Hamlet: The Neuroethics of Vengeance, Revenge and Redemption

Hamlet: The Neuroethics of
Vengeance, Revenge and Redemption
Peter A. Moskovitz
The desire for revenge is a common response to
the experience of suffering and the interpretation
of suffering as injury. Revenge has four parts:
1) the event that inflicts injury along with its agent,
2) the motivation of vengeance that includes
mistrust, indignation and anger,
3) the act of revenge, imagined or completed, and
4) the experience of satisfaction at “being
revenged”.
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Introduction: Hamlet: The Neuroethics of
Vengeance, Revenge and Redemption
The fantasy of violent revenge feels good.
“Pay back” = “paid off” or “redeemed.”
But the “redemption” of revenge only happens
in fantasy, rarely in reality, if ever.
A common predisposition links vengeance and
suicide in Hamlet (C. 1600), along with
jealousy and racist xenophobia in Othello
(C. 1604).
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Introduction: Hamlet: The Neuroethics of
Vengeance, Revenge and Redemption
Mammalian nurturing (attachment, individuation
and separation) evokes conflict, threats to the
integrity of personhood, mistrust and anger.
The predisposition to vengeance, suicide, jealousy
and racism is intrinsic to the human
condition.
The tragedy of Hamlet is not that he doesn’t “get
revenge”, but rather that he thinks that the
feeling of redemption after violent revenge is
possible; thus, he loses his moral bearing.
3

Justifying revenge
Revenge is right because it is fair.
Impartial justice Revenge
4

The Structure of Revenge
Revenge has four parts:
1) the event that inflicts injury along with its
agent,
2) the motivation of vengeance that includes
indignation and anger,
3) the act of revenge, imagined or completed,
and
4) the experience of satisfaction at “being
revenged”.
5

The Structure of Revenge
1) the event that inflicts injury along with its agent
Injury = the experience of suffering.
Injurious events commonly result from the
“ordinary vices” (cruelty, betrayal, hypocrisy,
snobbery and mysanthropy) .
Suffering feels infinitely variable but:
Suffering is a unitary, unique neurobiological
event regardless of its cause or context.
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The Structure of Revenge
2) the motivation of vengeance that includes
indignation and anger
Vengeance is a “coping strategy” that includes:
a) Emotions
b) The desire to act (motivation)
c) The anticipation of action (scenario of
revenge).
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The Structure of Revenge
3) the act of revenge, imagined or completed
Acts of revenge exist along a spectrum.
Non-violent revenge:
Shunning
A cutting bon mot
Satire or parody
Public exposure of the agent’s
faults or misdeeds
Criminal theft (the con or
swindle).
Hamlet’s Revenge:
Violent, murderous revenge
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.
Violent revenge happens in fantasy,
rarely in reality.
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The Structure of Revenge
4) the experience of satisfaction at “being revenged”
Revenge = Infliction of as much or more
suffering as the victim experienced
The “reward” = Satisfaction, relief of suffering
“Getting revenge” = Being “paid off” by inflicting
“pay back”
Revenge = Redemption
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Hamlet and Revenge
Hamlet doesn’t “get revenge.”
Claudius = Desdemona in Othello:
Victims of Crimes of Passion.
Claudius dies for Gertrude’s and Hamlet’s
deaths.
Desdemona dies for her imagined betrayal and
infidelity.
10

Hamlet doesn’t get revenge.
Revenge-by-effect = revenge-by-intent.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern = victims of
revenge-by-intent
Revenge-by-intent = strategic, premeditated.
11

Amleth: The model for Hamlet
Amleth is the model for Hamlet in plot outline
only.
Amleth gets revenge without qualm.
The Amleth myth is morally silent.
12

Njal’s Saga: The model for Hamlet’s moral lesson
Njal’s Saga is about a multigenerational blood feud.
Neither violent revenge nor the machinations of
impartial justice, only forgiveness resolves the
feud.
Both Amleth and Njal’s Saga existed in the 16 th C.
13

