JUSTICE AND SELF-INTEREST: THE CHALLENGE OF ISMENE

Antigone replies to her sister’s argument that it is foolishly self­destructive for her to bury Polyneices by suggesting that, inasmuch as there are gods who reward the just with eternal well-being and punish the unjust with eternal suffering, Ismene is the one who is foolish.

What is the basis of Ismene’s confidence that she will not be pun­ished by the gods after death? Ismene suggests that the gods and the souls beneath the earth will forgive her for failing to bury her brother, since she is forced to yield to Creon (58—68, 78—9). She implies that, precisely inasmuch as the gods are just — as Antigone herself believes (450—2, 93—4) — they will not punish her for doing what she is compelled to do, for what she cannot help but do, because it would be unjust to punish involuntary injustice.^[85]

Yet Ismene is certainly not physically forced to obey Creon. She could choose to disobey him and face execution, as her sister does. Ismene evidently means here that she is compelled by the fear of her own death to obey Creon. In other words, Ismene follows here the thesis set forth by her father in Oedipus at Colonus that no man is so noble that he can ever overcome his love of life or, more broadly, sacrifice his self­interest (see especially 992—6, but also 270—2, 309, 546).

In her own view, Ismene is compelled by her desire for self-preser­vation and, more generally, by her concern for her own well-being to obey Creon rather than sacrificing her life for the sake of a cold, lifeless body. As a rational being concerned for her well-being, she cannot knowingly and voluntarily sacrifice what she believes to be her self­interest. And it would be unjust for the gods to blame or punish her for doing what she cannot help doing, for yielding, as she must, to the sheer necessity of acting in what she believes to be her true interest. Indeed, insofar as all human beings are compelled by their nature as rational beings to pursue their own good as they understand it, regardless of the demands of justice otherwise, it would seem that it is impossible for human beings as such to deserve punishments or rewards in an afterlife.

But what of Antigone? Isn't she noble precisely because she is willing to sacrifice her life, and all her expectations of happiness from life, for the sake of her beloved brother? She herself suggests that she is “by nature noble,” and hence a worthy offspring of “noble” parents, because she is willing to sacrifice her life “to die nobly” and “to benefit the dead” (37—8, 96—7, 559—60; see also 555). As Haemon later says, Antigone, of all women, is most deserving of a golden honor, from gods and men, because “She is one who would not leave her own brother, who fell in bloody conflict, unburied, to perish because of dogs who eat raw flesh or some bird” (696—8). Doesn't the example of Antigone refute Ismene's thesis by showing that it is possible consciously to choose to sacrifice one's self-interest for the sake of what is right and hence possible for human beings to deserve rewards and punishments from gods who are just?^[86]

Yet, as we have seen, Antigone herself insists that, by nobly sacrificing her life to bury her brother's body, she is acting in her self­interest (71—7). Antigone insists that her nobility is not mindless, as Ismene contends, but wise and even, as she later says twice, a “gain” [κεqdoςθ, since, by nobly sacrificing her life for her brother, she will earn the just reward of eternal well-being from the gods (see 461—4). It would seem, then, that the case of Antigone does not refute Ismene's thesis that human beings are incapable of rising above their concern for themselves, since they are compelled by their nature as rational beings to care above all for their own well-being.

Ismene's thesis would seem to pose a fundamental challenge to the pious beliefs and hopes that underlie Antigone's heroism. Antigone is confident that the gods will reward her because she is confident that, by sacrificing her very life for the sake of her brother, and hence by nobly sacrificing herself for the sake of justice, she demonstrates that she deserves the reward of eternal happiness from gods who are just (see especially 450—60).

