The Ethical Effects of Reading Literature: Comparing Hermeneutic and Empirical Approaches

The Ethical Effects of Reading Literature:

Comparing Hermeneutic and Empirical Approaches

MA-thesis Thom van Duuren

Supervisor: Prof. dr. E.J. Korthals Altes Second reader: Dr. M. Caracciolo

Programme: ReMa: Literary and Cultural Studies Final version: 21-08-2014

Word count: 34.500

Contents

Introduction 3

1. ‘The Bigger Picture’: Literary Narrative in Culture 7

1.1 Culture as Form of Metacognition 7

1.2 Narrative as Tool for Organizing Experience 8

1.3 Some Features of Literary Narrative 9

2. Aesthetics and Ethics 14

2.1 Autonomism and Moralism 15

2.2 Moderate Autonomism and Moralism 16

2.3 Experimentalism 17

2.4 Clarificationism 18

2.4 The Relation between Aesthetic and Ethical Judgments 19

3. Hermeneutic Proposals on Literature and Ethics 21

3.1 The Ethical Turn 21

3.2 Comparing Hermeneutic Proposals 23

3.3 Discussing Claims, Assumptions and (Proposed) Effects 32 3.3.1 Differentiating between Effects of Reading 32 3.3.2 Pre-ethical, Ethical and Moral Effects in the Hermeneutic

Proposals 34

3.3.3 Open Issues 37

4. Empirical Studies on the Ethical Effects of Literary Fiction 39 4.1 The Empirical Turn? Quantitative and Qualitative Studies on the Effects

of Reading 39

4.2 Comparing Empirical Studies 40

4.2.1 Quantitative Studies 41

4.2.2 Qualitative Studies 51

4.2.3 Further Comparing Empirical Studies 52

4.3 Results and Discussion 54

4.3.1 Pre-ethical, Ethical and Moral Effects in the Empirical Studies 54 4.3.2 Discussing Claims, Assumptions and Findings 57 5. Comparing Hermeneutic Proposals and Empirical Studies; Suggestions for Future

Research 62

5.1 Comparing Hermeneutic Proposals and Empirical Studies; Effects of Reading 62

5.2 Future Research on Literature and Ethics 66

5.3 Concluding Remarks 70

Introduction

The greatness of literature cannot be determined solely by literary standards T. S. Eliot

There is no ethically neutral narrative. Literature is a vast laboratory in which we experiment with estimations, evaluations, and judgments of approval and condemnation through which narrativity serves as a propaedeutic to ethics

Paul Ricoeur

For the last 30 years philosophers, literary theorists and narratologists have taken an interest in the ethical dimension of narrative at large, and of literary fiction in particular. Alongside the more systematic – though never entirely value-free – theorizations of this topic, scholars did not shy away from engaging in a (deeply) committed hermeneutic practice. But what does it mean to involve one’s personal values, beliefs and conceptions of ethics? More specifically, what can be gained – or lost –by addressing ethical issues in a literary text through this scholarly mode of research? And how can the aesthetical and ethical domain be combined so as to yield new or relevant insights? At the same time, how would one theorize the more general interest in ethical issues of readers outside the academia?

What do we actually know about the (various) ways in which non-professional readers deal with, and are affected by, the ethical dimension of literary fiction? These are some of the central questions this thesis will try to answer. Given this thesis’ primary interest in the reception – e.g., interpretation, judgments and psychological effects – of literary fiction, the other ways in which ethics and morality can be theorized are only peripherally addressed. The main contribution of this thesis lies in comparing and reflecting on the various ways in which literary fiction is related to ethics and is believed to influence its readers.

Needless to say, the more general debate on the (assumed) relation between art (aesthetics) and ethics/morality is as old as philosophy itself as it dates back to the days of Plato and reappeared periodically. The available material on this topic is beyond the scope and space of this thesis so I will limit myself to a selected group of works from moral philosophers, narratologists, literary scholars and psychologists mainly written in (more or less) the last 30 years. I will occasionally refer to works that are not directly related to either this subject or time-span.

Thus, I restrict myself to what is generally known as the “ethical turn” (Eskin 2004a) in

philosophy and literary studies. Prompted by the shortcomings in the Kantian and utilitarian ethics,

some moral philosophers found in narrative structures– and the novel in particular – precisely what

they missed in the leading traditions of that time: an interest in (and reflection on) human action and

character, situated in a particularized spatial and temporal continuum, involving dilemmas,

(conflicting) desires, and choices. What exactly constitutes literary narrative will be treated in chapter 1 as well as the ways in which literary fiction may contribute to – certain conceptions of – ethics.

In response to structuralism’s striving for rigorous methods and scientific objectivity, a number of literary theorists engaged in the more subjective practice of criticism. The importation of ethics mainly served as a – committed – frame for text interpretation and criticism. In this respect

‘ethics’ denotes a particular conception of right and wrong, how one should act and, typically a specific idea of how to encounter others. While these beliefs often spring from a more intuitive – instead of thoroughly reflected and general – understanding of ethics, existing ideas and conceptions are habitually adopted though often employed in a new or flexible way. The term ‘hermeneutic proposal’ covers (some of these) models in which the often normative conceptions of literature and ethics as well as reading interests and attitude are advanced.

For the last 15 years, the relation between literature and ethics has also been approached from an entirely different angle. In the psychology departments, empirical research on the effects of reading literary fiction is steadily progressing. Whereas hermeneutic proposals usually advance a particular – normative – reading strategy and canon-formation along with an interest in specific thematic topics, this kind of research investigates how actual readers engage with literary fiction.

Especially the claim that literary reading improves certain (pro-social) abilities inspired a significant number of experiments. Though there are quite some (prominent) readers who have testified to these effects, there is no conclusive scientific evidence as yet that corroborates this. Hence, the systematic effects of reading and its consequences on character, behavior or self-concept are still largely unknown to us. Although these empirical studies have their limitations in approaching the complex and dynamic ways in which readers engage with literary narrative, I believe that it has considerable potential for addressing the disadvantages of traditional reader-response theories.

This brings me to the central aim of this thesis which is to map and compare the hermeneutic proposals and empirical studies on the ethical interest and effects of literary reading (chapter 3 and 4). Both scholarly practices have developed a profound interest in how literature enters, and interacts with, the critic or reader’s life world. Furthermore, they explicitly or implicitly advanced (and tested) claims/hypotheses on the effects of reading, but also on the conditions needed for this effects to appear or to be reinforced. Not surprisingly, the theoretical models and argumentations are often built on the same or similar assumptions.

