King Lear and the Ethics of Brutal, Caring Faith

Abstract

This essay engages with King Lear to perform an ethical meditation. The essay finds within the play an ethic resembling the ethics of care: health and flourishing are present not merely in individual human beings but in bonds between human beings. King Lear sets this ethic within a context characterized by finality and human finitude and frailty. Human beings must act within a ripe moment, without being able to consider every contingency and possibility; these acts can (and probably do) affect the wellbeing of those around the actor; and once these acts are completed, they are irrevocable. King Lear sets this state of affairs against a backdrop of indifferent, intractable realms of nature, the divine, and politics. Nevertheless, the essay finds in King Lear the possibility that human beings will grant one another the gift of dignity—even within all that is bleak, contingent, and absurd—a possibility that is ultimately grounded in faith.