapter, which concludes Shakespeare’s Moral Compass, finds that all six of Jonathan Haidt’s moral foundations – authority, loyalty, fairness, sanctity, care, and liberty – are registered in Shakespeare’s plays, but they do not function independently of each other. Rather, they form an interlocking set of principles which together we can call “Shakespeare’s Moral Compass”. These interlocking principles can coalesce to form positive or negative outcomes: the “Virtuous Circle” or the “Vicious Circle”. It argues that for all his undoubted complexity, there are four simple lessons that run through all of Shakespeare’s plays: first, there is always a choice, it is never too late to choose to do the right thing. Second, the responsibility ultimately stops with you, because there is no divine or cosmic justice that will otherwise intervene; accordingly do not expect rewards or recognition for your good deeds. Third, we should not write anyone off, but rather make an effort to understand where they coming from, and try to see things from their point of view, because empathy and compassion are better than hatred, both morally and consequentially. Fourth, if we feel hard done by or slighted by unfairness, mercy is better than revenge both morally and consequentially.

Care

This chapter assesses the extent to which harm is caused in Shakespeare’s plays when the moral order breaks down by focusing on plays in which the dramatis personae revert to the Hobbesian state of nature and unspeakable cruelty: Titus Andronicus, 3 Henry VI, Richard III, and King Lear. In such moments Shakespeare seems to invoke the image of the tiger, which he only uses fifteen times in all his works. In the constrained or tragic vison (Thomas Sowell), when there are no institutions with which to reinforce the morals that bind people together (authority, loyalty, fairness, sanctity), the worst aspects of humanity – as embodied in the tiger – are granted their fullest expression. However, in Shakespeare’s version of this vision, human nature provides the seeds of its own rebirth.

Sanctity

This chapter examines the link between sin and dirtiness, disease or contagion in Shakespeare by looking at some key examples in King Lear, Timon of Athens, Othello, Richard III, Hamlet,Othello, and Macbeth. It also compares Shakespeare’s sometimes gruesome descriptions of degradation with those found in the Protestant theology of Richard Hooker and John Calvin, who each provide dark visons of human impurity. It also cross references Catholic teachings on sin as embodied in Thomas Aquinas. In the process, the chapter attempts to discover what was sacred to Shakespeare.

The Constrained Vision of Evolutionary Ethics

This chapter adapts Thomas Sowell’s concept of the constrained (or “tragic”) and unconstrained (or “utopian) visions of humanity in its consideration of evolutionary ethics as a lens through which to approach Shakespeare’s plays. The first half summarises and explains the two visions, while the second traces the development of evolutionary ethics from Adam Smith and Charles Darwin to the work of E.O. Wilson, David Sloan Wilson, and Jonathan Haidt. Along the way, it considers the so-called “Darwin Wars” over the competing evolutionary theories of kin selection, group selection and species selection. Ultimately, the study aligns itself with the constrained vision and supports the emergent view in evolutionary literature of “group selection” following the work of Wilson, Sloan Wilson, and Haidt.

Loyalty

This chapter approaches the topic of loyalty in Shakespeare’s plays primarily through the lens of Antonio’s devotion to Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice and Celia’s to Rosalind in As You Like It. It argues that although these pairs of friends are differently gendered, they are structurally very similar, and marked by their total imbalance. Both Antonio and Celia demonstrate exceptional selflessness in their loyalty, despite the fact that neither Bassanio nor Rosalind come close to ever repaying their kindness. The chapter suggests that our difficulty in processing these disproportionate relationships is because they upset the moral foundation of fairness, but loyalty is not transactional. It seems, rather, that Shakespeare’s notion of friendship rested partly on the Christian (Thomist) virtue of charity. It also argues that when Shakespeare deals with loyalty, he focuses on individual relationships, as opposed to groups. In the language of modern psychological and sociological studies, this renders his friendships, and by extension his concept of loyalty, “feminine” even though the friendships he depicts are between both men and women.