The predisposition to violent revenge
If the success of violent revenge depends on an
elusive and illusory outcome, what accounts
for the strength of the motivation to “get
revenge”?
The answer is grounded in the nature of cruelty,
suffering, and our coping reactions to it.
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A partial phenomenology of Suffering
Object or
Event
Context of
Personhood
Loss
Behavior
Action
Threat
Fear
and/or
Grief*
Suffering
Shock, Stasis, Dissociation
Emotions
*Before the perceptions of biomarkers enter awareness
15

The neurobiology of Suffering
Suffering is a subjective state of consciousness.
Biomarkers are mapped in the brain.
The experience of the mapped biomarkers = the
experience or feeling of the fear/grief =
suffering.
Subjectivity gives suffering the feeling of the
unique, momentary, first person quality of
consciousness.
16

Revenge and Suicide
Hamlet contemplates suicide twice.
Revenge = anger and hostility turned outward.
Suicide is hostility turned inward.
The experience of suffering is the same regardless
of differences in the cause or context.
17

Unnatural deaths that are not suicides
Hamlet’s Death
= “Passive” suicide
Gertrude’s Death
Unknowingly drinks poison.
= “obligatory” or
“altruistic” suicide
Ophelia’s Death
Mistrusted
Controlled
Manipulated
Betrayed
Neglected
Abandoned
Abused
in grief for her murdered father
Schizophrenic.
Incapable of:
Assessment
Understanding
Protection
Correction
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Ophelia’s death is not a suicide.
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
19

A Theory of the Predisposition to
Revenge and Suicide
Relative to the themes of revenge and
suicide, there exists a parallel structure in
Othello, first played 4 years after Hamlet.
The predispositions to jealousy, racism,
revenge and suicide share a common
foundational theory.
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Ambiguity and Ambivalence in Hamlet
First Instance Coping Reaction
Anger and indignation are
coping reactions to undo
suffering.
At first instance Revenge is
“ego syntonic”.
Vengeance “feels good”.
Secondary Awareness
Secondary association and
interpretation:
Revenge = Cruelty and Murder.
Revenge = threat to the
integrity of one’s self-image.
Revenge = a cause of suffering.
Revenge is “ego alien”.
Revenge “feels bad”.
21

Othello’s Resolution of Hamlet’s Ambiguity
Jealousy is ego-alien and “feels bad” at every
instance.
No one ever wants Othello to murder
Desdemona.
At a foundational level, the predisposition to
jealousy and racism is the same as the
predisposition to revenge and suicide.
22

A Foundational Theory of the
Predisposition to Revenge and Suicide
There exists an invariable sequence of
Mammalian nurturing:
Attachment
Individuation
Separation
23

A Foundational Theory of the
Predisposition to Revenge and Suicide
The offspring must:
Remain attached to the parent(s).
Develop individual capacities to cope, to adapt
and to flourish.
Separate from the parent(s)
Exist independently
Attach to a mate
Produce offspring anew
24

Disordered Nurturing
Disordered nurturing includes: Neglect,
Abandonment and Abuse: physical, sexual and
psychological
Coping skills and reactions include mistrust,
anger and indignation.
But, disorder isn’t necessary.
25

A vicious cycle
Fear/Grief Suffering
Vicious cycle of suffering
Hopelessness and Helplessness
Suicidal Ideation
26

A well-ordered sequence has enough conflict.
Parents and children offspring must resolve
conflicts but a residue of distress often
persists.
The tragic irony of xenophobia is that among the
engines of trust in normal nurturing is likeness;
otherness evokes mistrust, the tragedy of
Othello.
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Hamlet and Revenge – Choosing reliable text
Hamlet is not mad.
When Hamlet pretends to be mad (his “antic
disposition”) his dialog is morally unreliable.
When Hamlet is trusting, his speech and dialog
are trustworthy.
28

