Birthrights: Freedom, Responsibility, and Democratic Comportment in Aeschylus' Oresteia

Elizabeth Markovits

American Political Science Review, 2009, vol. 103, issue 3, 427-441

Abstract: Through an examination of Aeschylus' Oresteia, this essay argues for the critical importance of intergenerational justice to democratic theory. It explores the difficulties of democratic responsibility given the tension between necessity and freedom central to questions of intergenerational justice. The essay first details the relevant lacunae in the theories of two major figures of contemporary democratic theory, John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas. It then develops an account of democratic responsibility that acknowledges human freedom to make decisions, even given the necessity created by the fact that individuals and communities inherit their own range of potential actions from previous generations. The essay elaborates this claim by examining how each of the central figures in the Oresteia deals first with the dilemmas inherited from the past and then with new situations engendered by his or her own actions. The essay concludes with a consideration of this aspect of democracy in contemporary political life.

Date: 2009
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