Beyond these shared aims, the differences in approach and method are considerable. All the hermeneutic proposals convey particular ideas about how to read, what conceptions of literature and ethics one should maintain, which authors, themes and literary techniques deserve attention and so on. The normativity and circularity is easily detected but criticizing these proposals for their lack of objectivity or dismissing them as merely subjective would be inappropriate. Hermeneutic proposals should be judged on the relevance and strength of their argumentation. Besides, their intuition on how readers may engage with literary fiction yields interesting ideas and claims that could be tested in empirical research.

Striving for objectivity is instead precisely what distinguishes – or should distinguish – the empirical studies. They operate according the guidelines of scientific inquiry by conducting

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By literary fiction I mean (in this context) narrative works of literature, most of them (strictly) fictional though (semi-)documentary genres such as (auto)biographies, historical novel etc. are not necessarily excluded. Useful in this respect is Gérard Genette (1993) classification, who considers the extent to which a work is perceived as artistically crafted, (literature); the result of invention (fiction) and/or by its style - as in a crafted composition, or more generally: attention to form – (diction).

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See paragraph 3.2 for a detailed account of features and characteristics of hermeneutic proposals.

experiments under controlled conditions, following a pre-fabricated set of measures and hypotheses that are confirmed or rejected by means of fixed statistical standards. However, as Svend Brinkmann (2011) pointed out, empirical studies rarely meet these requirements. Normative conceptions of – for the matter, literature, fiction and how readers engage with it, alongside what counts as ‘beneficial’ – are implemented in the theory, set-up and measures of the experiments, running the risk of confirming the scholars’ hypotheses in a circular fashion. This danger is partly explained by the phenomenon itself which, arguably, cannot be approached in an entirely neutral way. Thus, a degree of ‘priming’ as in preparing the texts, questionnaires and measures in a certain way for the experiments to yield (any) result, seems inevitable.

By closely examining the most important claims and the methodological benefits and shortcomings of both scholarly directions, I present the most promising lines of research on this topic. My initial forays will prompt me to suggest a couple of hypotheses, for which I will propose routes for further research.

In a final note regarding my topic and approach, I briefly want to point out my own scholarly position. I do not wish to value empirical methods higher than philosophical or hermeneutical reasoning. But whereas in the humanities, empirical studies are still frequently perceived with skepticism I see no reason why both ways of doing research cannot exist alongside, or cross-fertilize each other. C. P. Show’s famous distinction of “the two cultures” (1959) is yet a commonly held belief.

Of course, there is no point in denying the differences in aims, theory and methods and any attempt to (straightforwardly) bridge this gap, should be critically examined. Interdisciplinary research seems a way forward in this respect. Combining the existing expertise and skills in devising claims and shaping experimental set ups, may unite the best of both ‘cultures’. However, these comments are not meant to celebrate just any form of interdisciplinary inquiry. Each (combined) approach should be preceded by proper reasoning and ideally, recognize its own limitations.

In chapter 1, the scope will be widened by exploring the ways in which (literary) narrative fiction belongs to, and reflects upon, culture. As I will repeatedly indicate, some parts or elements will not further be discussed since the limited space of this study permits only the most fruitful and promising proposals to be presented and eventually used, in one way or another, in my own argument.

In chapter 2, I will sketch an overview of the various positions one could take with respect to the ethical (and moral) evaluation of art in general. Although these positions are characterized by their broad and general claims, they serve as point of departure for the more specific issues that are involved. Chapter 3 presents the most important developments within the branches of philosophy and literary studies that gave birth to the ethical turn – and more specifically, the hermeneutic proposals that will be discussed. The authors of the hermeneutic proposals differ from the ones discussed in the first part of this chapter in the following aspects: they defend the relevance of ethics as an approach to literature in particular, often in a committed and personal mode. Next, the hermeneutic proposals themselves are critically examined. A fixed set of questions will function as tool to disclose the underlying assumptions hidden in these proposals. These questions pertain to the definitions of literature and ethics, their mutual relation, the ways in which subjectivity is imagined in a text and the expected interests/reading attitude of the reader as well as the need for extra-textual mediation.

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Precisely since the phenomenon of reading is difficult to measure (according to clear-cut psychological effects

and standards), the input of hermeneuticians and literary theorists may help to develop ways in which reading

literary fiction can be approached.

In chapter 4, I explore the claims, methods and results of the empirical studies that investigate the ethical effects of literary reading. Most research is not exclusively focused on ethical effects though all studies take an interest in the effects Hakemulder calls “pre-ethical” (2000, 4).

These studies mainly pertain to the effects of reading on particular abilities – such as Theory of Mind or empathy – or the reader’s personality or self-concept. In the concluding chapter (5), the various claims will be compared, combined with suggestions for further research.

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See paragraph 3.3.1.

1. “The Bigger Picture”: Literary Narrative in Culture

Before I investigate the various ways in which literary narrative and ethics are linked, I start by widening the scope to literature and human culture at large (because of the size and complexity, I will restrict myself to a concise presentation and discussion of some prominent concepts and models) By examining the role and function of literary narrative in light of human cultural behavior, I work towards the more distinctive features of narrative and medium-specific qualities of literature.

1.1 Culture as Form of Metacognition

From a cognitive-semiotic perspective, literature, like art in general, establishes “a distinctive form of cognition” (Heusden, van 2009, 611) because of its reflection on human consciousness (Donald 1991;

Heusden, van 2009). The model proposed by cognitive scientist Merlin Donald and complemented by Barend van Heusden departs from a general definition of culture devised by Robert Boyd and Peter J.

Richerson. By culture they mean “information capable of affecting individuals’ behavior that they acquire from other members of their species through teaching, imitation, and other forms of social transmission” (2005, 5). Following this line of argument, a specific subset of culture – the arts, cultural heritage and entertainment – is better understood as the reflection on human culture. To understand the different stages that preceded the current phase of our cultural development, the model of Donald provides a historical and evolutionary overview.

This explains the way in which humans “have tried to come to grips with this changing reality in a number of different ways, and the story of these attempts is the story of cultural evolution”

(Heusden, van 2009, 618). These stages have to do with a specific mode of cognition and are cumulative in both the individual and cultural developmental process. Two of the four modes of

“semiosis” (2009, 619) –‘perception’ and ‘imagination’ – deal with concrete situations whereas the other two – ‘conceptualization and (theoretical) analysis’ – have more general or abstract applications. Since human culture and individual development is a cumulative process, new modes build on the existing ones. Throughout this process, human beings developed the capacity for self- observation by becoming aware of the crucial difference between our memory and real time perception of the here and now i.e. the difference between mental representation and world. “This, it will be argued, results in human culture. In our terms, humans experience an absence of meaning.

