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Richard Raatzsch holds the chair for practical philosophy at the European Business School in Wiesbaden, Germany.

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"What is evil? What are its forms? How is it motivated? These are questions of the greatest human significance and Raatzsch's treatment of them is sensitive, imaginative, and broadly based. This book brings together different lines of argument from epistemology, moral philosophy, and philosophy of mind in a highly compact and supercharged, yet fully comprehensible form. The result packs an enormous intellectual punch."--Raymond Geuss, University of Cambridge

"This original, deeply felt, clearly written, and well-argued book combines Shakespearean analysis, moral philosophy, psychology, and philosophy of literature--all in a succinct, unified, and impressive way."--Richard Eldridge, Swarthmore College

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"What is evil? What are its forms? How is it motivated? These are questions of the greatest human significance and Raatzsch's treatment of them is sensitive, imaginative, and broadly based. This book brings together different lines of argument from epistemology, moral philosophy, and philosophy of mind in a highly compact and supercharged, yet fully comprehensible form. The result packs an enormous intellectual punch."--Raymond Geuss, University of Cambridge

"This original, deeply felt, clearly written, and well-argued book combines Shakespearean analysis, moral philosophy, psychology, and philosophy of literature--all in a succinct, unified, and impressive way."--Richard Eldridge, Swarthmore College

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THE APOLOGETICS OF EVIL

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

Introduction..............................................................1Chapter One The Concept of Iago...........................................111.1 The Origin of the Concept.............................................111.2 Acting without a Motive?..............................................141.3 Iago's Mode of Being and the Idea of a Panopticon.....................30Chapter Two Apologia for Iago.............................................772.1 Defense, Justification, and Understanding.............................772.2 Defending Iago........................................................912.3 Why Iago Perishes, and What His Downfall Means........................103Acknowledgments...........................................................109Index.....................................................................111

Chapter One

1.1. The Origin of the Concept

5. At the beginning, it was suggested that the reason why Iago is called "Iago" could be the resemblance between this name and the word "ego." An egoist is said to be a person whose first—or only—thought is always of himself. Thus egoism is, above all, the attitude and the concomitant behavior of a person who believes that he always comes first or that he is the only thing that matters. Others therefore only come second or are irrelevant (even though they have a fundamental importance for the egoist, as will be explained later). Accordingly, Iago might lend his name to an attitude like that of the egoist, but deviating from it in some important points. There is a sense in which Iago is an egoist raised to an absolute level and therefore no longer just an egoist. Exactly what that means is the topic of this study.

6. A few reminders of Othello may bring the picture of Iago—and therefore the concept of Iago—before our eyes in somewhat more vivid outlines.

Iago is the ensign of Othello, a general in the service of the Venetian Republic. Situated in the hierarchy between Iago and his general is the lieutenant Cassio. Othello and Iago are married to Desdemona and Emilia, respectively. Cassio is single but probably has a mistress. Apart from these, only one other character has a sizable role: Roderigo, a Venetian nobleman, who is in love with Desdemona.

In a nutshell, the plot of the play is as follows: Iago hatches a plan, tangentially involving Roderigo, to make Othello jealous of Cassio. The plan succeeds to the extent that Othello orders Iago to murder Cassio. However, when the order is carried out, it is Roderigo who is killed, and Cassio is merely wounded. Othello strangles Desdemona and—once Emilia reveals the truth about Iago's plot—he kills himself. Thereupon, Iago stabs Emilia and is arrested, while Cassio is appointed general in Othello's place.

7. Why, then, is the play called Othello and not Iago (or at least Othello and Iago)? To anticipate my conclusion: Calling the play Iago would contradict what I believe to be its meaning. My own interpretation contends that Iago is a character whose actions cannot be justified but can be defended. The risk involved in this formulation is the ease with which it can be misunderstood—Aside, sotto voce: Iago is a character whose actions cannot be justified; but aloud, to the audience: they can nevertheless be defended. That Iago, or his actions, cannot be justified would seem to go without saying. But can he be defended, all the same? This could easily give the impression that the unexpected part of my analysis, the defense, is the main thing, and the obvious part, the impossibility of justification, is a minor matter. From this impression it is not far to the thesis that the play is really a glorification of Iago, a paean to ruthlessness, a song of praise for inconsiderateness raised to an absolute level. In order really to be considerate, rather than just feigning this virtue, we must be aware that others also have a claim to be considered, and we must acknowledge this claim. This is precisely what is not true of Iago. One might then think that the play is merely a celebration of the active principle in the human species, realized in a single individual who knows no limitations apart from those of natural necessity and destiny. However, since the play is called Othello, this does not appear to be a very promising line of interpretation. Nevertheless, the play makes it rather visible that the connections between Iago and Othello, the two main protagonists, are internal ones—as the relation between the two sides of one and the same coin is an internal relation. The fact that Iago is the dominating figure in a play which is called Othello, or the tension between content and title, if you like, should focus the spectator's, or reader's, attention on the complexity of the moral situation. Therefore, to ask whether the play simply praises or simply condemns ruthlessness is too simple a question. The real moral situation is more complex than these questions allow it to be. That is, there is indeed an element of a praise of ruthlessness in the play; it is, however, not a form of praise that is simply the opposite of a condemnation of ruthlessness. One can see that the questions asked above are too simple by reflecting that the only appropriate answer to them would be that the play is a form of condemning praise, or a praising condemnation, of ruthlessness.

1.2. Acting without a Motive?

8. In section 6 I gave a brief summary of the action of Othello, providing a pattern for an ostensive definition of the concept of Iago. Is anything essential missing in that pattern? Yes and no. Naturally, one thing that is missing is what Othello asks Cassio about, when the complete panorama of Iago's actions is revealed to him:

Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil Why he hath thus ensnar'd my soul and body? (5.2.302–3)

What is missing is Iago's motive, the force that drives all his actions, unites them into a whole, and supplies them with a content. The absence of a visible, strong enough motive might easily appear to be an essential or fatal defect, because, as Samuel Johnson says, "nothing is essential to the fable but unity of action." However, why must unity of action presuppose a single, unifying motive? Are not more complex and unusual forms of unity of action dramatically possible?

The unity of action of which Johnson speaks is the unity in the multiplicity of those deeds that constitute the play. The sequence of scenes that make up a play, at least in its old-fashioned forms, is essentially different from the sequence of scenes we see, for example, if we zap from one television program to the next, even if all the channels happen to be showing soap operas, which are all more or less alike. This, too, could create a certain unity and could even be intended to do so, but, as a kind of parody of traditional drama, it shows that the original unity of scenes envisaged by Johnson is of a different kind. This unity of a complex but unified action, mutatis mutandis, also applies internally to the actors involved. Each of them, or at any rate each of the main characters, must have a visibly unified motivational structure.

The complex...