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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
An innovative introduction to ethics through philosophy and fiction
Ethics: An Introduction with Primary Texts and Short Fictive Narratives offers a distinctive and pedagogically effective approach to ethical inquiry. Fostering a deep understanding of theory and its practical implications, the book begins with an accessible introduction to metaethics, addressing the foundational concepts that ground moral reasoning. It then moves through carefully abridged and newly translated selections from three pillars of Western ethical theory—Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Kant's Groundwork, and Mill's Utilitarianism. These translations have been curated to highlight the central arguments and transitions within each thinker's system, allowing readers to engage directly and critically with major ethical frameworks.
What sets this volume apart is its innovative integration of the short fictional narratives and poetry of Michael Boylan, richly illustrating the dimensions of moral philosophy. These narratives serve as applied ethics case studies, encouraging readers to bridge theoretical knowledge with real-life decision-making. Structured exercises, study questions, and feedback sections support active learning, while the philosophical treatment of fictive narrative invites reflection on the nature and power of storytelling in ethical discourse.
Authored by a leading scholar with expertise in both ethical theory and creative writing. Ethics: An Introduction with Primary Texts and Short Narratives:
- Enables direct engagement with core arguments of Virtue Ethics, Deontology, and Utilitarianism
- Applies the concept of “fictive narrative philosophy” to stimulate reflective and critical ethical reasoning
- Provides a unified conceptual approach through the Personal and Shared Community Worldview Imperatives
- Employs a structured, progressive framework that integrates metaethics, normative theory, and applied ethics
- Supports interdisciplinary learning with content relevant to philosophy, literature, political science, and law
Ethics: An Introduction with Primary Texts and Short Narratives is ideal for introductory and intermediate undergraduate courses such as Introduction to Ethics, Ethical Theory, and Applied Ethics in degree programs across the humanities, social sciences, business, pre-professional studies, and other fields where ethical literacy is an essential skill.
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Seitenzahl: 391
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Preface
Introduction
Part I: First-order Metaethical Principles and Normative Ethical Theories
Chapter 1: First-order Metaethical Principles: Boylan’s Philosophical Work on Ethics and Personhood Theory
Introduction
Boylan’s First-order Metaethical Principles
The Argument for the Moral Status of Basic Goods
The Table of Embeddedness
Conclusion
Exercises
Notes
Chapter 2: Virtue Ethics, with Selections from Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics
Exercises
Notes
Chapter 3: Deontology, with Selections from Kant’s
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
Part One: A Discussion of the Nature and Types of Imperatives
Part Two: The Nature of the Categorical Imperative
Part Three: The Human Person as an End-in-herself
Part Four: Humanity and Autonomy
Exercises
Notes
Chapter 4: Utilitarianism
“What Utilitarianism Is”
Exercises
Notes
Chapter 5: Structured Feedback, Part I: First-order Metaethical Principles and Normative Ethical Theories
The “Pro” and “Con” Essay Format
Notes
Part II: Short Narrative Fiction
The Theory
Chapter 6: The Logic and Domain of Fictive Narrative Philosophy
Recognizing Logics
The Logic of the Personal Worldview Imperative
The Way We Confront Novel Normative Fictive Worlds
Argument 6.1: A Summary of the Logic of Accepting Novel Normative Theories
The Logic of the Shared Community Worldview Imperative
The Logical Expectation Level of Fictive Narrative Philosophy
Notes
The Stories
Chapter 7: Starting Over and Under
Chapter 8: The Natural Order
Notes
Chapter 9: Ruby’s Choice
Chapter 10: Icing Dreamers
Chapter 11: Murder in Londonderry
The Town
The Economy
The Constabulary
The Crime
The Quandary
The Conversation
The Next Day at Noon
3:00 p.m. (1500 hours)
Showdown
Notes
Chapter 12: Executing the Will
Chapter 13: Heading Off to College
Chapter 14: All’s Fair in Love and War
Chapter 15: Structured Feedback, Part II, and Final Paper Project
A. Feedback on Theory
B. Feedback on Short Stories
Summary
Note
Appendix 1:
Theory:
Using Poetry as Compressed Fictive Narratives
Notes
Appendix 2: Examples of Poetry Making Claims Concerning Ethical and Social/Political Issues
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1 The ontological range of who we are.
List of Tables
Introduction
Table 0.1 Various approaches to narrative-based philosophy.
Chapter 6
Table 6.1 The flow of information in fictive narrative philosophy.
