The Ophelia paradox

Mortimer R. Kadish

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, when Ophelia tells King Claudius, "Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be," she implies more than that we can never know what will happen next, that we have no grounds on which to make significant decisions in the conduct of our lives. She herself had done little or nothing to bring about her present state. Now she is quite mad. Claudius, too, could never have guessed where he would end. Yet the rest of us, although not significantly more knowing than they, profess to think we can actually make life decisions which genuinely good reasons will support. Experience seems to have convinced us that, deficient in self-knowledge though we may be, some times the arrow of decision reaches its mark. Kadish examines how decisions in the conduct of our lives are possible, how they may be justified, and what the limits of that justification might be for a...

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