This awareness of absence, or difference (in relation to the acquired patterns of behavior), even seems to be basic to human cognition: what we recognize is not, is never identical with the patterns used to recognize” (van Heusden 2009, 614).

This absence or difference has initiated the process and activity of meta-cognition of with the arts, religion, and philosophy are its most important forms. In a syllogistic fashion, Donald argues that

“most art is metacognitive in nature. Metacognition is by definition, self-reflection. Art is self-

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Donald distinguishes the “episodic” (1991, 124), “mimetic” (169), “mythic” (202) and “theoretical” (273)

stages of human culture. Each stage is characterized by the dominance of one or two of these specific types of

cognition. Donald’s four stages can be applied to a person’s individual cognitive development and to human

culture in general.

reflection” (2006, 5). Thus, metacognition is distinctive in that it not only imitates the external world but also the cognitive process of representation. As van Heusden notes: “with art we reflect upon our life through concrete images, sounds, and stories” (621).

Metacognition takes place on both an individual and cultural level. Culture is conceived of as a “massive distributed cognitive networks involving the linking of many minds, often with large institutional structures that guide the flow of ideas, memories and knowledge” (Donald 2006, 4). Art fulfil a “crucial role as a collective vehicle for self-reflection and as a shared source of cultural identity” (4). Thus, the arts, and more generally, narrative structures of communication are constitutive for the distribution of cognition though, at the same time, reflect on it. Roughly, these two functions – i.e., the organization and reflection on cognition/experience – of art and literary narrative accomplish an essential role in the remainder of this thesis.

1.2 Narrative as Tool for Organizing Experience

In human’s semiotic development, language enables the efficient preservation and transmission of experience. The role of language in the origin of storytelling should not be overrated, though.

Narrative does not necessarily depend on language since it is – and has been – articulated in mime, images or other non-linguistic media. It could be argued however, that language has accelerated the development of storytelling or as Brian Boyd argues, “language of course makes narrative more precise, efficient, and flexible” (2009, 159). Storytelling is one of our most crucial abilities and as it is repeatedly observed, a universally present phenomenon. In line with Donald and van Heusden’s argument, storytelling (and art in general) played a considerable role in the evolutionary development of our species: “I will suggest that despite its many forms, art, too, is a specifically human adaptation, biologically part of our species. It offers tangible advantages for human survival and reproduction, and it derives from play, itself an adaptation widespread among animals with flexible behaviors (Boyd 2009, 1). In this respect, Stephen Read and Lynn Miller suggest that “stories are universally basic to conversation and meaning making”, and as developmental and cross-cultural studies suggest, “humans appear to have a readiness, from the beginning of life, to hear and understand stories” (Read and Miller 1995, 135). From an ontogenic perspective, the “Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis” (Dautenhahn 1999) claims that “the evolutionary origin of communicating in stories co-evolved with increasing social dynamics among our human ancestors, in particular the necessity to communicate about third-party relationships [for instance, gossip]” (Dautenhahn 2002, 103–104).

It is often argued that narrative is (still) one of the basic strategies of sense-making. David Herman speaks of narrative “as a powerful and basic tool for thinking” (2003, 163). He wonders

“what it is about narrative” that explains “its power to organize thought and conduct across so many different domains of human activity” (163). In the words of Paul Ricoeur, narrative art has the (unique) capacity to “configurate experience” and therefore, make it available for scrutiny:

“configurational arrangement transforms the succession of events into one meaningful whole which

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Many of the ideas and concepts used by these cognitive scientists are far from new since similar ideas can be

found within different branches of knowledge (phenomenology, hermeneutics, and new historicism). See for

instance, the work of hermeneuticians and psychologists such as Ricoeur (1988; 1992), Bruner (1986; 1991) and

Taylor (1989).

is the correlate of the act of assembling the events together and which makes the story followable.

Thanks to this reflective act, the entire plot can be translated into one "thought," which is nothing other than its "point" or "theme"” (1984, 67). Taking his cue from Ann Rigney, who interestingly argues that the “point” of a narrative, or its criterion for reportability is often a moral one (1991, 601), Hakemulder explains that “what we consider worth telling a story about are typically events in which human values are at stake” (2000, 6).

Yet from another perspective, Lisa Zunshine has proposed that fiction is nearly all about ‘theory of mind’, or perspective-taking and finding out the inner reasons that motivate character’s actions. According to her, we take pleasure in fiction because we have a strongly developed capacity for estimating the thoughts of others and working out what people are up to. In fiction, the reader encounters clues that activate his/her theory of mind processes. This may lead to a profound state of concentration as we try to predict the thoughts and behaviour of characters. Boyd, in a more general fashion, considers fiction an exercise for mind- reading, training the skills we need in social life, “it serves as a stimulus and training for a flexible mind, as play does for the body and physical behavior. The high concentrations of pattern that art delivers repeatedly engage and activate individual brains and over time alter their wiring to modify key human perceptual, cognitive, and expressive systems, especially in terms of sight, hearing, movement, and social cognition” (2009, 83).

Which elements then, make up for a narrative (in all its shapes)? Instead of providing a definition, the most fundamental features are presented in a concise way. Narrative is an account of events that are (loosely) connected through causal, temporal and psychological ‘logics’. What is called emplotment may roughly be understood as “the synthesis of heterogeneous elements” (Ricoeur 1986, 123).

Narrative organizes events of all sorts in logical structures of cause and effect. This prompts a continuous interplay between the readers’ expectations for the plot’s development and non- motivated or accidental happenings. Its temporal dimension involves a similar tension between what Ricoeur identifies as the “concordant and discordant” (122). Stories always mediate between ‘human time’ which means the flow of duration (And then? And then?) and narrative configuration, “deriving from succession” (123) illustrated by its (classic) structure of beginning, middle and end.

Recently, Fludernik’s concept of “experientiality” (Fludernik 1996), which she defines as, “the quasi-mimetic evocation of ‘real-life experience’” (1996, 9), has attracted serious attention. She advanced the view that narrative triggers cognitive schemata of human embodiedness. Herman argues in a similar fashion that “[narrative] representation also conveys the experience of living through this storyworld-in-flux, highlighting the pressure of events on real or imagined consciousnesses affected by the occurrences at issue” (2009, XVI).

