Agamemnon and Eteocles found themselves, through no fault of their own, in situations where revulsion, remorse, and painful memory seemed, for the person of good character, not only inevitable, but also appropriate. This fact, however, someone might concede while still insisting that it is the part of practical wisdom to avoid such situations as far as possible in planning a life. Agamemnon's was an extreme and unpredictable catastrophe. If human beings cannot make themselves entirely safe against such rare bad luck, at least they can structure their lives and commitments so that in the ordinary course of events they will be able to stay clear of serious conflict. One obvious way to do this is to simplify the structure of one's value-commitments, refusing to attach oneself to concerns that frequently, or even infrequently, generate conflicting demands. The avoidance of practical conflict at this level has frequently been thought to be a criterion of rationality for persons – just as it has frequently been thought to be a condition of rationality for a political system that it should order things so that the sincere efforts of such persons will regularly meet with success. This view was known in fifth-century Athens. It is a prominent theme of tragedy: for the painful experiences recorded in our last chapter naturally prompt questions about their own elimination. And it has become firmly entrenched in modern thought, pressed even by some who defend a ‘tragic view’ of individual cases of practical conflict.