- What, if any, details of the plays might justify this explanation for her actions? What details might contradict this explanation?
- Does the presence of injustice within a legal system permit one to take the law into one's own hands? Why and to what extent?
- How might the legal system in Argos be changed to reduce the occurrence of vigilantism?
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Weekly Topic: Injustice and the Law
We could evaluate Clytaemestra's murder of Agamemnon as justifiable or unjustifiable for many reasons. One possible justification would go something like this: As a woman in Greek society, Clytaemestra has few if any places to seek redress when she perceives injustice, so her only remedy is to take the law into her own hands.
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The presence of injustice within a legal system as in Argos by no means permits a person to take the law into their own hands. While this appears to seem strange to say as an outsider who is staring at an aparent injustice, we must remember that we are comparing the justice system in Argos to ones we are familiar with when we make these value judgements. If we look at an example within our society, this argument may make more sense. If we look at a common place court practice of the trial penalty in US courts some may say that this is an apparent injustice. A trial penalty may result when an individual wishes to have a trial instead of plea out. The penalty is that cases that go to trial lead to stiffer sentences. Some say this is an injustice because the Constitution states that all citizens have a right to trail. If this is considered an injustice, which many do, then we would be saying that if you got a stronger punishment due to a trial, you can break out of prison because of this injustice. This is obviously not okay by almost any persons standard. When looking at Argos' legal system and injustices we have to evaluate them in the context that they are intended to be enforced in. This is just one example why I see that injustice does not grant the right to take actions into your own hands.
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ReplyDeleteThe only justification Clytaemestra has for murdering Agamemnon is that he sacrificed their daughter, Iphigenia. Since women in ancient Greece, had little power in society, she had little choice but to resort to vigilante justice if she desired any sort of retaliation. However, this justification can be contradicted since in his opinion, Agamemnon had sacrificed Iphigenia for the common good of the people. The presence of injustice does not allow one to take the law into one’s own hands because that in itself would be an injustice. Not all laws can be considered just by all people, but all people need to follow the laws regardless of whether they are deemed just or unjust. The law of the land in Argos seems to be very primitive and similar to that of Hammurabi’s Code, “An Eye for an Eye, Tooth for a Tooth”,etc., with the primary motive being retaliation; doing harm to those who have harmed you. The legal system in Argos might be changed to reduce the occurrence of vigilantism by giving women in that society more equal rights and in general allowing citizens to file suits for someone’s injustices and see them tried in the court of law rather than taking the law into their own hands. In this case, hypothetically, Clytaemestra would have been able to file a suit against her husband, Agamemnon, rather than murder him in cold blood. Realistically, if Clytaemestra had created an uproar about Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphigenia, she would be ridiculed and no justice would be achieved.
All right, maybe this was confusing before, but if you are not necessarily interested in posting anything on the topic, but have a comment, then this is a good place to do that.
ReplyDeleteIf, however, you would like to post something about the topic, then you will have to write a new post with your own title and whatnot. "Blog #1" or "Post 1" are descriptively accurate, but those titles don't really evoke very much and could get a little redundant over the course of the semester.
With that said, I do want to make a comment about Alex's comment, which I hope he will resubmit as a post with a more exciting title at some point. Alex suggests that Argos could be made more just for all citizens if they had the right to file suits alleging injustice. Two things seem relevant: First, who is a citizen? women and slaves generally weren't considered to be citizens in Greece and historically there have been problems of deciding who has access to courts and who qualifies as a citizen in governments around the world. Second, if women and citizens were allowed to file suits in court, would anything change? It seems like Agamemnon, as king, plays the role of prosecutor, judge and jury in Argos, so, wouldn't he have a preference for the defendant if Clytaemestra tried to bring him to trial?
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