Virtue Ethics and Deontology: A Study of Hamlet
Abstract
Can works of fiction shed light on problems in ethics? This paper pursues this question in a
practical manner, by using the play of Hamlet to compare two rival moral theories: the
deontology of Kant and the virtue ethics of Aristotle. It begins with a deontological appraisal
of the actions of Hamlet in the play. This moral theory is seen not to sit well with our
intuitions about the play. The deontologist concludes that Hamlet is an evil character, which
contradicts our sympathies for him. Furthermore, the Kantian approach fails to adequately
identify the source of the tragedy in the play. The virtue ethical approach is then considered.
Virtue ethics provides a more nuanced understanding of the characters in the play. Hamlet
and Laertes are not seen as evil, but rather as characters who are flawed and yet
fundamentally worthy of our esteem. In the Aristotelian framework, Hamlet demonstrates a
deficiency and Laertes an excess of one particular virtue. Fortinbras represents the ‘Golden
Mean’ between this deficiency and excess. Thus the approach from virtue is seen to more
closely agree with our moral intuitions about the play. The deontological approach is too
strict and unwavering to adequately capture the multifaceted nature of our moral judgements
about fiction.
Key words: Hamlet, virtue ethics, deontology, Kant, Aristotle
Introduction
Works of fiction provide us with a means of assessing rival moral theories. When we read a
book, we have intuitions and beliefs about the moral status of characters and their actions in
the work. A moral theory should ideally align with and account for these intuitions. Indeed
some theorists, such as Martha Nussbaum, think that “moral thinking and moral philosophy
have an essential need for literature, that is, they cannot be successful without it" (Kaplin,
1992: 138). Nussbaum identifies the Aristotelian account of morality as one that gives a
fruitful reading of fiction. "Ethically crude" moralities, which are "based exclusively on
general rules” fail to take cognisance of the important features of particular situations, and so
inadequately account for our moral intuitions about literature (Nussbaum, 1992: 37). In this
essay I will investigate this claim, and see whether Aristotelian ethics is a satisfactory
alternative to a rule-based account of morality, namely Kantian ethics. To this end I will use
the play of Hamlet as an example of how we might test the relative merits and demerits of
deontology and virtue ethics in accounting for our intuitions about fictional characters.
Deontological Ethics
A deontological moral theory is one that says we should act in accordance with duty. The
particular deontological theory I will use is Kant’s Categorical Imperative. According to
Kant, an action can only have moral worth if the agent acts from duty alone, without any
other inclination. The good will of the agent is the only thing that is good without
qualification, and it acts in accordance with the moral principle underlying duty: the
Categorical Imperative. He gives two formulations of this principle in the Groundwork of the
Metaphysic of Morals. The first formulation is as follows: ‘I ought never to act except in such
a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law’ (1948: 68). The
second formulation is about respect for persons. A moral agent always takes account of other
people as free, autonomous human beings with a will of their own. For this reason people
should always be treated as ends in themselves and never simply as means: ‘Act in such a
way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of any other,
never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end’ (1948: 93). The immoral
person doesn’t act according to the moral law, and does not respect the autonomy of other
people but instead treats them merely as means to further their own aims.
What sorts of actions are prohibited by the Categorical Imperative? Kant gives the
example of lying when it is prudential to do so. He asks whether we are ever permitted to tell
an untruth: ‘Does a lying promise accord with duty?’ (1948: 85). If such an act were
permitted, it must be the case that I could will that it should become a universal law for
everyone to lie when it is beneficial to them to do so. By doing so I realise that I cannot will a
universal law of lying, for ‘by such a law there could properly be no promises at all, since it
would be futile to profess a will for future action to others who would not believe my
profession’ (1948: 85). Lying is an act which contravenes the first formulation of the
Categorical Imperative and so is an immoral act. When we knowingly deceive someone we
do not respect them as a person, as we keep the truth from them for our own gain. We treat
them simply as a means rather than as an end, which goes against the second formulation of
the principle.
Turning now to the play, we may ask the question: How should we judge Hamlet’s
actions from a deontological point of view? Does he act in accordance with the Categorical
Imperative? To answer this question, I will focus on Hamlet’s mission in the play: to avenge
his father by killing his uncle Claudius. He is given this task, which he vows to complete, by
the shade of his dead father, who tells Hamlet that it was Claudius who has left him
fatherless:
Ghost
Hamlet
Ghost
Hamlet
Ghost
Hamlet
If thou didst ever thy dear father love –
O God!
Revenge his foul and unnatural murder.
Murder!
Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
Haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love,
May sweep to my revenge.
(I, v)
Hamlet promises to avenge his father by killing the murderer Claudius, and we, the audience,
are supposed to sympathise with his doing so. Indeed, the tragedy of the play stems not from
Hamlet’s decision to kill his uncle, but from his delay and hesitation in doing so, from his
‘thinking too precisely on th’ event’ (IV, iv). We will look now at the final scene of the play,
in which Hamlet kills Claudius and thereby avenges his father. In what is evidently meant as
poetic justice, Claudius the murderer, the poisoner, is he himself murdered with his own
poison:
Hamlet:
Hamlet:
The point envenomed too?