The Reformation, Capitalism and Ethics in England during the 1590s and early 1600s

This chapter complicates the outline of moral philosophy in Shakespeare’s period provided by the previous chapter by considering the impact of the Protestant Reformation and the challenge posed by John Calvin to the synthesised humanist moral systems that had been developing during the Renaissance. It also considers the impact of the rise of capitalism, which is broadly coincident with that of Protestantism. It considers the moral implications of Calvin’s three solas, as mediated in England by William Perkins’s A Golden Chain (1591) and Thomas Becon’s The Governance of Vertue (1556), while noting Shakespeare’s possible hostility to puritanism. In the second half, it reconsiders Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) and the Calvinist notion of “the calling”, while tracing the changing attitude towards commerce in the work of Giovanni Botero, John Wheeler, and Walter Raleigh. It argues that Calvin’s thought lacks the individualist and entrepreneurial enterprise found in Machiavelli, and that any attempt to locate “the spirit of capitalism” must be found in the “unresolved tension” between Machiavelli and Calvin.

Past Reflections on Shakespeare and Morality

This chapter surveys and evaluates the major studies on Shakespeare and morality from 1775 to 1964. In so doing, it demonstrates that there are three main traditions of thinking about Shakespeare and morality: the Protestant tradition foregrounding divine providence (Elizabeth Griffith, Charles Knight, Bishop Charles Wordsworth, Richard G. Moulton, and Harold Ford), the Catholic tradition foregrounding moral conscience (Richard Simpson, Henry Sebastian Bowden, Arthur Temple Cadoux, Alfred Harbage, and John Vyvyan) and the secular-humanist tradition foregrounding human nature (William Hazlitt, Frank Chapman Sharp, George H. Morrison, and Roland Mushat Frye). It finds a number of reoccurring conclusions in the available criticism: that Shakespeare stresses the importance of viable alternatives in ethical choices; that he emphasises the psychological interiority of morality; and that he has a positive view of humanity. Critics also found that it is not possible to pin Shakespeare down to any Christian doctrine, and it is not clear whether or not the worlds of his plays allow for redemption, and his sinners seldom seek it.

Fairness

Fairness concerns itself with proportionality, not equality. It is a question of reciprocity – “just desserts”, what one deserves – rather than egalitarian distribution. This chapter focuses on how Shakespeare tends to depict feelings of unfairness as a key motivation for revenge and, if unchecked, a possible route to villainy, evil, and even societal collapse. This is because the desire for revenge fuels selfish or self-seeking behaviour – the antithesis of fairness – and thus unfairness begets unfairness. Human groups which lack any sense of fairness and in which individuals have become wholly selfish cannot flourish. I will focus chiefly on Richard III’s primary for motivation revenge, Hamlet’s refusal to kill Claudius when he is praying, the Duke’s pardon of Angelo in Measure for Measure, and Edmund’s motivations in King Lear.

Authority

This chapter argues that Shakespeare’s response to the moral foundation of authority is not located in the speeches of his political leaders, because authority is not synonymous with power. Authority must be earned, whereas power is usually bestowed. Therefore, we must look to the relationships between characters of different social rank, especially between servants and their masters. In Shakespeare’s plays these relationships often take the form of freely chosen employment as opposed to feudal oaths of fealty. This is because paid employment became the new norm as early capitalism flourished in the 1500s, and the last remnants of the old feudal order were swept away. Focusing on the relationship between Adam and Orlando in As You Like It, the contrast between Kent and Oswald in King Lear, and the relationship between Flavius the steward and Timon in Timon of Athens, it contends that in Shakespeare’s plays virtuous authority entails reciprocal good service. Good service is found not in mere obedience, but in a sense of duty, which might on occasion directly contradict the wishes of the master. If authority is mistaken for oppressive power, and if liberty is mistaken for subversion, tyranny follows.

Moral Philosophy in England during the Time of Shakespeare

This chapter provides the historical and philosophical underpinning that informs the rest of Shakespeare’s Moral Compass. Divided into four parts, it traces moral thought from antiquity to the time of Shakespeare covering four broad traditions. First, it considers the virtue ethics of Aristotle and, later, Thomas Aquinas, which provide the basic tenets of virtues and vices that lie at the heart of morality in this period. Second, the chapter covers Ancient Stoicism as described by Cicero, and later modified by Seneca and his concepts of the will and the self, which saw a revival of interest in England in the 1590s and 1600s, as evidenced by the work of Joseph Hall. Third, the chapter provides an overview of Academic scepticism, again as described by Cicero, and later reworked by Sextus Empiricus; a mode of thinking that was to prove highly influential in the early modern period, especially for a thinker who almost certainly influenced Shakespeare, Michel de Montaigne Finally, it considers Epicureanism, the impact of Lucretius’s poem De Rerum Natura (“On the Nature of Things”), and its possible influence on the thinker who launched the most a radical assault on traditional Christian virtue ethics in the period, Niccolò Machiavelli.