Hamlet and Revenge – Reliable Text
The moral lessons of Hamlet are contained in what
Hamlet says:
In the 6 soliloquies,
To Horatio,
To others when he trusts them:
– to Claudius, never,
– to Gertrude after they reconcile in her chamber.
– to Ophelia before she is controlled and manipulated by
Polonius and Claudius.
– to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern before they’re
unwilling to explain why they came to Elsinore, and
To “a Lord” as herald, someone he knows he can
trust.
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“A Lord” = Reliable messenger
Reliable communication =
a trustworthy messenger
a person of honor
a diplomat who speaks with the authority of
royalty and power.
EG: Mountjoy in Henry V
2 messengers: Osric, a foppish courtier
“a Lord”
30

Reliable Text – The Soliloquies
S1: Act I, scene 2: “O, that this too, too solid flesh would
melt/ Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!/ Or that the
Everlasting had not fix'd/ His canon 'gainst selfslaughter!”;
S2: Act II: “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!”;
S3: Act III: “To be, or not to be: that is the question:”
S4: Act III, scene 2: “Tis now the very witching time of
night,/ When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes
out/ Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot
blood…”
S5: Act III, scene 3: “Now might I do it pat, now he is
praying;/ And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven…”
S6: Act IV, scene 4: “How all occasions do inform against
me,/ And spur my dull revenge!”
31

S1: Oh, that this too, too solid flesh…
Suicide:
Grief
The distress of the Oedipal Drama.
Oedopal drama = shorthand for the complex
coping reaction of mistrust and rage, envy and
jealousy.
Hamlet’s misery turns inward until the Ghost
turns it into vengeance.
32

S2: O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Hamlet’s confusion:
Behavior that is the expression of an emotion
(the show of feeling)
Behavior that is motivated by an emotion (eg:
an act of revenge)
The actor projects his experience into the
character of Hecuba witnessing the death and
dismemberment of Priam. (Method acting).
For contrast: “Seems, Madam? I know not
seems.”
33

S2: O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
If Hamlet’s behavior does not follow his
emotions then his emotions are insincere or
inauthentic.
If his motivation is “wrong” then only reason
can be the basis for moral judgment.
Hamlet struggles (suffering): the choice between
emotion and reason as the basis of
“conscience,”
34

S3: To be, or not to be: that is the question…
Suicide: but with the emphasis on the ethical
corruption of the human condition (existential
or “rational” suicide).
Depression and suicidal ideation as rage-turnedinward.
Hell is the “revenge” for the sin of seeking
revenge. (Narcissistic, reflective logic)
35

S4: Tis now the very witching time of night…
The ambivalence of conscience is hypocrisy.
Strong emotion should motivate behavior
over weaker emotions.
If Vengeance is stronger than moral
intuition, then is it right to act on
vengeance?
36

S4: Tis now the very witching time of night…
Conscience = weakness and hypocrisy.
Contrast: to Horatio:
Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart… (III:2)
Kant (Catholic):
Conscience = thought and reason + free will
Hume (Protestant):
Conscience = an emotional, moral sense
37

S5: Now might I do it pat, now he is praying…
Hamlet’s logic = “rationalization” that reveals the
irrational conflict of his “dithering”.
Revenge must inflict as much suffering as felt by
the aggrieved party = “Proportional”
The punishment must fit the crime:
“Retributive justice”
“proportional retaliation”
the redemptive feeling of “being revenged”.
38

S5: Now might I do it pat, now he is praying…
Assumption: Proportional, violent revenge is
possible.
But violence is always disproportionate.
Njal’s Saga is the model:
Both violent revenge and impartial justice fail to
provide resolution, acceptance, reconciliation and
redemption.
39

S6: How all occasions do inform against me…
How much of Poland would satisfy Fortinbras?
How many Norwegians & Poles must die for it?
Revenge is always disproportionate:
The murder of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern:
What is the punishment for betrayal of friendship
and their unwitting complicity in Claudius’s plot?
40

