Antigon.docx

KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE OF DISTANCE LEARNING

MPA

COURSE TITLE: ETHICS IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION COURSE CODE: PA 561 MIDSEMESTER ASSESSMENT

STUDENT’S NAME: Insert name INDEX NUMBER: Insert Index Number STD REF No.: Insert Student ID LECTURER: DR. EDWARD BRANYA

Questions: The play Antigone is used to illustrate the many ethical dilemmas that confronts public administrators in the discharge of their duties. In not more than 4 pages, briefly analyze the various and conflicting ethical issues in the play and decide if the manner of dealing with the ethical issues was the best and how you will have dealt with the ethical issues if you were Antigone.

Introduction What can public administrators learn from studying Sophocles' Antigone? The play is often used in schools to generate discussions about civil disobedience and the implications of challenges to authority. Scholars points to dilemmas facing other roles in Antigone, each facing issues from ethically "right positions. " This is especially true of King Creon, who is challenged to meet his obligation to uphold and enforce the law despite family ties and personal considerations. In this and other ways, Antigone and other works are useful for highlighting and focusing discussions about the challenges of public ethics. Play Summary Antigone, her sister Ismene, and her brothers Polyneices and Eteocles, were the children of Oedipus, King of Thebes, and of Jocasta (whom Oedipus married while unaware of the fact that she was his mother). When Oedipus discovered the fact of his incest, and also the fact that a stranger he killed was actually his unknown biological father, he blinded himself and abandoned his kingdom. His sons quarrelled and Eteocles banished Polyneices and reigned as king. Polyneices returned with a foreign army and, in the ensuing battle, the brothers killed one another. Creon (the brother of Oedipus' wife/mother and thus the uncle both of Oedipus and Oedipus' children; and, as first cousin of Oedipus' father, a member of the royal blood line in his own right), as the closest male, ascended to the throne. Creon decreed that Eteocles be given a hero's burial; that Polyneices, as punishment for the treason of attacking Thebes with his foreign army, be denied burial; and that anyone providing burial rites for Polyneices be put to death by stoning. Antigone is determined to perform the rites of burial for her brother even though the sentence for doing so is death. She asserts that divine law, tradition, and familial duty demand this of her. She covertly performs the burial ritual, is discovered, and is sentenced to death. Though Creon hears arguments from several quarters, and though Antigone is his niece and is engaged to his son, he adamantly insists that since Antigone knowingly violated the law she must pay the penalty. Neither Antigone nor Creon will budge an inch in their zeal, righteousness, and position. As Antigone is being walled up in a cave to starve to death, Creon hears terrible predictions and finally fearfully yields. His change of mind is too late, though: Antigone has hanged herself; Creon's son kill himself in grief; and Creon's wife, after hearing of this, kills herself while cursing Creon with her last breath.

Ethical Conflicts Identified Ethics, Law, and Higher Law As indicated, the drama has to do with the interplay between various kinds of law, authority, and ethics. If Creon sometimes seems to see himself as above certain notions of law and mores (i.e., as above divine law, customs, traditions, and traditional obligations), certainly Antigone seems also to see herself as above certain notions of law (i.e., as above law or decree promulgated by a ruler when she has reason to believe such is wrong). If Creon feels that he can, should, or must set aside some usual norms because of certain exigencies and in order to protect a system of order, Antigone feels she must set aside such exigencies and order because of higher and more important obligations. The question is not only whether Creon has inappropriately, and stubbornly set himself above all that is decent, but also whether Antigone has inappropriately, and stubbornly set herself above duly-constituted authority and the need for order. While Antigone freely admits to Creon that she has knowingly disobeyed the edict against burying her brother, she contends that the ruler's edicts do not have the power of the gods' laws. Antigone firmly argues that divine law is on her side. She asks, "What is the law of heaven that I have broken?" (853), and she states that the doom that has come upon her is solely "Because to the laws of heaven I held fast" (876) She states her view of the status, timelessness, and authority of divine law and expresses her view that the king's edicts cannot override divine law (407-417). Yet, at one point, the Chorus indicates to Antigone that piety is one thing, but the exigencies of rule are another: "A pious action may of praise be sure, /But he who rules a land cannot endure/An act of disobedience to his rule/Your own self-will you have not learned in school" (803-806) Ethics and Emotions The role of love, emotion, loyalty, and reason in offering ethical guidance is, of course, continually present in this drama. Not only love, but also suffering, as Ismene observes, gets in the way of the clear use of reason, and "confuses us and clouds our minds." Another aspect of the dilemmas provided by emotions involves questions of the values of family and friendship. Antigone appeals over and over again to familial values, and at one point says that she would have set herself against the city for none less than a brother, and she indicates that to conform to Creon's decree would have brought disgrace upon her family because it would be a violation of duty. Creon, too,