Antigone might defend herself by arguing that, even though she believes that she will be rewarded by the gods for burying her brother, her primary goal is to benefit her brother and, more broadly, to benefit her family (see especially 559—60). It is, she might say, because she is primarily devoted to her family and not to herself, that the gods will favor her over the merely self-interested Ismene (see 37—8, 71—7, 80—1, 89, 93—7). Yet, if her primary goal were to benefit her brother, she would strive at all costs to bury him successfully. Now, if she believes her brother can be benefited only if he is buried and stays

to “a Christian martyr under the Roman Empire” (xxi). For an account of her self-interestedness, consider Tyrrell and Bennett 1998, 71. buried, it would be futile simply to bury him once since Creon can always order him unburied.^[87] Precisely if she believes that her brother can only be benefited by being buried and staying buried, then, An­tigone should try to persuade the king to change his edict and enlist the aid, for example, of the chorus, Haemon, or Teiresias. Yet, whereas Ismene appeals to the chorus and Haemon to help her sister, and Haemon and Teiresias attempt to change Creon’s mind, Antigone never makes any effort to persuade the king to leave her brother buried once she has buried him. How eager, then, is she to benefit her brother?

Perhaps Antigone believes that it is sufficient to perform a ritual burial of the corpse, to sprinkle dust over it while praying, in order to confer on her brother immortal well-being (but see 423—33; consider Benardete 1999, 14—15).^[88] Such a ritual (or virtual) burial would require that Antigone reach the body secretly, undetected, in order to evade the guards and perform it successfully.

It would seem that the example of Antigone supports Ismene’s thesis that we human beings are naturally incapable of transcending our concern for ourselves, that consequently we are naturally incapable of deserving either rewards or punishments from the gods in an afterlife, and hence that immortality is simply unavailable for such beings as ourselves. Yet Antigone is not at all shaken by this far-reaching chal­lenge from Ismene. Not only does Antigone proceed to bury Poly- neices, but, when brought before Creon, she proclaims her conviction, without any trace of self-doubt, that the gods support her and will reward her (450—70). Antigone seems absolutely confident that the just gods support her and will provide her with the “gain” of a better life, free of evil and pain, after death. She is evidently not at all dis­turbed by the suggestion of Ismene that, insofar as she is acting nobly primarily for the sake of divine rewards, she is not truly acting nobly and hence cannot deserve those rewards.

What seems to resolve this apparent contradiction between nobility and self-interest in Antigone’s mind is her understanding of the family as a natural and sacred community.^[89] By burying her brother, Antigone is acting for the sake of her family (74—7, 89, 559—60). But the family is not merely a collection of individuals who are dear to one another. It is rather a community that binds its members together body and soul (9—10). In the first place, Antigone and her siblings are “born of the same womb,” the common womb of their mother; are sired by the same father; and share “the same blood” (511—13, 466—8; see also 1066). But furthermore, the fact that the family shares a common physical nature produces, according to Antigone, a reasonable expectation that they share a common moral nature — for example, a noble soul.

Antigone declares to her sister: “You will soon show if you are noble [or well-born—ευγεvης] by nature and birth [πεφυκaς] or if you are an evil daughter of noble parents” (37—8). In the natural course of things — though not always, she admits — children inherit the moral as well as the physical nature of the parents (consider as well 471—2). The family, then, is a natural community, a physical and moral community, of bodies and souls.

Moreover, the family is a community that links its members to the past and to the future, from generation to generation, and therefore is in some sense an immortal community, even if there is no afterlife. But for Antigone, the family is quite literally an immortal commu­nity, since family members — who are loyal to one another and do not betray the family as, in Antigone’s eyes, Ismene does — will dwell together, after death, forever (71—6, 897—9;^see 93— 4, 536—60). The family is not only or merely a natural entity but also, and above all, a sacred entity, for it is honored by the gods and is supported by eternal laws that are enforced by Zeus, Justice, and the other gods (76—7, 450—70). The family is an entity larger than the sum of its parts. It is a true community, which demands sacrifices from its members but which also benefits its members by enabling them to live on beyond their natural individual lives, both on earth and in the afterlife, and thereby enables humans to escape, in some sense, from seemingly inescapable death (361).