Then venom to thy work.
(Hamlet stabs the King)
...
Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
(Hamlet forces the King to drink)
Drink off this potion.
(V, ii)
In a satisfyingly gory denouement, Claudius is both stabbed and poisoned; Hamlet’s task is
done and the audience feels that justice has been served.
The murder of Claudius is felt by the audience to be just and right. While Hamlet’s
actions throughout the play (most notably his treatment of Ophelia and the killing of
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) have not always been totally good from the point of view of
the impartial spectator, he has the audience’s sympathy in the end. Does this, however, fit
with the Categorical Imperative? How would the deontologist judge Hamlet’s killing of
Claudius? We might ask if we can make a universal law of Hamlet’s decision to pursue
vengeance: If a person has a relative murdered, then they are permitted to personally revenge
themselves on the killer by murdering them in turn. This law could not hold outside of some
sort of state of nature; otherwise law and order would be impossible as people would
continually be engaging in murder to avenge relatives, thus begetting more murders. On a
more fundamental level, is murder ever justified by the Categorical Imperative? To this
question, we must answer no. Murder is, from this deontological point of view, the worst act
a person can carry out. It is the ultimate violation of personal autonomy, of the will of another
person. It treats them simply as a means to satisfying one’s own sense of justice, or the sense
of justice of a community. We have what is called a ‘perfect duty’ (1948: 85-86) not to kill,
that allows of no exception1. The universal law that the deontologist follows would have to be
one that says you must never murder, even when it seems just to do so.
This conclusion goes completely against our intuitions about the play. This is shown
even more strikingly in Hamlet’s murder of Polonius. In the Closet Scene (III, iv), Polonius is
eavesdropping on Hamlet and his mother behind an arras. When Hamlet discovers him, he
runs Polonius through with his sword, thinking that it is Claudius who is hiding there. The act
of killing Polonius is one that the audience thinks, broadly speaking, is just. Through his
subterfuge and deceit Polonius is thought to have brought his fate upon himself, and we can
consent to Hamlet’s words over the deceased:
Hamlet:
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
1
I will ignore here considerations of Kant’s views on capital punishment, which are the subject of
ongoing academic debate. The interested reader is directed to Byrd (1989) for further discussion of
this issue.
I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune,
Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.
(III, iv)
While for the deontologist the murder is the morally depraved act, to the audience it is not the
murder which we find disturbing so much as Hamlet’s subsequent attitude towards it. He
doesn’t acknowledge that, whatever else he might have been, Polonius was the father of
Ophelia, the woman Hamlet once professed to love (III, i). Hamlet’s unconcern for this fact,
as well as his jape about Polonius being at supper ‘Not where he eats, but where he is eaten’
(IV iii) makes him far less sympathetic in our eyes than does the original murder.
Given his actions in the play, his deliberate lies and his murders, from a deontologist
point of view we would have to conclude that Hamlet is some kind of moral monster. It is
hard to see how the deontologist could have any sympathy for Hamlet in the play. Hamlet
would be judged to be just as evil as Claudius according to this moral viewpoint. The tragedy
for the audience of Hamlet is the death of the protagonist in the final scene. To the
deontologist, however, this would surely be closer to poetic justice; the evil character getting
what he deserves. Since this goes completely against our intuitions about the play, it seems
that deontology is an inappropriate moral response.
Virtue Ethics
We saw above that deontology, a moral theory that focuses on actions and duty, concludes
that Hamlet is an evil human being. This conclusion is completely contrary to our intuitions
about the play. The Shakespeare scholar A.C. Bradley draws our attention to this fact: ‘The
whole story turns upon the peculiar character of the hero. For without this character the story
would appear sensational and horrible; and yet the actual Hamlet is very far from being so’
(1985: 70). By looking at the character of Hamlet, and at the virtues and traits he displays and
admires, we may be able to arrive at a more satisfactory moral appraisal of him. A moral
theory which does not deal solely with actions but with character is virtue ethics. A virtue
ethical theory focuses on the virtues necessary for a person to live a good life. Unlike
deontology, which emphasises whether an agent acts in accordance with rules and duty,
virtue ethics deals primarily with the moral character of the agent. Alistair MacIntyre, a
defender of virtue ethics, says that we cannot simply look at an action in isolation to judge
moral worth, as ‘an action is always an episode in a possible history’ (2008: 542). An action
is grounded in the context of an overarching narrative, and MacIntyre draws our attention to
the role of history and culture in determining the good life. Rather than looking at individual
actions, we have instead to look at a life as a narrative in order to evaluate the goodness of an
individual. In understanding the moral worth of Hamlet, we must likewise look at his place in
the narrative of the play.