In Marie-Laure Ryan’s notion of “narrative script” (2004) – consisting of three conditions for an artifact to count as narrative – a work should evoke a storyworld populated with intelligent agents and objects (8-9). The importance of character or human-like agency is frequently underscored:

“narratives are about people acting in a setting, and the happenings that befall them must be relevant to their intentional states while so engaged-to their beliefs, desires, theories, values, and so on” (Bruner 1991, 7). This sense of agency and intentionality is already theorized by classical structuralists. Greimas, for instance, developed his actantial model to explain the narrative progression which is driven forward by a subject’s intentionality and motivations – more specifically – its quest to achieve or obtain a desired goal or object.

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This is further discussed in chapter 1.

Other – deeply related – elements such as the evocation (and disruption) of a “story world”

(D. Herman 2009, XVI) and “space” (Ryan 2009; Ryan 2003; Bakhtin 1981) will be left out here. The role of “genres” and other means through which narrative invites for meaning-making as well as the mental process of “refiguration” (Ricoeur 1988) are discussed elsewhere.

For now, it helps to position narrative (of any kind) within the landscape of “distributed cognition” (Donald 2006) enabling the organization of experience and exchange of world views, perspectives and the like.

These functions of narrative, and their mutual relation, contain great relevance with regard to ethics.

1.3 Some Features of Literary Fiction

What then, is deemed to make up for ‘the literariness’ of literary narrative? Literary fiction covers a group of texts credited within a community for particular – aesthetic or other – reasons. Any attempt to define literature based on intrinsic capacities though, runs into problems. Michael Eskin suggests that “on deconstructive readings, literature and its ethical valence emerge, primarily, as the functions of our perception of certain texts as literary” (Eskin 2004b, 583 my emphasis). Despite the frequent attempts to define literature on basis of textual properties (cf. Miall and Kuiken 1994), it is not “easy to isolate, from all that has been variously called 'literature', some constant set of inherent features.

Any bit of writing may be read 'non-pragmatically', if that is what reading a text as literature means, just as any writing may be read 'poetically'” (Eagleton 2008, 8). What I consider important in Eskin and Eagleton’s remarks is that the classification of a work as literary largely seems to depend on the framing, judgments and evaluations of an interpretive community (see also Fish 1980; Lamarque 2008). Without attempting to define this literariness, I will discuss some of the most prominent and – considering the topic of this thesis – relevant proposals on the features, possibilities (and shortcomings) of literary fiction. They mainly have to do with the various ways in which literature invites for reflection, by representing and juxtaposing, social – value-laden – discourses, perspectives and representations themselves. Still, besides the observation that literariness also depends on the reader’s perception, other functions – for instance, providing existential/moral guidance – may be considered literary as well.

Suspense of direct referentiality

That (literary) fictional discourse does not follow the same rules as most discourses, has long been known. Aristotle’s distinction between ‘apophanic’ and ‘nonapophanic’ speech advances a difference between a discourse insisting on – propositional – truth (e.g., jurisdiction, philosophy, history) and a discourse which is “non-assertive, nonpropositional (e.g., literature)” (Eskin, 2004b, 578). Eskin further states that this distinction “facilitated the common view—held by many a philosopher and poet alike—of philosophy and literature as ‘‘serious’’ or nonfictional and ‘‘nonserious’’ or fictional modes of discourse, respectively. While the former makes referential statements, the latter dispenses with direct propositionality and referentiality” (2004b, 578). This view is also advanced by John Searle: “What distinguishes fiction from lies is the existence of a separate set of conventions which enables the author to go through the motions of making statements which he knows to be not true even though he has no intention to deceive” (1975, 326). Fictional language thus, enables an author

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To avoid misunderstandings, I regard narrative, and its defining feature “narrativity” as a function of both

artifactual representation and the mental processes these clues activate.

to “use words literally and yet not be committed in accordance with the rules that attach to the literal meaning of those words” (326). Therefore, fiction ‘logical’ status is, “the pretended reference … and the shared pretence which enables us to talk about the character” (330).

Plato was probably the first to install this distinction. Jean-Marie Schaeffer – who distances himself from Plato – observes that to him, “mimetic activities appear essentially in the horizon of the lie, thus of serious feint, as shown in an exemplary manner by the fact that nowhere does he treat the (enormous) difference between the ludic feint of mimetic arts and the serious feint of the philosopher-mythologist of the ideal city” (2010, 21). In his rigor to discriminate between serious and non-serious utterances, speech-act theorist John Austin illustrated Eskin’s comments on literature’s – and fiction’s – (lower) status: “I must not be joking, for example, nor writing a poem” (1962, 8).

In contrast to Plato and Austin’s negative position, the suspense of direct referentiality is also considered to be valuable. Jacques Derrida, who fiercely debated with Searle on this point, observed that it is literature’s special ability to incorporate the languages of other discourses (such as those of historical writing, law, philosophy and science), yet suspend their strict procedures of meaning and reference for the time (1992). Literature’s ability for this kind of suspension means that it can play – in a serious way – with all forms of knowledge by momentarily bracketing their rules of discourse.

However, he did not wish to make use of the distinction between serious and non-serious language.

Its referential status, he thinks, should not be understood as merely absent. The difference is only revealed when utterances or statements are used via de rules of these discourses. By means of this suspension, cultural forms can examine the foundations of a range of different forms of knowledge.

Despite this great potential, Derrida did recognize literature’s restrictions as well.

The idea that literature provides a place where discourses of all kinds are presented and brought together for readers to experience and scrutinize them, holds interesting potential for the reflection on institutionalized values as well as the specific way in social issues or problems are represented.

Literary fiction as rendezvous of (value-)perspectives

Literary fiction also has the ability to juxtapose all kinds of discourses, varying from “professional and social dialects, world views and individual artistic works” (Bakhtin 1981, 293). These “particular points of view on the world” (293) establish the effect of heteroglossia in the novel. What Bakhtin calls

“double-voiced discourse” is the expression of two intentions simultaneously: “the direct attention of the character who is speaking, and the refracted intention of the author” (324). He further notes that these discourses are always “internally dialogized” as in the example of “parodic or ironic discourse”

(324). Although these opposing views may be internalized or operate on an individual level, they, in fact, express “social heteroglossia” (326) in being the outward appearance of speech diversity and hence, differing world views. His analysis of the novel explains how literary narrative is impregnated by – and at the same time, sets in motion – various social discourses through the heteroglossic nature of language itself.

