Troy Polidori

This dissertation is centered around explaining the nature of tragedy and its relation to moral life. My thesis is that the fundamental nature of tragedy is the world’s inhospitality to what matters. This provides insight into moral life by illuminating the tragic aspect of moral dilemmas. In these dilemmas, individuals often believe that they are left with no morally acceptable option. I argue that this belief is characteristically a rational response to the tragic aspect of the dilemma, but that this does not make moral obligations in these situations incoherent. This is because moral tragedy does not entail inevitable moral failure, but the world’s inhospitality to what matters more generally. This conception of tragedy additionally provides insight into other areas of practical life, including the peculiar aesthetic features of tragedy such as its beauty.

Tragedies, as real-world phenomena, are independent of their literary genre and are suitable for philosophical analysis. My analysis focuses on a type of tragedy that emerges in the practical lives of individuals in a broad sense. Tragedies often manifest in mundane, everyday situations. However, the fact that a situation is tragic does not mean that any unfortunate event that happens to an individual qualifies as a tragedy, nor does it imply that any practical pursuit is a tragic candidate. Instead, these practical tragedies occur when the world obstructs pursuits that are fundamentally valuable. Tragedies are frequently dramatized in specific contexts such as moral dilemmas and historical calamities. Yet, these are merely instances of how the world can oppose what matters more universally.