Billy Budd is a Good Man Wrongfully Judged

Good and Evil

Moral sensibility comes from awareness of the transcendent good, according to Plato (51). According to Augustine, evil—on the other hand—is the absence of good. While that definition might be insufficient to explain the motivations of characters like Iago and John Claggart, it does at least suggest that in imperfect people there can be degrees of good and evil: and this condition is exemplified in Captain Vere, who wants to do the right thing but struggles to know what that is. In Billy Budd, there is the contrast between what is noble—personified by Billy Budd—and what is evil—personified by John Claggart. Budd is loved by those around him who are also of good will; but Claggart is of an evil will: like Iago he seeks to destroy that which is good. When Budd strikes Claggart and kills him, Vere feels there is no choice but to convict Budd for killing the man—even if Claggart himself was guilty of lying and would have been hung for the crime anyway. Budd’s strike was a kind of self-defense against Claggart’s calumny—but Vere felt that the law had to be followed and so Budd was hung. Yet Budd’s goodness shines out to the end and his last words are “God bless Captain Vere!” (62). Budd has such a complete moral sensibility that he surely goes straight to heaven, whereas Vere’s sensibility—although good—is still insufficient in that it adheres to a rigid soul-killing law that understands not the spirit of the law. Vere is therefore most in need of blessing, and Budd is perfectly right to ask God for that blessing for Vere rather than to condemn Vere for taking his life from him. Budd represents the transcendent good that seeks no evil and wishes no evil upon another. But Claggart lacked the good so fully that he actively wished others to lack it as well; thus, Claggart represents not just an absence of good—but a vicious spirit seeking to attack and destroy the good. It is not that Claggart lacks a moral sensibility—it is rather that he hates the source of morality and goodness, which is God and he hates those who seek it with their whole heart, mind and soul.

Vere’s dilemma is whether to follow the letter of the law or the spirit: by the letter of the law, Budd killed Claggart and should hang; by the spirit, Budd is innocent and should be acquitted. Vere’s concern is that if he does not hang Claggart by the letter of the law, there will be no point of having any law any more. He lacks moral sensibility here, otherwise he would have more faith in the spirit of the law. There is too much of Ivan Karamazov in him in this sense: Ivan doubts in the existence of God because evil exists in the world, and he cannot believe that a good God would allow evil. Alyosha of course understands that God is greater than man and can allow evil for a greater good—but Ivan will not be convinced that such goodness is real. Alyosha himself says that he would “not consent” to live in a world where suffering of an innocent was required for the sake of harmony (68)—but the point is that such a world is not the world that God created. Ivan sees it wrong as does Vere: neither have the full sense of the transcendent good that Budd has. Vere has it a bit more than Ivan in a way, but Vere’s issue is that he is a legalist, whereas Ivan’s issue is that he is faithless. Ivan is more like Nietzsche’s madman crying out, “Where is God gone?...We have killed him—you and I!” (100). Indeed, Nietzsche took after Dostoevsky’s faithless characters, seeing in them the romantic allure of shaking one’s fist in the face of God—like Milton’s Satan. Vere does not want to shake his fist in the face of God—he is better than that: but he lacks sufficient moral sensibility to acquit Budd, for he states that “Budd’s intent or non-intent is nothing to the purpose” (61)—and here he is entirely mistaken. Plato, at least, would disagree with Vere on that matter.