The accumulation of perspectives is also theorized by Wolfgang Iser, who approaches literary fiction from a reader-oriented, phenomenological perspective. To him, “the reader's role is prestructured by three basic components: the different perspectives represented in the text, the vantage point from which he joins them together, and the meeting place where they converge”

(1978, 36). Literary texts are “composed of a variety of perspectives that outline the author’s view

and also provide access to what the reader is meant to visualize. This is best exemplified by the novel,

which is a system of perspectives designed to transmit the individuality of the author’s vision” (35).

Iser recognizes four main perspectives in the novel, namely the narrator, the characters, the plot, and the imagined reader. These perspectives emerge during the reading process, as the “reader’s role is to occupy shifting vantage points that are geared to a prestructured activity and to fit the diverse perspectives into a gradually evolving pattern” (35).

Rhetorical narratology takes a similar interest in the multiplication of perspectives in (literary) narrative. Wayne Booth distinguishes different narrative positions and voices that all express – value- laden – perspectives, a feature he considers to be essential to narrative: “I could hardly dodge the way in which all narratives both depend on and impose what I called "beliefs" and "norms," what modern jargon calls "values””(1983, 418). His rhetorical approach is continued by James Phelan (1996; 2005; 2007) who, in the spirit of Booth’s later work, focused on the ethical effects of narrative fiction. Given the relevance of Booth’s work for my subject, his approach will be discussed in more depth in chapter 3.

Literary fiction and the display of discourse

Marie-Louise Pratt interestingly proposes the following principle to discriminate between ordinary and literary discourse:

“a speaker is not only report[ing] but also verbally display[ing] a state of affairs, in such a way that he invites his addressee(s) to join him in contemplating it, evaluating it, and responding to it. His point is to produce in his hearers not only belief but also an imaginative and affective involvement in the state of affairs he is representing and an evaluative stance toward it. . . . Ultimately, what he is after, is an interpretation of the problematic event, an assignment of meaning and value supported by the consensus of himself and his hearers”

(1977, 136 my emphasis).

In discussing Schaeffer’s notion of mimesis, Korthals Altes observes that “it [mimesis] is not restricted to the idea that fiction imitates reality but includes imitative representation of our “modes of representation of reality” (Schaeffer quoted in Korthals Altes). To the objects of mimesis, in fiction, belong the mental processes and patterns through which we perceive and make sense of events, situations, or characters, besides these events or actions themselves” (146).

In a kindred spirit, Jorgen Dines Johansen suggests that literary narrative makes “available for circulation, debate and reflection the descriptions and discussions of [cultural] hierarchies of relevance and the clash between plans at different levels” (Johansen 2002, 299). Close to Donald’s conception of culture and art as the ‘distribution of cognition’, he proposes that, “part of the specific kind of contemplation that literature instigates is carried over in the interpersonal reflection on it.

Because literature articulates, and re-articulates, the subjective experience of and attitudes with regard to the common lifeworld, discoursing on literature is a way both of sharing what is personal, without sharing personal experiences, and a way of establishing, or failing to establish, a common understanding of parts of the lifeworld by viewing it through the perspective offered by the text”

(2007, 127). Furthermore, the active readerly anticipation, which takes a highly embodied and

emotional form reinforces the process of self-reflection: “[fiction] may well change the intellectual

habits and emotional responses of the subject because the appropriation of the literary models of

virtual reality may cause shifts in the way the reader understands his own being” (2007, 129).

In a final note, it should be pointed out that, besides making available for reflection and

discussion, literary fiction also captures and gives form to patterns of experience and knowledge. As

Roger Luckhurst points out: “It is common to insist that culture is not reflective but constitutive of

social knowledge” (2008, 80). To me though, it appears that we are not dealing with an either/or

situation here. Literary fiction, and art in general, helps structuring our perception of life and at the

same time, inviting for critical reflection or even radically unsettling our most fundamental

conceptions and beliefs. This is constitutive of Donald and van Heusden’s model of culture as well as

narrative, which by means of its temporal dimension and capacity to capture and display (humanlike)

experience, seems of eminent relevance here. In the hermeneutic proposals on literature and ethics

that will be discussed in chapter 3, we will find both functions discussed.

2. Aesthetics and Ethics

What are the dominant – historical and contemporary – views on the relation between aesthetics and ethics? To what extent are the interpretations and evaluations of artworks influenced or even determined by such conceptions as well as by personal ethical values? The relation between art and ethics/morality has been studied for over ages but gained momentum after the autonomous position achieved by the arts in the 18

century. Art became valuable in its own terms, complemented by its own type of judgment (see among many others sources: Adorno (2004 [1970], 16–45; 225–261)) which has been deeply influenced by Kant idea of the aesthetic as ‘disinterested’. Previously to that date, the majority of art operated in accordance with the dominant religious, moral and political views. From a sociological perspective, Bourdieu argues that art as an institution functions autonomously alongside other social fields (1996, 45–113). This privilege which is accredited in most democratic societies in practice turns out to very fragile. In theory, the arts, being freed from direct social purposes and no longer bound to moral norms, were granted a virtually unlimited freedom to discover the unexplored realm beyond the socially accepted. The overly famous example of Oscar Wilde who states that: “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written” (Wilde 2003 [1890], preface) is frequently used as slogan of the L’Art pour l’art movement. Nevertheless, a closer look reveals that in fact, most artworks still conveyed a rather conservative moral stance, Wilde’s Dorian Gray not least of all. As the broader historical perspective clearly falls outside the scope of this thesis, I consider the autonomous position – delicate as it may be – to be my point of departure.

Whereas the tight connection between art and morality became somewhat loosened as for the author’s moral responsibility, at other levels, the link to various domains of ethics remained intricate. As Korthals Altes insightfully notes: “Even a movement like L’Art pour l’art (‘art for art’s sake’) can be argued to defend a higher conception of ethics, autonomous in the sense that it is free from bourgeois norms” (2006, 17). Moreover: “Even moral transgression in art generally presupposes a ‘common’ morality as its operation ground, and often legitimizes itself as a new, alternative morality (see for instance Bataille’s La Littérature et le mal, which attaches to the imperative of transgression a high moral norm of authenticity)” (17). Subsequently, it is safe to conclude that any representation of human affairs “aesthetic or otherwise, cannot really avoid having a moral or ethical dimension, be it in the negative” (18).