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Preface
Introduction
Begin Reading
Appendix 1: Theory: Using Poetry as Compressed Fictive Narratives
Appendix 2: Examples of Poetry Making Claims Concerning Ethical and Social/Political Issues
Index
End User License Agreement
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Ethics
An Introduction through Primary Texts and Short Narratives
Michael Boylan
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Preface
This book aspires to do three things: first, it presents first-order metaethical concepts that are necessary in order to confront normative ethical thinkers in their complexity and, second, it presents the reader with three abridged texts by prominent ethical philosophers in the Western tradition (Aristotle, Kant, and Mill). All three abridged versions are centered around central arguments in their texts. This helps the student focus upon the most important arguments in order to encourage engagement with what are considered to be their most central claims. In addition, Aristotle and Kant are presented in new translations by the editor, using language that both fits with contemporary philosophical discussions of the same and language that is more readily accessible to readers in the twenty-first century. This is how primary texts are presented in this text.
The third goal of the book is to present narrative case studies that serve to allow the student to apply what they have learned to “real-world” examples that they might confront in their daily lives.
It has generally been thought to be good pedagogical methodology to have students engage with primary texts in a line-by-line fashion around the central arguments they are presenting. This text offers three prominent opportunities to do just that regarding authors central to virtue ethics, deontological ethics, and utilitarian ethics.
After the chapter for each author (first-order metaethics and normative ethics), there are some exercises that are constructed to encourage personal interaction with each author by themselves and in relation to one another. This builds skills for the reader for Part II of the book, as well as Appendix 2 (the applications).
Following this is the theoretical presentation of how fictive narrative works as philosophy, as well as examples of fictive narrative in chapters 7 through 15 and condensed narratives via poetry in Appendix 2. It is here that the reader can tie together the Theory in Part I with the Application in Part II and Appendices. This presents the challenge of applying the principles set out in the beginning with the application of those principles to “real-life” situations. It is hoped that closing the loop on theory and practice will be of use to readers of this book – not only as an academic exercise, but also as a real-life skill which may affect their quest for a flourishing life.
Introduction
The idea behind this book is to put forth a pluralistic approach to the study of ethics. This includes the study of the most popular normative theories in a given philosophical tradition (this book looks at the Western tradition beginning with ancient Greece and moving through to nineteenth-century England). This study requires reading the actual texts of the most prominent practitioners of these key theories (virtue ethics, deontology, and utilitarianism) in their original texts. Since the philosophers selected for this presentation come from three languages – Ancient Greek, Modern German, and Modern English – and since most of the readers in the intended audience only possess English as their primary language, two of these three authors require translation.
The focus on these translations of the primary text presentation is that they be curated so that they might be efficiently engaged by the reader to allow the most effective interaction on the critical arguments: what they are and how they transition to the next. It is also important that they be presented most efficiently through an abridgment that stresses this “streamlined presentation” in contemporary language (both in regular discourse and the way contemporary philosophers discuss the argument) as a hallmark of this curation.
In order to be able to read more critically, these normative theories in the actual texts are put forth by their most prominent practitioners in this efficient, newly translated presentation style.
Finally, in the order of logical presentation, I have set forth a first-order metaethical model that is a propaedeutic to the proper study of normative ethical theories. This presentation rests primarily upon the Personal Worldview Imperative and the Shared Community Imperative and what they suggest on the way any individual confronts the preconditions for action as an agent and within a community (creating a groundwork for human rights).1
Next, is the phase of application. Early in my teaching career, when I was at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I was surprised at how many of my students could correctly describe interior mechanics of the newly published book A Theory of Justice, by John Rawls, but my students had a hard job applying Rawls’s two principles to contemporary events in the world.
This troubled me.
For the rest of my career, I have tried to find ways that would allow readers to transition from theory to practice. Fiction seems designed for this task. As a writer of short stories, novels, and produced plays, I have tried to create venues to do just that.2
Most everyone would agree that narrative literature3 can create a display that is amenable to interpretation via various critical theories (among which are philosophical). In this case the philosopher is the critic who reconstructs his close textual reading with a theoretical overlay. What is more controversial is whether narrative literature can on its own set out claims that are relevant to philosophical discussions and contribute (as narrative) to the philosophical debate.4
This chapter seeks to discuss ways narrative works to promote philosophy in this second sense. I will call such strategies: fictive-narrative-based philosophy. The direction of the presentation will focus first upon the narrative presentation of philosophical concepts from a highly select historical survey that points to certain positions and, second, to critically evaluating this application through narrative fiction, cases, and thought experiments.
