Morality

In Medea we are presented with a character that commits a series of murders for the sake of revenge. Now we must determine the morality of these actions. So are the murders of the Princess, Kreon, and the Children immoral? 

I will present three arguments as to why these actions are clearly morally wrong. First, let us consider the murders from a contractualist perspective. Contractualism states that the morality of an action is based on what we can justify to some else so that there are no reasonable complaints against you. There are two reasonable complaints against Medea. First, she killed 4 human beings because she was jealous. Second, she killed her own children just to spite Jason. I could list more but I think I have made more point.

Now let's consider this from a Kantian perspective. The 1st formulation of the Categorical Imperative states, "Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."  Now assume that it is always morally justifiable to murder someone out of a desire for revenge. Logically, this will lead to the Purge where people are being killed all the time. Therefore under the 1st formulation of the Categorical Imperative killing someone out of a desire for revenge must be considered immoral as it leads to an illogical outcome. Even if you do not believe this argument we can consider these murders under the 2nd formulation of the Categorical Imperative which state, "Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end" This essentially says that you should never use another human being as a means to end. By using her children as instrument to commit murder, Medea commits what Kant would consider to be one of the most immoral acts possible, disregarding the autonomy of a human being. 

Now let us consider the actions from the Consequentialists perspective. Consequentialism says that the morality of an action is determined by the outcomes of the action. Medea's actions lead to four people dying. This is all we must consider under the consequentialist framework. The action is immoral because the outcome of the actions lead to four people not being alive. 

I could go on showing how Medea's actions are immoral under many different moral frameworks, but this post is long enough already. 



Sources: 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/
x

Shafer-Landau, Russ. Ethical Theory: an Anthology. Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.

https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/kant1785.pdf