Moral Blindness in King Lear

Lear's morale blindness is first made apparent to the reader by his ignorance in dividing his kingdom between his three daughters. "To shake all cares and business" Lear thinks that he will be able to keep the power of being king without having any of the responsibility, but he does not realise that if the kingdom is divided into three it will not be able to stand. Lear is doing this so "that future strife may be prevented now" but, by doing this he is inevitably creating chaos within the kingdom. Lear, however makes another mistake when it comes to morale blindness as he tries to measure his daughters love "tell me my daughters, which of you shall say thou dost love us most?" This represents the fact that Lear is unable to differentiate between false love and true love which you are unable to measure. Of which Lear is completely fooled by the false and meaningless declarations of love of his two daughters, Regan and Goneril, they both claim to "love him more that words can wield the matter" Lear misses the false allegations that his daughters have made and surrenders to their flattery.

Lear next mistake is when he banishes Cordelia and Kent, the two people who truly love him. Kent tries to alert Lear to his lack of moral insight telling him "see better Lear." Kent attempts to convince Lear to rethink his decision and realise that has made a mistake by banning both Kent and Cordelia. Lear, who is true to his arrogant personality, forces Kent to get "out of my sight!" in an attempt to avoid reality and stop him from doing what is morally right.