Part I: Fictive Narrative Presentations
Why Fictive Narrative-based Philosophy?
Though philosophy today is largely about direct deductive discourse, this has not always been the case.5 The most famous practitioner of fictive narrative as a vehicle for philosophical discourse is Plato. In his early dialogues there is often sprightly fictive action (generally with some historical underpinnings) that conscripts the audience to enter the dramatic scene wherein the argument is engaged. Audiences connect to this method of presenting philosophy. Students connect to this. Most philosophy teachers have used early and middle Platonic dialogues (such as the Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Protagoras, Gorgias, and The Republic) to present issues in ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics to introductory students. One of the reasons for this is that students are more likely to get the point of Plato’s presentation than they would of Aristotle’s or Kant’s (who don’t employ fictive narrative).6 Why is this?
It has been my contention in the past that the acceptance of normative theories requires the introduction of empirical content7 to situate the claims into a possible world context in order for the agent to make an authentic decision.8 This is because authentic decisions are made within the context of one’s personal worldview.9 The personal worldview contains one’s understanding of all legitimate facts and values about the world. These facts and values are generally understood by the agent in some mental form that is quite empirically suggestive. For example, if one held that euthanasia is permissible (as an example of a value) this might be connected to her experience of the terribly debilitating death of her mother whose intense pain in hospice went on for twice the estimated time (with no perceivable quality of life). Whenever she thinks about euthanasia, it is always with her mother in the backdrop.
The personal worldview is holistic. It combines our scientific understanding of the world along with our values about beauty, ethics, and religion. Most of us aren’t as compartmentalized as Aristotle so that when we are confronted with claims that aspire to be about our experience in the world, we try to fashion our understanding of the claim and our responses to it from a characterization of the empirical manifold as dictated by our personal worldview. (As opposed to Aristotle who, along with Kant, seemed to be able to pigeonhole the inputs into a segregated, non-holistic table of categories – at least that is what they profess.)
What happens here cognitively is that various aspects of our consciousness are stimulated in a synergistic manner. The message presented is very enthymematic. Lots of material is left out precisely because this is the modus operandi of indirect discourse (the presentation mode of narrative-based philosophy). It is up to the audience (each individually) to fill in the gaps. This requirement creates the necessity of active audience participation since, in a very real way, they are part of the reconstruction process. The manner of the reconstruction is a dialogue between the text and the personal worldview of the reader. However, it is not the case that any reconstruction will do. Narrative-based philosophy makes specific claims (as opposed to fashioning a general display that may be interpreted in contradictory manners by various philosopher-critics). These narrative-based claims require readers actively not only to reconstruct the claims within the narrative context of the presentation but also within the real-life experience of the reader. A similar process occurs when straight deductive presentations are made. The difference is that the straight deductive-based presentation may have less variance in reader reconstruction (due to its simpler structure) than the narrative-based presentation, but it will also have less suggestive application. This is because deductive-based philosophy consciously limits itself to straightforward propositions and inferences. On the other hand, narrative-based philosophy creates a directed blueprint for the exploration of a problem from a particular point of view (the narrative claim).
The empirically suggestive narrative-philosophy presentation is more gripping than the simpler architecture of deductive-philosophy because it connects to the personal worldview in more ways than a simple abstract rational presentation. (The more touch-points to the personal worldview, the more real the presentation seems to the agent. The real in this context is that which is easier to project into one’s personal worldview and thus to imagine in all of its potential global significance. The act of worldview projection allows the reader to be able more completely to imagine the claims presented in a situated context.)10
Now, it is true that most of us (academic philosophers) are just fine with abstract deductive presentations that are largely devoid of empirical content. But it is my conjecture that the reason for this is that we provide the empirically suggestive content to ourselves as part of the process of our understanding a theory (for further development on this, see Chapter 6). We do it so very quickly and efficiently that we may not even be aware that we are doing it.
If this process of understanding novel normative theories is correct, then empirical suggestiveness is necessary for all of us. Either we provide it ourselves or the author does it for us. If we cannot provide this empirical content and if the author hasn’t done it for us, then we will not be able to present the theory to our personal worldview for proper evaluation.
As I mentioned above, I became convinced of the necessity of empirically suggestive content for understanding philosophical claims early in my teaching career when my students were unable to answer the question I posed to them about whether John Rawls (from his presentation in A Theory of Justice) would support the “trickle-down” economic policy of Ronald Regan (then a contemporary example). The students, for the most part, were at a loss. They could do very well when I questioned them within the theory. But they were not so good at providing empirical content to address a novel normative situation.