The relation between aesthetics/art and ethics provoked a great many theorizations. In the

next part, some of the main – or most prototypical – convictions on the connection between

ethics/morality and art will be presented. Admittedly, these positions are proposed in the context of

(professional) criticism and have relatively little to say about how non-professional readers engage

with works of art. From a truly analytical perspective, most positions are easy objects for criticism and

instead of providing answers they in fact raise numerous novel questions. However, the usefulness of

this historical and conceptual classification lies, I think in presenting the different ways in which the

relation between art and morality – and aesthetics and ethics – has been conceptualized. The branch

of professional ethical criticism merely serves to provide anchor points in the wide and diffuse

landscape. Hence I will focus on art in general before moving on to literary (narrative) fiction in

particular to illuminate the medium-specific properties of the latter. I will not go very far in

demonstrating their arguments though I aim to present the essential claims and assumptions of the most pertinent proposals

2.1 Autonomism and Moralism

Taking their cue from the institutional autonomy of the arts, a number of art critics and scholars defend the thesis that art should not be judged on ethical – or any other non-aesthetic – ground. Art theorists such as Clive Bell (1914) persistently argued that art contains its own domain of value and should be experienced, studied and judged according to aesthetic or formal criteria. Bell’s and other similar views, are categorized as “autonomism” (Carroll 1998a, 279). Autonomous conceptions of art disregard the need for moral evaluations, though this version also comes in different forms. “Extreme autonomism” (281) holds that art can never be judged from a moral perspective. Oscar Wilde’s notorious denial of any ethical/moral relation to art – as presented in the introduction – exemplifies this position. Besides the extreme version, autononism also comes in a moderate form (2.1.2).

A general version of the autonomist’s argument goes as follows: since an ethical or moral framework cannot be installed as a “general denominator” for the evaluation of all artworks we

“should refrain from asking whether it is morally good” (281). Because it is easy to designate artworks or entire genres that elude moral evaluation, this approach is not a valid way to assess art an sich.

This position also strongly relies on art’s autonomous position in society. As an independent domain and institution, art should be judged on its main function, which is to provide disinterested pleasure by innovatively applying its disciplinary and generic (formal) rules. Since art is considered valuable in itself, it is not deemed to be useful outside its own field. Moreover, it is frequently stressed that we know very little about art’s actual – for the matter, ethical or moral – effects on its audience.

Arguably, the word views, beliefs and opinions expressed in artworks are not automatically adopted by the recipient (see cf. Posner 1997).

The autonomist’s argumentation is, for several reasons, susceptible for criticism. First, this implies that formal properties should be taken as only criterion for evaluating art. Such a perspective ignores the divergence in recipients’ attitudes or meaning-making strategies. Moreover, the aesthetic rather originates in the interplay between textual (in the broad sense) features and the audience’s cognitive make-up and interpretive frameworks. Often, the aesthetic is described in terms of effects – estranging, challenging – produced by a work of art by their formal properties and structures. In a way, this resembles the attempt in literary studies (see cf. Miall and Kuiken 1994) to delimit literature by means of its text-internal properties. Anyone who relies on a formal artifact-based perspective runs the risk of reducing the aesthetic experience to a descriptive and purely technical response.

Second, this approach fails to do justice to the socio-historical dimension artworks emanate from, and circulate in. Art not only fulfilled many different purposes in the past, it may also be evaluated according different criteria, depending on the recipient or interpreter’s specific framing or interest.

The challenge would be to find pathways that do justice to conceptions of both ethics and aesthetics.

The opposed pole with respect to the autonomist position is “moralism” (279). Carroll distinguishes three versions of “extreme moralism” (280). They all share the view that any artwork could – and should be the object of moral examination thus claiming that an artwork is “either good or bad” (280) depending on the evaluation itself. The first two positions express [different]

essentialist views on the relation art and morality. In claiming that art, by nature, is morally

subversive “Platonism” (279) demonstrates the negative essentialist’s position. The opposite

perspective comes from, among others, Herbert Marcuse who states that all art accomplishes a

morally laudable effect because it shows how society can be changed. This position is called

“utopism” (279). In-between these two positions, “comprehensive variable moralism” suggest that the moral evaluation can be positive or negative depending on the artwork at stake. Although this position does not lean on judgments in advance – i.e., all art is either morally laudable or condemnable – it still assumes that “all art is an appropriate target for moral evaluation” (280).

According to Carroll, the extreme positions are an easy target for criticism. It is not hard, he writes, to find cases that go against these essentialist views. A vast group of artworks, for instance instrumental music or abstract paintings, do not seem to convey any particular (world) view at all. On these grounds, even the position of “variable moralism” can be questioned. To be effective, (it is easily presupposed that) ethical or moral criticism should be aimed at artworks that contain a certain degree of representational content. It seems to me though that altogether denying the ethical dimension of certain artworks or genres on these grounds appears to be reductive. Even abstract art or instrumental music may (via the detour of aesthetic, or other kinds of judgments) be subjected to such evaluations.

2.2 Moderate moralism and autonomism

Given the shortcomings of the positions presented above, many scholars have come up with less unequivocal positions. Carroll points to another concern in favor of what he calls a moderate moralist’s view: since artworks such as John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath or Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin “address their audience morally” it is appropriate to “evaluate them in terms of their moral address” (281). For this, he invents the term “moderate moralism” since it “only maintains that some art where that [moral evaluation] is a function of the category or kind that the artwork inhabits” (281). Carroll believes this to happen somewhat automatically, especially in the case of (literary) narrative: “That is, it is natural for us to think about and to discuss narratives in terms of ethics, because narratives, due to the kinds of things they are, awaken, stir up, and engage our moral powers of recognition and judgment” (1998b, 141). The moderate moralist also claims that the moral evaluation is an important or sometimes even pivotal approach in cases that invite for such an approximation.

In line with the moderate moralist, the “moderate autonomist” (Carroll 1998a, 281) also acknowledges that a work of art can be evaluated morally. In most cases however, the moderate autonomist prefers the aesthetic over the moral evaluation. William Gass for instance, considers

“artistic quality” to be the main criterion of an artwork depending upon: “a work’s internal, formal, organic character, upon its style and structure, and not upon the morality it is presumed to recommend” (1993, 115). According the moderate autonomist, art’s aesthetic and moral domains exist alongside but do not mutually influence each other. Furthermore, the aesthetic is permanently favored over the moral – or other – dimensions of art.

