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The Importance Of Moral Authority In The Theth Of Medea

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It is part of the human condition to ponder how Nature could ever have been endowed with moral authority. One must ask why it is that authority still exerts such a powerful pull upon our modern sensibilities that sometimes seem to go against mere “Nature.” To discover allegedly “natural” motives for a crime mitigates its severity, since it is frowned upon to revere back to the original “animal” ways of humanity. I shall argue that the moral order of the natural kind is exemplified in the myth of Medea.
Medea is a myth that has been endlessly retold and recast, but which in every instance still today, it invites retelling because of her inner conflict, which still compels the readers of contemporary authors as it once compelled the spectators of Euripides’ play in ancient Athens. The other reason for focusing on the myth of Medea is the particular “conundrum” at the heart of her story: a conflict of natures. In some versions of Medea, she is a sorceress of sinister skills, while in others she is seem as a demigoddess who at the end escapes all punishments in a chariot driven by winged dragons. In this paper, the main focus will be on Euripides’ tragedy of 431 B.C.E.
According to Lorraine Daston’s lectures on the Morality of Natural Orders, the Greeks at that time recognized a category of “natural law,” which governed human relationships, as these derived from a state of nature, common to humans and animals alike, it could explain “natural” impulses such as killing and sex.

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