Relationships Justify Partiality? The Case Of Parents And Children

Every day we encounter the various relationships we have in our lives. One of the most significant relationships is that of a child and parent. Inevitably, there is a connection between parent and child, whether good or bad. Shakespeare’s King Lear depicts Cordelia, the youngest daughter of the king, to love her father for being her father and nothing more. In Aristotle’s point of view on friendship we can infer that a child-parent relationship may fall in the category of a virtuous friendship because of Cordelia’s choices and self-values; while in contrast, is her sisters’ relationship with her father as utility relationships. Niko Kolodny, author of “Which Relationships Justify Partiality? The Case of Parents and Children”, says that a child’s responsibility will only take place if the parent has met their responsibility (60). When …show more content…
Cordelia chooses good and becomes more virtuous for it as King France acknowledges, “Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich being poor, most choice forsaken, and most loved despised! thee and thy virtues here I seize upon, be it lawful I take up what’s cast away. Gods, gods! 'Tis strange that from their cold’st neglect my love should kindle to inflamed respect.” (Shakespeare) She is good and only a person who is truthfully good can have a virtue relationship.
The tables are turned when it comes to Regan and Goneril. Their responsibility to their father does not exist even when their father has given them everything. They both make choices based upon their selfishness and use their father only as means to an end. Their lives are led towards the slippery slope of a non virtuous life. As soon as they stopped needing their father their responsibility to him ended. King Lear does not expect the betrayal from his daughters when they leave him in the storm as he roars to the