To a certain point, these are valid and convincing arguments. By committing to the autonomous position of the arts, artists, critics and institutions frequently defend their artistic or interpretive freedom. Besides, this view brings some interesting issues to the fore. Posner, for instance, argues that the value of art is not constituted by its moral content e.g., great works of

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To Adorno, autonomist works of art embodied a deep and authentic form of social criticism which however, only appeared after the aesthetic evaluations of the philosopher or art critic. See Adorno (2004, 16–44; 225–

261).

literature do not necessarily express a moral we would all agree on. His criticism on Nussbaum and Booth (1997, 2), who both discard particular canonical works of literature on moral grounds, is to a certain extent justified. However, Posner seems to merge the ethical with the moral since his arguments are in defense of “morally offensive views encountered in literature” (1) and against the moral judgments of such views. In doing so, he ignores the possibility for morally doubtful works to be ethically significant. Another issue he raises concerns the actual effects of works of art. Again, Posner is right in pointing out that immoral artworks do not necessarily influence the recipient’s behavior that way (and the same may count for morally laudable works). By critiquing the predominant role of the moral dimension in the conception of art, the autonomist view contains some useful elements for further discussion. Ironically, it does not eliminate the fact that Posner relies in his argument on these two problematic aspects together (straightforward moral evaluation and the possible lack of any effects) without defending the autonomist’s position against more sophisticated arguments that argue for the ethical value of art or art criticism.

2.3 Experimentalism

Based on an autonomist’s defence of art’s liberty, Richard Eldridge distinguishes a position he calls

“experimentalism” (2003, 209). Posner supports the arts autonomous position by stating that, “[t]he aesthetic outlook is a moral outlook, one that stresses the values of openness, detachment, hedonism, curiosity, tolerance, the cultivation of the self, and the preservation of a private sphere--in short, the values of liberal individualism” (1997, 2). But whereas Posner does not pay attention to the possible ways in which artworks may stimulate ethical reflection, Eldridge grants the arts– on basis of its liberty – an important (social) function. His argument ties in with the Anglo-American pragmatist tradition (among others, John Dewey and Richard Rorty). In embracing “an open-ended moral experimentalism”, artworks “typically, have moral value” (209). According to his argument, art is ascribed an unlimited freedom for moral experiments as long as it does not cause any real (mental or physical) harm to anyone. By adopting J. S. Mill’s famous harm principle, Eldridge disputes that ‘good taste’ or objections of a similar nature to be valid arguments for the moral rejection of art. When harmful effects cannot be estimated (or in Mill’s words, ‘calculated’) art should be protected against censorship at all time.

This position presumes that art helps to “widen our sensibilities” (211) and encourages us to overcome the timidity we develop for moral sensitive situations. Rorty’s position, which could be included here, celebrates art’s invention of new perspectives on our life world. Departing from what he calls the ‘contingency of language, the self and community’, in that a fixed set of rules pertaining to moral or truth do not exist, art is allowed an almost unrestricted freedom to experiment. Through their experiments, the poet may increase our self-understanding, providing insight into the unstable and contradictory tendencies we so often witness or experience ourselves. For example, “someone can be both a tender mother and a merciless concentration-camp guard” (1989, 32).

Although this perspective runs the risk of celebrating any work that somehow scandalizes moral norms or good taste, it is still widely used by both artists and scholars to defend the freedom of artistic creation without deeming this practice to be ethically useless. In describing art as “moral laboratory” (Hakemulder 2000), this freedom – in practice and reception – is an important and crucial argument in defense of the (moral) liberty of art. In contrast to the autonomist who, as one might say,

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See for a critical evaluation of Rorty’s view: Haliburton (1997).

throws out the baby with the bathwater, the ‘experimentalist’ considers art to be ethically valuable precisely by virtue of its freedom.

The relevance of this framework and its underlying argumentation can hardly be overestimated. Still, when taken as a criterion for the value of an artwork, experimentalism may become problematic, insofar that more conventional – and less experimental – works are not a priori less valuable.

2.4 Clarificationalism

In line with the foregrounding of the ethical as the appropriate operational ground of the arts, Carroll presents a nuanced version of the moralist’s position. To him, it seems “that the operative sense of learning in the autonomist's argument is too restrictive. For there is another sense of learning - both moral and otherwise - that the autonomist has ignored and that applies to the kinds of activities that narrative artworks abet” (1998b, 142). This position designates art’s ethical function as follows: “It is this: that in mobilizing what we already know and what we can already feel, the narrative artwork an become an occasion for us to deepen our understanding of what we know and what we feel” Instead of exploring new moral grounds beyond socially accepted norms “a narrative can become an opportunity for us to deepen our grasp of the moral knowledge and emotions we already command”

(142). Obviously, this ethical fuction is granted to a particular group of (narrative) artworks. Carroll labels this position ‘clarificationalism’ since it is “in honor of the most prized transaction that can transpire between the narrative artwork and the moral understanding” (142). Clarificationism does not necessarily engage in the acquisition of new moral and ethical perspectives but rather concentrates on how, “the artworks in question can deepen our moral understanding by, among other things, encouraging us to apply our moral knowledge and emotions to specific cases. For in being prompted to apply and engage our antecedent moral powers, we may come to augment them.

(142).

This perspective clearly avoids the essentialist take of the moralist and autonomist positions.

As Eldridge rightly points out: “[i]n fact, however, their [the artworks’] artistic success seems better described as the achievement of inviting and clarifying complex emotional attitudes towards complex human characters and projects, where it is difficult to reduce these complex attitudes to any single and simple moral message” (2003, 216). Clarificationalism is adopted by a wide range of scholars.

Whereas it stays away from moralism in Carroll’s version, some interpretations tend to deliver moral and existential answers (‘how to live the good life’).

Still, this framework holds potential for approaching the ethical complexity of some – mainly narrative – artworks.

2.5 The Relation between Ethical and Aesthetical Judgments

So far, this overview actually raised more questions than it answered. One of them pertains to the

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Conversely, the danger of “moral particularism” (Eldridge 2003, 217) is present as well. It proposes that “the

arts might be taken to show that many different and divergent characters and actions are appropriately pitied,

envied, despised, admired, respected, and so on, in many fine shades of feeling, at the expense of commitment

to any settled moral principles” (217-218). This issue will be addressed more comprehensively in part 2.3.

mutual relation between aesthetical and ethical evaluations. One could ask for instance, what is the aesthetic consequence of an ethical or moral defect within a work of art? Carroll’s “moderate autonomism” strictly separates between the aesthetic and moral evaluation of art. This means that artworks such as D. W. Griffith’s The Birth Of A Nation (1916) or Leni Riefenstahl Triumph Of Will (1934), that may be considered problematic according to fairly widespread criteria, still can be aesthetically appreciated. A moderate moralist however, would discard such a view.

