… There has lately been a resurgence of interest in the question of possible connections between aesthetics and ethics, or a little more specifically, of the relation of art to morality. I am myself persuaded that there is a superabundance of evidence showing that a refined appreciation of art does not lead to any discernible improvement in the morality of such appreciators. And yet there is a connection, as I see it, between the ability to fully appreciate narrative fiction and the ability to participate in the morality of life, precisely because the ability to imagine oneself to be someone else is a prerequisite for both. It does not follow that one’s moral participation will be improved, however, because the questions remain open, first, of what one reads, and then of what one will do once one has appreciated another person. To indulge in the jargon of analytic philosophy, one might say that imagination is a necessary condition for a competent moral life, but it is not sufficient.
In a remark as striking in its insight as in its blindness, Virginia Woolf observed this:
The reason why it is easy to kill another person must be that one’s imagination is too sluggish to conceive what his life means to him.
Surely this is right as an explanation of the ease with which some can kill, but it fails utterly to recognize that it may be exactly one’s ability to imagine the cost to another that makes it possible to wish to kill him.
In fiction, just as in life, one may find a character opaque, or transparent, or something in between, and one’s capacity to reach the character is likely to be variable.
That’s from the book Thinking of Others: On the Talent for Metaphor (2008) by Ted Cohen (previously referenced in a December 2008 post).
-Julie
As he alludes to, there must be millions of examples of literate monsters (c.f. Hitler’s library as reviewed in the NYRB May 14, 2009).
But he goes on to say:
“And yet there is a connection, as I see it, between the ability to fully appreciate narrative fiction and the ability to participate in the morality of life, precisely because the ability to imagine oneself to be someone else is a prerequisite for both.”
I disagree with this statement, as counterintuitive as that might be. (I want to believe that a liberal education is a prerequisite to being a good woman/man.) Why? Because there is also a million examples of the completely illiterate who are moral examplars. This could include Little John, Sancho Panza, and others scattered through Dickens and Trollope. It even stretches to Androcele’s lion!
I am forced to conclude that morality must be entirely separate from the aesthetic faculty. For once, I have absolutely no explanation.
Comment by Dr. C. — July 13, 2009 @ 11:24 am
morality must be entirely separate from the aesthetic faculty
Just so: look at Wagner (proto-Nazi adulterous egomaniac). Or Salvador Dali: as Orwell said, “a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being”.
Comment by Ray Girvan — July 14, 2009 @ 4:49 am
RG> …Wagner … Salvador Dali…
Or John Fowles…
Comment by Felix Grant — July 15, 2009 @ 2:29 pm
Keith Roberts.
Comment by Ray Girvan — July 15, 2009 @ 10:23 pm
Oops – pressed Return accidentally.
Keith Roberts (with the qualification that he wasn’t immoral/amoral – just borderline-paranoid in a way that manifested as diatribes of personal abuse).
Comment by Ray Girvan — July 15, 2009 @ 10:27 pm
… necessary but not sufficient … so to argue against Cohen’s claim you need to find someone who does not have the “aesthetic faculty” and yet does have a competent moral life. I don’t think illiteracy disqualifies a person from imaginative capabilities — or from the ability to engage in narrative fictions.
Then, there is the possiblity that “a competent moral life” is a moving target . . .
Comment by unrealnature — July 16, 2009 @ 11:25 am
“A competent moral life” isn’t the only moving target. “Aesthetic faculty” is another.
How do we define or identify it? More difficult still, how do we define and recognise its absence?
I am not at all sure that there is any such thing as a person with no “aesthetic faculty”. People in whome it has not been polished or encouraged, yes, plenty of them … but it’s absence, no. I certainly can’t remember ever having met such a person.
If pressed, I would probably assert (without objective evidence, but with considerable personal conviction) that exercise of moral competence is in itself de facto evidence of aesthetic faculty.
Comment by Felix Grant — July 17, 2009 @ 2:12 am