	Later in this same scene King Lear is choosing how to divide his kingdom before he dies. He asks his three daughters “which of you shall we say doth love us most?” . The king subsequently takes away Cordelia's portion and gives it to her older sisters. In these few lines Shakespeare again causes the reader to question and to make connections. We learn of the power of language to persuade and influence the beliefs of others, but this concept is quickly undermined by Kent's plea with Lear to think about the actions of each of the daughters instead of simply what they said. This leads the reader to question whether love should be judged by the actions or the words directed toward a beloved. We might then ask ourselves whether, as Cordelia seems to be claiming, actions motivated by duty can be a sufficient basis for real love from child to parent. We are also led to wonder about the higher duty of those who love us – whether they should support us in our decisions or attempt to dissuade us from our bad decisions, as Kent does with the king.
	The magic of the text is that each of these issues are interwoven and seamlessly connected one to another. Amazingly, the play never explicitly asks any of these questions, and certainly does not hand out any of the answers. Instead, the reader can make the connections on his own, and is free to connect the story to his own life and experiences in the way that is most meaningful, without being told where the puzzle pieces should fit. It is this malleability of good literature, its ability to touch and to uncover the world to us at an individual level, which describes much of its power. Shakespeare provides these nodes, these points of connection, throughout his work, and seeing his work as an act of uncovering and making connections helps us to understand yet one more facet of why it is so moving. As with the other philosophies, Heidegger helps us to view beauty in a new and puissant way.
	As readers and as people who must make decisions, we must have a way to judge what we read and what we do. I believe that the modern world has stolen from us an important tool in making these judgments. Many 18th century thinkers saw themselves as just that – as thinkers, willing to examine the issues of life with all available tools. Since then, the capitalistic structure of the modern university has helped to cause us to understand learning to be more compartmentalized. Students and professors consider themselves as English majors or Political Science professors instead of as thinkers, as connoisseurs of knowledge in general. I believe that reestablishing the links between disciplines can help to remedy this problem, and will yield important discoveries and breakthroughs. I have attempted to show how one such link, namely between moral philosophy and literary analysis, can help us to see the beauty and power of good literature in new and exciting ways.
