I want to touch on the moral status of Beatrice in part because I brought it up in one class and not the other and want to make sure everyone has a chance to be exposed to it and in part because it illustrates a central issue in reading Dante: that the moral scheme he uses, as much as it can be broadly classified as Christian, is not one that we necessarily recognize or that sits well with our modern sensibilities.
The problems starts with the claim attributed to Beatrice in Canto II as to why she is not afraid to enter into Hell, and she replies that "your misery, cannot touch me here." The basic idea seems to be that she is not affected by the suffering she sees in hell. The inability to feel empathy for the suffering of others is part of the definition of a sociopath. By contrast, in Canto IV, Dante believes that Virgil is afraid but it turns out he is simply feeling compassion for the suffering. Since it is clear that Dante sees Beatrice as morally superior to Virgil (Virgil is in Hell, Beatrice in Heaven), he would seem to be implying that not to feel compassion for suffering is a superior state to be in.
As I argued in class, the rationale for this judgment is that Beatrice understands God's justice, and that once one recognizes that God's decisions are just, one no longer feels compassion. The idea behind the pictures of suffering animals that the SPCA uses to get you to call in and donate is that those animals are not responsible for their suffering, and that they in no way deserve this treatment. But in the case of those in hell, the idea is that once on understands God's justice one no longer feels compassion. Virgil's sense of compassion would then illustrate an incomplete understanding.
This connects to theme we will talk about in great detail, the notion that all of those in hell have "lost the good of the intellect." The notion that sin is an intellectual failing is not one that gets much of a hearing today but it was the dominant view in ancient Greek thought (well, to the extent that the culture understood an interpreted the concept of sin, which was in a very different way than Christianity). But this notion was at the heart of St. Thomas Aquinas' view of morality--a figure who had a great deal of influence on Dante's worldview. Indeed, the moral philosophy of Aquinas underpins Dante's worldview.,
The problems starts with the claim attributed to Beatrice in Canto II as to why she is not afraid to enter into Hell, and she replies that "your misery, cannot touch me here." The basic idea seems to be that she is not affected by the suffering she sees in hell. The inability to feel empathy for the suffering of others is part of the definition of a sociopath. By contrast, in Canto IV, Dante believes that Virgil is afraid but it turns out he is simply feeling compassion for the suffering. Since it is clear that Dante sees Beatrice as morally superior to Virgil (Virgil is in Hell, Beatrice in Heaven), he would seem to be implying that not to feel compassion for suffering is a superior state to be in.
As I argued in class, the rationale for this judgment is that Beatrice understands God's justice, and that once one recognizes that God's decisions are just, one no longer feels compassion. The idea behind the pictures of suffering animals that the SPCA uses to get you to call in and donate is that those animals are not responsible for their suffering, and that they in no way deserve this treatment. But in the case of those in hell, the idea is that once on understands God's justice one no longer feels compassion. Virgil's sense of compassion would then illustrate an incomplete understanding.
This connects to theme we will talk about in great detail, the notion that all of those in hell have "lost the good of the intellect." The notion that sin is an intellectual failing is not one that gets much of a hearing today but it was the dominant view in ancient Greek thought (well, to the extent that the culture understood an interpreted the concept of sin, which was in a very different way than Christianity). But this notion was at the heart of St. Thomas Aquinas' view of morality--a figure who had a great deal of influence on Dante's worldview. Indeed, the moral philosophy of Aquinas underpins Dante's worldview.,
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