“Hubris Breeds the Tyrant”: The Anti-Politics of Hubris from Thebes to Abu Ghraib

Abstract

While the morally loaded charge of “hubris” continues to echo around today’s agora, as it once did in ancient Athens, contemporary writers have rarely justified their use of this term, nor have they taken the full measure, ethically and politically speaking, of the dangers that hubris poses for democratic societies. This article aims to provide such a treatment by specifying the meaning and character of hubris and showing how hubris not only offends against the equality and moral dignity of others, but threatens the political domain more broadly by eliding plurality and undermining the conditions necessary for deliberation, good counsel, and shared political judgment.