emphasizes familial values. But he stresses repeatedly that family ties and affection (Antigone is, after all, his niece as well as his son's betrothed) must not be placed above law and justice. In his opening speech, Creon also expands this question to the consideration not only of family, but also of friends-and his position is that family and friendship must never be allowed to come above responsibility to country and duty. In public administration ethics, we may give too slight a treatment to issues such as these. Admittedly, we do speak about "nepotism". Probably, we assume that the implications of professional ethics for emotion, passion, familial relationship, and friendship are clear enough to avoid deep or professionally conscious exploration. Perhaps, though, these issues are more critical and conflictual than we assume. Ethics and Conscience Clearly there is much to be learned about conscience in the play. One can easily be misled by the centrality of the act of conscience on Antigone's part to overlook Creon's acts of conscience. Creon is acutely aware of his official responsibilities. He outlines the responsibilities of office as he sees them upon his first appearance in the play. Although his position is usually characterized as blindly stubborn will rather than conscience, this is probably as fairly said also of Antigone's position. In fact, the play dramatizes the interplay of one person's conscience with reference points of custom, religion, and familial duty with another person's conscience with reference points of rewarding patriotism and punishing treason, consistency in the application of rules, obedience to the law, avoiding favouritism and nepotism, and allegiance to the oath of office and one's responsibility to tend to the safety and stability of the whole society. The question may not be so much one of conscience or morality but, whether personal morality and public morality are, can be, or should be the same thing. Ethics, Corruption, and Bribery Aside from the factors of passion, affection, etc. as aspects which may dim the ethical path, one can lose the way also through intentional corruption, bribery, and the like. Creon is eloquent, though perhaps some would say paranoid, about corruption. He feels that "men! Have often been destroyed by hope of gain" and he suspects virtually everyone of having been bribed to betray their public duty. He continually insists that his integrity cannot be bought or coerced.

Corruption and bribery do seem to be elements to which public administration has continuously paid attention and even elements upon which our position seems to have been consistent over time Ethics and Consent or Popular Opinion Haemon has here reiterated the position about the gods' law superseding the ruler's edicts, and he has endorsed also the notion that overwhelming popular opinion ought to have authority over a ruler's inclinations. Elsewhere, he tells Creon that, though citizens are frightened to tell him, they say among themselves that Antigone has done no wrong, but rather the honourable thing. Antigone consistently makes the point that the city's elders unanimously recognize and, except for fear, would publicly admit that she had done no wrong. Yet Creon comments that of all Thebans, only Antigone has been openly rebellious. He resists, until the bitter end, putting aside his edict in deference to popular opinion or the views of those who have access to him. It is a misconstruction, I think, to say that he does this solely or primarily because of his personal will. He claims throughout to have promulgated the edict in an act of appropriate public responsibility and out of a concern for appropriate public considerations. He also consistently holds that the authoritative decree should not be set aside for personal concerns or because of unpopularity, and that open defiance of duly promulgated rules cannot be ignored. Any public administrator who has ever asked whether it was better or necessary to be right rather than popular, and who has tried to reflect upon how democracy or consent may differ from popularity, will probably see the relevance of the issues raised by Antigon

References 1. Conservapedia- Unalienable rights. Retrieved from: https://www.conservapedia.com/Unalienable_rights. 2. Antigone play (441BC). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDNGSDz3KYE. Accessed 8th December, 2018. 3. Antigone play summary. Available at: https://1.cdn.edl.io/ZEonVbzs0U8Ie077evAYWQKcz3Y5FVH7kRYQ6oynuQAPtWcB. pdf. Accessed 14/12/2018.