Now some readers might say that I just had poor students. This might be true. But why were they “poor?” I would suggest that it was because they could not supply the empirical content that would allow them to project Rawls’s theory into their personal worldview.
Plato is very good here because his narrative accounts (especially when enhanced by a knowledgeable instructor) captivate the reader with an empirically suggestive account. They can make all sorts of applications based upon the author’s direct presentation of empirical content. When Socrates dies after having all sorts of opportunities to escape, his argument in the Crito resonates to readers about a strong obligation to obey an implicit contract with the state. Or when Euthyphro or Thrasymachus becomes impatient with Socrates’ dogged arguments, the dramatic irony of each situation gives the argument more power. To fully get the point, one must engage not only in argument reconstruction but also literary criticism.11 The combination is stronger than a mere direct deductive presentation.
But what exactly happens when Plato presents one of his dialogues? Some would say that in Plato it is the direct deductive argument that goes on between Socrates and his foil (that can easily be reconstructed into formal or informal notation). This direct deductive argument is all the philosophy that is taking place. Everything else is merely noise or pretty trappings. But it isn’t philosophy. These might be what Robert Gooding-Williams calls the Carnap sympathizers.12 These individuals are especially suspicious of any philosophical presentation that isn’t directly related to Humean matters of fact (empirical science) and relations of ideas (mathematics used to express claims in empirical science). These Carnap sympathizers believe as sincerely in the absolute separation of empirical statements and theory statements as they do between deductive-based philosophy and narrative-based philosophy. For the Carnap sympathizers deductive-based philosophy is grounded in hard-nosed empirical truth. The role of narrative-based presentations is merely to entertain.
This text will seek its solution from Plato. Plato presents a powerful reflection on this sort of argument as he draws attention to his own self-reflective thoughts on big questions in philosophy at the beginning of the Timaeus.13 It might be that on some of the most central issues of philosophy (especially if one grants a legitimate role to traditional metaphysics contra Carnap), that there are gaps in what we can argue. I have elsewhere described this gap as the “rationality incompleteness conjecture.”14 The rationality incompleteness conjecture calls into question the sort of certainty that William Kingdom Clifford calls the common test of knowledge (empirical science only) that can exhaustively explain all there is.15 If Clifford is correct, then so are the Carnap sympathizers.
The rationality incompleteness conjecture claims that it isn’t as simple as that. Whether we are monist-materialists or dualists (or some hybrid), the rationality incompleteness conjecture suggests that some of the topography of truth is often hidden from direct physical inspection. For those intrepid souls who agree with me, there is a necessity for a mode of expression that is suggestive of that hidden territory. Narrative-based philosophy is the best candidate to put these sorts of conjectures forward. This is also consistent with Plato’s argument in the Timaeus, in which he sets out that the best we can obtain in exploring cosmology is a likely story.16 Though there is specificity in Plato’s argument, one can extend the point generally to the fact that humans have only limited exposure to the forms so that we are forced to fill in the rest. So how do we fill things in? Plato chose narrative-based philosophy, and I think he’s right.
Presenting Narrative-based Philosophy
Some narrative philosophers present a complicated narrative structure within the conceit of examining a short fictive account. Søren Kierkegaard takes the biblical story of Abraham being called on by God to sacrifice his son, Isaac. One can read Kierkegaard’s account and come up with the following deductive reconstruction:17
Abraham was willing to kill his son Isaac – Fact
[Killing one’s son is murder] – Fact
[Murder is beyond the ethical] – Fact
Abraham was willing to go beyond the ethical – 1–3
Offering one’s child to the Lord means attaching your child to God – Assertion
Attaching your child to anything is weaning the child – Assertion
Weaning the child is a sad experience – Fact
Offering Isaac to God is a sad experience for Abraham – 5–7
If Abraham did not act as a monster, Isaac would not have been weaned nor gone to the Lord – Assertion
[As a man of faith, Abraham had to do what was necessary to deliver his only child to God] – Assertion
[Doing what is sad and acting the part of the monster alienates the self from others] – Fact
The man of faith alienates his friends and loved ones in his quest beyond the ethical – 4, 8–11
Though this may be a justified reconstruction of one of the many interpretative arguments that Kierkegaard gives, it is by no means complete. The reason for this is that narrative is so suggestive in empirical content that it beckons the reader to delve further. The deductive claims are external for all to see and reconstruct.18 But there is more. Thus, the reader enters into the worldview of the perceived narrator (not Kierkegaard) to complete the task that is only just suggested – in this case a version of the Abraham–Isaac story. Because the reader is enlisted as a partner in the enterprise, she feels empowered to add what she feels is necessary to give the scene its requisite wholeness. This more empirically suggestive version bubbles over with directed complexity. Its nuanced character reminds the reader of the rich variety of lived experience. In this way it rises to some sort of level of realistic imitation. And as critics throughout history have suggested, imitation is a principal draw in aesthetics.19