To put the opposing views to the test, Carroll takes Aristotle’s Poetics to examine which perspective proves to be most convincing. Aristotle famously argued that for a tragedy “to succeed in its own terms” it needs a character that measure up to a certain moral standard, neither completely deflective nor too elevated in comparison to the moral level of ordinary citizens. A tragedy is supposed to “elicit the moral emotion of pity” (282), an effect only achieved when certain conditions are met. Therefore, it is concluded that in the case of a (obviously classical) tragedy, a moral defect impacts the aesthetic quality in a negative way. Even an empathetic and sensitive audience will not feel pity for a sadist or a flawless saint, is Carroll’s reasoning. Hence: “its [the artwork’s] aesthetic defect and its moral defect are two sides of the same coin” (282). Subsequently, Carroll rejects the moderate autonomist and embraces the moderate moralist view though under the condition that the latter only claims that in “some cases … a moral defect amounts to an aesthetic defect” (282).

Obviously, the mutual influence between the aesthetic and ethic domain of art remains an open issue. Carroll’s example of the successful tragedy is indeed questionable (and may only be helpful in some particular cases): How “successful in its own terms” is ascertained, remains unclear though it seems largely to depend on normative, instead of more neutrally descriptive conceptions of art. It does however not rule out the possibility that there are cases in which moral or ethical flaws also have aesthetic consequences. It appears that the relation between the aesthetic and ethical/moral is hard to conceptualize given the normative nature of these phenomena (which conception of the aesthetic is applied? And who’s moral perspective?). In the context of criticism, this means that the relevance of, and argumentation for one’s position should be critically examined.

Furthermore, it would be interesting to assess this issue from another perspective, one that investigates the ways in which recipients construct moral or ethical position(s) in a work of art (see chapter 4).

For various reasons, it is safe to argue that preconceived judgments on the use or harm of

ethical/moral approximations fail to do justice to the scope and complexities of this topic. For

instance, when and through which parameters are works of art turned into objects for moral

evaluation? One could easily argue that the value of an artwork lies elsewhere and thus invites for

another approach. More problematic is the restriction of ethical approaches to a straightforward

moral judgment. In general, the structure or this kind of reasoning is as follows: the critic constructs,

or rather diminishes a work of art to a simple message that is conveyed to the audience. Obviously,

artworks are in most cases not easily condensed to a clear propositional structure. In the context of

literary narrative, reducing the text, author, character(s) or all of them combined, to a moral

proposition fails to do justice to its complexity and multi-perspectivism. One may easily confuse the

moral position of the actual author with that conveyed by a narrator or character. Moreover, it is

often overlooked that an ‘immoral’ text, by experimenting with generally held conception of morality

and/or transgressing accepted norms, may have considerable ethical value. It may invite for instance,

to critically examine our most strongly held beliefs.

Altogether evacuating the ethical/moral dimension of art and exclusively relying on aesthetic principles (whatever they may be), autonomism appears to be equally reductive to me. One could argue, and this corresponds to my own position, that aesthetic evaluations often need additional relevance or thematic interest from outside the aesthetic domain. Otherwise, such an approach runs the risk of reducing an artwork to a set of formal properties, sidelining the interest recipients may have in various socio-cultural issues that are naturally expressed in most artworks. For now, the discussion has made clear that the earlier mentioned parameters of argumentation and relevance always precede and constitute the usefulness of a moral or ethical evaluation of an artwork.

Obviously, the in-between positions rely on more sophisticated arguments. Moral

experimentalism defends the artistic freedom from the side of autonomism and in doing so,

constitutes a valuable role for the arts in exploring the ethical realm, going beyond the limitations of

outright moral approval or rejection. Carroll’s ‘clarificationalism’ seems better adjusted to the often

complex and multi-layered way in which ethical positions are displayed in a work of art and literary

fiction in particular. These positions have considerable potential and their arguments will return as I

go along.

3. Hermeneutic Proposals on Literature and Ethics

After having explored some of the most eminent positions on the relation between art and morality/ethics, the scholars that will be discussed in this chapter share a particular interest in an ethical approach to literary fiction. First, some of the origins of these ‘hermeneutic proposals’ – as well as the more general “ethical turn” in literary studies and philosophy – will be presented.

3.1 The Ethical Turn

What developments made that in the mid-1980s and early 1990s literary scholar, philosophers and narratologists en masse started to write on the ethical dimension and issues within literature? Which reasons – cultural, institutional, personal – urged so many scholars to reflect on these matters?

Stating the obvious, the attention for the ethical dimension of literature, and art in general, is neither new nor has it been entirely off the agenda before the 1980s.

Still, the considerable size of this movement, as well as its institutional and cultural impact, prompted the label “ethical turn” (Eskin 2004a). Despite this general interest, diversity reigns as most scholars employ their own definitions of literature, ethics and way in which the two are related (Korthals Altes 2005). The by now commonly accepted and widespread interest in literature and ethics still attracts sustained attention. Without striving for completeness, let me explain some of the reasons that have caused this ‘turn’.

Within the philosophy departments, moral philosophers grew increasingly unsatisfied with the Kantian and utilitarian traditions as well as with the dominance of analytical approaches to ethics and morality. In the words of Charles Taylor, these traditions encompass a “domain significantly narrower than what ancient philosophers define as the ‘ethical’” (1989, 64). G.E.M. Anscombe (1958) has been one of the first to address this discomfort, but Alaisdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue (2007 [1981]) broke new ground by shifting to the more flexible and pragmatic Aristotelean virtue ethics combined with a renewed interest for narrative. MacIntyre claims that we understand human action and our own (moral) life through their embedding in narrative structures. Re-actualising the classical aim for “the good life” (254) he states that “the unity of a human life is the unity of a narrative embodied in a single life” (253). In his wake, other – mostly Anglo-American – philosophers came with similar proposals, leading to a revival of Aristotelean ethics. Martha Nussbaum (1986), Jerome Bruner (1986), Paul Ricoeur (1992), Charles Taylor (1989) and to a certain extent, Richard Rorty (1989) are considered the most prominent scholars in this respect.

The move towards virtue ethics and narrative also brought under attention the notion of the

‘self’ (MacIntyre, Bruner, Ricoeur and Taylor) as well as the crucial role of the arts, mainly literary narrative, as means for ethical (or moral) development and as a complement of moral philosophy (Ricoeur, Rorty but especially Nussbaum). In this respect, Ricoeur explicitly states that, “whereas

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According to Eskin, literature actually preceded ethics as philosophical discipline: “Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, and

Aeschylos, to name only a few, constituted a prephilosophical moral tradition which presumably provided

Socrates, Plato, and their successors with the basic themes (and their paradigmatic artistic treatment) of what

we have come to call ethics: how we ought to live and act so as to live a (variously conceived) good life” (2004b,

575).