맥베드와 도덕 운의 문제

Abstract

This essay argues that Macbeth's morality in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth has to do with various lucks beyond his control. A contemporary philosopher, Bernard Williams could give a useful way to evaluate Macbeth’s morality by discrediting the Kantian view of morality which can be described as the idea that morality is immune to luck. Williams suggests that luck could make a moral difference. He tries to do fatal damage to the notion of moral by setting up a collision between moral justification and rational justification. According to his view, rational justification is at least partly a matter of luck, while moral justification is not supposed to be a matter of luck at all. So a certain action is morally unjustified, but rationally justified(or vice versa). His argument calls into question the notion of moral autonomy. His view could be applied to Macbeth's behavior as a moral agent because his circumstantial luck heavily works on his consciousness. Luck enters into Macbeth's life in profound ways and affects his success and failure. Macbeth's crimes, then, is morally unjustified but rationally justified, because his serial killings happen when he is forced by circumstances to act in order to fulfill his desire. As the circumstances develop, his desire for power proceeds in a way he never wanted. Furthermore, Macbeth's emotional weakness and personality to some degree remit his guilt because those are beyond his control. Circumstances are incompatible with the fulfillment of Macbeth’s private ambition. Therefore, we need to consider the fact that intuition and circumstantial and intrinsic luck work together in the sense that Macbeth’s nature and circumstances interact when we make a moral judgment of Macbeth’s crime. Macbeth's tragedy shows that moral value is relative to the interaction of individual character and circumstance. Macbeth’s failure may result from his bad luck after all.