To do this, I will see if virtue ethics, specifically the ethics of Aristotle, gives a
reasonable account of the genealogy of the tragedy of the play. For Aristotle, ethics is
concerned with the good life, eudaimonia, with living well. The virtues for Aristotle are
virtues of character; those that are necessary for you to lead a good life. Virtue consists in
acting and feeling to the correct degree:
‘We can be afraid, e.g., or be confident, or have appetites, or get angry, or feel pity, in
general have pleasure or pain, both too much and too little, and in both ways not well;
but having these feelings at the right times, about the right things, towards the right
people, for the right end, and in the right way, is the intermediate and best condition,
and this is proper to virtue’ (NE: 1106b).
Being the ‘intermediate and best condition’ is Aristotle’s notion that virtue is a mean between
excess and deficiency. The person who leads the good life not only acts but feels in
accordance with virtue, as judged by their faculty of reason: ‘The excellent judges each sort
of thing correctly’ (NE: 1113b). The virtuous person acts according to the mean. To conclude
my essay, I will show that the tragedy in Hamlet arises precisely because of a deficiency in
virtue.
It is commonly accepted among critics (see Muir, 1963: 11) that the tragedy in the
play stems from Hamlet’s inability to take action once he learns of his father’s murder.
Instead of immediately seeking out his uncle to see that justice is served, Hamlet waits,
allowing the ‘smiling, damned villain’ (I, iv) to sit on the throne of Denmark, and letting the
play’s metaphorical poison spread. By doing so, Hamlet brings about the deaths of seven
people more than necessary, and sets in motion events culminating in his own grisly doom.
The values of his community and his conscience dictate that he must act and yet he does not.
From an Aristotelian point of view, he is lacking in the virtues of bravery and steadfastness.
For Aristotle, virtue requires both action and feeling. Hamlet fails not only to act as he should
by procrastinating, but he also fails to feel the correct amount of righteous anger at the
actions of Claudius. When he sees the Player moved to tears by a scene he is acting, a ‘dream
of passion’, he says:
Hamlet:
O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
…
What would he do
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have?
(II, ii)
Hamlet concludes that the only explanation for his own inaction is that he is cowardly, that he
is deficient in the virtue of bravery:
Hamlet:
Who does me this?
Ha, ‘swounds I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall
…
This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murdered,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must like a whore unpack my heart with words
(II, ii)
Hamlet is only able to take his revenge when he has overcome this deficiency in his virtue.
He is a ‘changed character’ (Murray 2009: 229) in the final act of the play. While it is too late
at this stage for him to save himself, he faces his own demise with bravery. His last words are
to the future of Denmark; he gives his ‘dying voice’ (V, ii) to Fortinbras. Fortinbras is one of
Hamlet’s foils in the play, and he consistently demonstrates the virtues of bravery and
steadfastness which Hamlet so often lacks. As one critic says, ‘The worthy Fortinbras has
nothing to repent of’ (Bolt, 1985: 15). Within the context of the play he is the most virtuous
character, and it closes with him reaping the rewards of his virtue.
Another of Hamlet’s foils, Laertes, demonstrates the opposite lack of virtue to
Hamlet. Whereas Hamlet is too hesitant to act in when he learns of his father’s murder,
Laertes is too quick, which makes him prey to Claudius’s plot, and ultimately leads to his
own downfall. Laertes, like Hamlet, is generally a virtuous character; Hamlet describes him
as ‘A very noble youth’ (V, i). However, like Hamlet his vice that is the cause of tragedy.
When Claudius proposes his plan to kill Hamlet, Laertes is so eager to take part in the ploy
take he proposes doing the deed himself:
Laertes:
My lord, I will be ruled,
The rather if you could devise it so
That I might be the organ.
(IV, vii)
Laertes’s flaw is an excessive feeling of anger in the face of his father’s death, which makes
him too reckless in action and leaves him prey to Claudius’s machinations. Ultimately, he
pays for this excess with his life.
Conclusion
Deontologists would see Hamlet and Laertes as evil, as they both willingly and knowingly
engage in murder. As mentioned above, if we accepted this moral viewpoint then it is
difficult to see how we could sympathize with them and mourn their loss at the end of the
play. Virtue ethics gives a far more sympathetic view of these characters. Hamlet has a
deficiency, while Laertes has an excess, of one particular virtue, which means they feel and
act in such a way that leads to the tragedy of the play. Fortinbras, who represents the mean
between their excess and deficiency, acts appropriately and is thus rewarded with a new
kingdom, Denmark. This account is far more in line with our natural dispositions and
attitudes towards the characters in the play, and with our moral intuitions about the play.
Deontology therefore seems to be a too rigid moral theory. Nussbaum seems to be vindicated
in saying that in realistic fictional works, such as the events depicted in Hamlet, virtue ethics
seems to give the more satisfactory account.
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