Morality Over the Law Issue in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express: A Darwinian Perspective

Azzahra, Fathimah (2025) Morality Over the Law Issue in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express: A Darwinian Perspective. S1 thesis, Universitas Andalas.

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Abstract

This research examines the issue of whether human morality outweighs modern law in Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. Modern law is a comparatively recent, formal, and often corruptible proxy for the ancestral, naturally acquired mechanism of human nature as moral justice. Therefore, when the proxy as law fails, the original mechanism of moral justice takes over. The novel shows that human moral sense can encourage individuals to engage in illegal behavior and violate the law. Especially, if the law itself is considered pervert and cannot uphold justice efficiently. This research aims to analyze how the Armstrong family and detective Hercule Poirot justify actions driven by morality that violate the legal system as an evolved psychological mechanism that makes murder an adaptive solution to extreme problems. This research examines the characters’ motives and moral reasoning based on Joseph Carroll’s basic human motives in forming coalitions and David Buss’ evolutionary psychology theory of homicide adaptation, influenced by Darwinian morality through qualitative literary Darwinian analysis. The findings show that the Armstrong family’s coalitional motive of revenge murder is the most effective strategy to eliminate a continuous reproductive threat from Cassetti and to restore group stability. However, Poirot’s decision to release the Armstrong family shows sympathy, cost-benefit evaluation capability, and indirect reciprocity, which fosters fairness and personal integrity. This research concludes that humans tend to act based on their evolved moral principles to uphold justice when the legal system fails to do so. Thus, Agatha Christie shows the readers that in some cases, human morality can outweigh modern law to uphold justice.

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