S6: How all occasions do inform against me…
Vengeance can never be measured.
The outcome of revenge is subjective.
What is subjective is both infinite and non-existent
at the same time.
And no one “gets revenge” in Act V, except, perhaps
for Fortinbras - irony or ironies.
41

Forgiveness
Forgiveness doesn’t happen in Hamlet.
Hamlet’s regret for his bad behavior at the funeral:
But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myself;
For, by the image of my cause, I see
The portraiture of his: I'll court his favours.
Hamlet lies about being mad and only “courts”
Laertes’s favor and no more.
Laertes lies about accepting impartial justice.
42

Forgiveness - None here:
… What I have done,
That might your nature, honour and exception
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Never Hamlet:
If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,
And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
Who does it, then? His madness: if't be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd;
His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.
Sir, in this audience,
Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
That I have shot mine arrow o'er the house,
And hurt my brother.
43

Hard to imagine.
Resolution
Four people are already dead,
and none “are near [his] conscience.”
He mourns Ophelia, but he never expresses
regret that he doesn’t trust, protect and
confide in her.
44

Act V, scene 2
Enter a Lord
Lord
My lord, his majesty commended him to you by young
Osric, who brings back to him that you attend him in
the hall: he sends to know if your pleasure hold to
play with Laertes, or that you will take longer time.
HAMLET
I am constant to my purpose; they follow the king's
pleasure: if his fitness speaks, mine is ready; now
or whensoever, provided I be so able as now.
Lord
The king and queen and all are coming down.
HAMLET
In happy time. 45

Lord
The queen desires you to use some gentle
entertainment to Laertes before you fall to play.
HAMLET
She well instructs me. Exit Lord
HORATIO
You will lose this wager, my lord.
HAMLET
I do not think so: since he went into France, I
have been in continual practice: I shall win at the
odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill all's here
about my heart: but it is no matter.
HORATIO
Nay, good my lord,-- 46

HAMLET
It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of
gain-giving, as would perhaps trouble a woman.
HORATIO
If your mind dislike any thing, obey it: I will
forestall their repair hither, and say you are not
fit.
HAMLET
Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
readiness is all: since no man of aught he
leaves knows, what is't to leave betimes? Let be.
47

A translation of the Elizabethan English
Since no one knows anything about one’s own
death,
what does it matter to die early?
48

Gertrude’s message to Hamlet
Claudius sends Osric as his messenger, Gertrude
sends “a Lord”.
Hamlet resolves his attachment with his mother
in the simple declaration, “She well instructs
me.”
Without considering the messenger, it’s a line of
little importance, trivial.
49

Hamlet’s royalty
“We defy augury”
The royal pronoun appears only twice:
Here in Act V
when Hamlet was feigning madness to
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
We shall obey, were she ten times our mother.
Hamlet is:
His mother’s son
King of Denmark
50

Hamlet’s hesitation:
Hamlet’s conscience
But thou wouldst not think how ill all's here
about my heart: but it is no matter.
…It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of
gain-giving, as would perhaps trouble a
woman.
Womanliness is not pejorative nor disdainful.
51

Women’s moral intuitions
Hamlet is reflecting on the moral significance of
what has gone before and what is about to
happen.
The moral intuitions of women are generally
superior to those of men:
Forgiving more than vengeful (generally)
Nurturing more than isolating
Altruistic more than selfish
Peaceful more than warlike.
52

Hamlet’s reconciliation
Hamlet’s reconciliation explains his initial
confusion at the poisoning of his mother.
Acts I – IV: a Catholic view of revenge and
suicide
Act V: Hamlet reconciles himself to his own
errors with a Protestant view of surrendering
to his fate – a fate predisposed, and, by his
errors determined by the tragedy of his
vengeance and revenge.
53

My role is not to solve the
mystery, but to deepen it.
After Frances Bacon
(1909-1992)
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