By devoting herself to her family, Antigone is devoting herself to something larger than herself and making sacrifices for something beyond herself. In this sense, she is indeed acting nobly and selflessly. Yet, by devoting herself to the good of her family, she is devoting herself to the good of a community — a community of flesh and blood and soul — that includes her own good. She is devoting herself to a truly common good, a good that is common to all members of the com­munity. It is in this unselfish sense that she is acting also in her own self-interest. Indeed, her vision of eternal happiness is one in which she will be together, in eternal communion, with her family. What gives Antigone confidence in her own justice and nobility and hence in her worthiness of divine rewards is her belief that the family is a true community that is both larger than herself but that also encompasses her own good.

Now, Ismene does gently raise questions about Antigone’s vision of the family. By referring to the crimes and conflicts that have torn their family apart — their father’s blinding of himself, their parents’ incest, their mother’s suicide, and their brothers’ fratricide — Ismene tacitly calls into question whether the family truly is a community such as Antigone conceives, rather than a group of individual mortal beings related by blood, linked by common experiences, but who may or may not be kindred souls, who may or may not love one another, and whose interests may bring them into conflict with one another (49—57; compare also 61—2 with 37—8). In this way, Ismene implicitly calls into question the wisdom of devoting oneself to the family as a sacred community rather than to one’s own well-being. But Ismene never explicitly and directly challenges the justice of Antigone’s devotion to the family and therefore never touches the center of Antigone’s confi­dence in her own righteousness. It is precisely the justice of Antigone’s devotion to the family, however, that is challenged most forcefully by Creon.

As the play shows, Ismene is in certain respects wiser than her heroic sister. Antigone rebuffs her sister’s arguments against burying their brother, but in the end she loses faith that her action was just or pious, kills herself in despair, and through her death destroys the lives of Haemon, Eurydice, and Creon. It is the sensible Ismene, not the noble Antigone, who survives the events of the play.

Yet it is not at all clear that Ismene’s survival is enviable, as Antigone points out, for it is not clear what is left to her besides survival (553). Ismene seems at first to believe that survival, even under the harsh rule of Creon, even at the cost of leaving her dead brother unburied and her sister — her last remaining family member — to be executed, is preferable to joining Antigone in defying the king. Ismene seems content to devote herself to her own self-preservation rather than to anything that might seem larger or higher. For example, she is the only character in the play, with the exception of the Second Messenger (who has only fourteen lines), who never directly mentions the gods. Furthermore, in contrast to both Antigone (23—4, 94, 451,459, 538, 921, 928) and Creon (208, 292, 662, 667, 671, 742, 1059) as well as the chorus (369, 791, 854, 1270) and Haemon (743), Ismene never speaks of justice. Ismene seems at first simply to devote herself to her own self-interest and to identify her self-interest entirely with her self-preservation.^[90] In this respect, Ismene is wholly unphilosophic and especially unlike Socrates, who chose to die rather than abandon the philosophic life.

Yet Ismene herself in the end recognizes that a life dedicated simply to self-preservation is insufficient for happiness, that it is hollow and shallow. When Creon discovers that Antigone buried her brother and then has her arrested, Ismene is suddenly eager to share responsibility for the deed, to be “a shipmate” of her sister's suffering, and to be executed with her (541). As she explains, “What life is livable for me, alone, without her?” (566). In this way, Ismene renounces her previous arguments and belatedly, and much to her sister's indignation, declares her eagerness to sacrifice her life and to partake of her sister's fate in Hades (554). While Ismene initially dismisses her sister's longing for eternal well-being as an erotic love for impossible things, she too longs for something more than mere life (90). She too feels the longing for something beyond mere life that is naturally awakened by the aware­ness of our mortality. She too feels the longing that the second choral ode suggests is essential to our humanity: the longing for Hades, for immortality. But Ismene does not feel that longing as powerfully as Antigone, she does not take that longing as seriously, she does not reflect on that longing as deeply, and therefore she lacks the full humanity — the depth, grandeur, and insight — of her sister (consider 460—1). It is not surprising that it is Antigone, not Ismene, who stirs the heart and inspires the love of the noble Haemon.