ABSTRACT
Drawing on an Aristotelian taxonomy of involuntary action prevalent in early modern ethics, this chapter examines how the ambiguous intentions of others could serve not merely as a source of social disruption but also, rather surprisingly, as a vehicle for reconciliation on the Shakespearean stage. Shakespearean drama frequently stages exculpatory appeals to intention as a means of obtaining special consideration for one’s transgressions. Predicated on the assumption that the distinction between voluntary and involuntary action remains paramount for how a community should evaluate an action, such appeals often claim involuntariness due to ignorance, but they also tend to coincide with the concomitant implication that agency, or ultimate causality, therefore lay elsewhere. The resultant paradox – that the agent is, due to ignorance, in effect merely the proximate end within a larger trajectory of action stemming from a different causal source – emerges only after markedly labored reasoning. This essay argues that the curious effectiveness of such problematic appeals to intention emerges from the intrinsically complex process of ratiocination they initiate within ethically-minded auditors, since another’s intention remains an internal, largely unfalsifiable quantity. Positing that the unknowability of intention opens a potential avenue for making allowances and effecting reconciliation, this chapter thus reads Shakespearean drama as participating in a vibrant cultural tradition of doing vernacular ethical philosophy, as it stages dilemmas whereby the accommodation of one’s doubt regarding others’ intentions takes a central role in shaping the value of one’s own ethical system.
