Practice question · Multiple choice
Why does Dante place fraud below violence in hell?
Hints
- The ordering is about which faculty a sin corrupts.
- Sins of appetite are shared with animals; reason is not.
Show the answer
D. Fraud misuses reason, the specifically human faculty
Why
Because fraud misuses reason, which is what distinguishes human beings. Sins of incontinence are failures of self-control that animals share, so they sit near the surface; deliberate misuse of the human faculty is worse, and betrayal of a freely entered bond is worst of all.
Practise Dante’s Divine Comedy: an Architecture of the Afterlife
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