Renegotiating Ethics in Literature, Philosophy, and Theory

An international cast of philosophers and literary theorists addresses questions of ethics and literary criticism.

Is it possible for postmodernism to offer viable, coherent accounts of ethics? Or are our social and intellectual worlds too fragmented for any broad consensus about the moral life? These issues have emerged as some of the most contentious in literary and philosophical studies. In Renegotiating Ethics in Literature, Philosophy, and Theory a distinguished international gathering of philosophers and literary scholars address the reconceptualisations involved in this 'turn towards ethics'. An important feature of this has been a renewed interest in the literary text as a focus for the exploration of ethical issues. Exponents of this trend include Charles Taylor, Bernard Williams, Iris Murdoch, Cora Diamond, Richard Rorty and Martha Nussbaum, the latter a contributor and a key figure in this volume. This book assesses the significance of this development for ethical and literary theory and attempts to articulate an alternative postmodern account of ethics which does not rely on earlier appeals to universal truths.

Introduction: the turn to ethics in the 1990s David Parker; Part I. Ethics, Literature and Philosophy: 1. Deepening the self: the language of ethics and the language of literature Simon Haines; 2. Martha Nussbaum and the need for novels Cora Diamond; 3. The concept of dread: sympathy and ethics in Daniel Deronda Lisabeth During; 4. Against tidiness: literature and/versus moral philosophy: a response to Cora Diamond, Martha Nussbaum and Iris Murdoch Jane Adamson; Part II. Ethics and Agency: 5. What differences can contemporary poetry make in our moral thinking? Charles Altieri; 6. Moral luck in Paris: A Moveable Feast and the ethics of autobiography Richard Freadman; 7. The unseemly profession: privacy, inviolate personality, and the ethics of life writing Paul John Eakin; 8. The patient writes back: bioethics and the pathography John Wiltshire; Part III. Politics and Ethics: 9. Literature, power and the recovery of philosophical ethics C. A. J. Coady and Seamus Miller; 10. The literary imagination in public life Martha C. Nussbaum; 11. Ethics in many different voices Annette C. Baier; 12. Common understanding and individual voices Raimond Gaita.

Is it possible for postmodernism to offer a coherent accounts of ethics in a fragmented social and intellectual world? In this collection, a distinguished international gathering of philosophers and literary scholars address the renewed interest in the literary text as a focus for ethical issues.