Another practitioner of the use of short narrative to stimulate a philosophical discussion is Friedrich Nietzsche. In his work The Joyful Wisdom he relates a short original narrative of a town that declares God is dead. The stranger who enters the town (the reader) is confounded by this situation and forced to make some sense of it. One deductive reconstruction of the argument is:20
The modern prophet must declare that God is dead – A
[God had provided the raison d’être of morality] – A
The modern prophet must declare a new grounding of morality – 1, 2
There are two sources for a new morality: (a) from the noble masters, or (b) from the base slaves – A
The masters stand for noble virtues: gratitude, friendship, love of freedom, instinct for happiness, and a passion for love – A
The virtues of the masters are exalted and good – A
We should accept the masters’ morality – 5, 6
Slave morality is the opposite of the masters’ virtue; it is based upon crass utility – A
[Crass utility is bad] – A
Slave morality should be rejected – 8, 9
With the death of God, the new morality should be modeled after the noble master morality as opposed to the base slave morality – 3, 4, 7, 10
What makes Nietzsche’s reconstruction different from Kierkegaard’s is that in Nietzsche’s case he created the fable. Kierkegaard made use of a text well entrenched in the canon of Western consciousness. The presenter was a narrator who was, himself, a character in the presentation. Because of this, the cornerstone of truth in Kierkegaard’s case was the text he chose. The text was secure and now only the interpretation by his separate narrator was novel.
In Nietzsche’s case, the text and the interpretations were novel. There is thus no cornerstone of accepted canonical truth that readers will accept almost automatically. In its place, Nietzsche offers a bizarre tale that stands on its own as a small piece of literature. Its internal beauty confers its place of acceptance. In cases in which the philosopher and the fictive presenter are the same, there is a double burden. If the fictive piece is not compelling, the comments on the same will dissolve into the morning mist. It will never be examined except by an inspired few. In Nietzsche’s case the narrator is the author. This adds a direct dimension to an otherwise indirect process.
When the fictive author and the philosopher are combined (Plato and Nietzsche),21 then we can assume that there is some sort of complicated interaction between: (i) the direct deductive presentation of an argument in the simplified realm of formal or informal logic, and (ii) the indirect and empirically more suggestive/complicated presentation in an imitation of experience that would resonate within the personal worldview of each member of the audience.
Some of this has to do with the content that the author wishes to express to his audience. Nietzsche and Plato have rather complex messages. What they want readers to accept are major worldview alterations. This is a tough task. Whereas straightforward deductive presentations are persuasive for minor alterations of worldview architecture, they are not very good for major changes. We have only to look at the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea and his paradoxes of motion. He had wonderful deductive arguments that could not be surmounted, but he had few converts that motion was an impossible illusion. Likewise, Anselm of Canterbury garnered few converts with his ontological argument. The reason for this is that major worldview changes in the audience only come about when something richer than a mere deductive presentation is offered. What is missing is the empirically suggestive content that allows people to imagine changing the way they think about things in a major way. Since the downside of major change is substantial, we are naturally very conservative about considering this.
What is needed is a form of presentation that is more holistically engaging: fictive narrative. Only with an empirically suggestive presentation can philosophers really change readers in a fundamental way.22
My final presentation in this category will be the more substantial fictive presentation, such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Iris Murdoch, Charles Johnson, Rebecca Goldstein, and Albert Camus. These five follow a bit on a continuum of thinkers who are keen on conveying philosophical ideas indirectly via fictive discourse. Beginning with Sartre, there is a background of published conventional writings on philosophy – from the continental tradition of philosophy. These writings set out in direct fashion his ideas on existentialism and the history of philosophy. This body of well-received conventionally presented philosophy allows Sartre to be less didactic in his fictive presentations than earlier writers such as Plato, Kierkegaard, or Nietzsche. In those cases, there was always a direct touchstone to apologue (fiction written to generate a particular practical end). However, in “No Exit,” Nausea, and Troubled Sleep, Sartre presents narratives that stand on their own terms as stories.23 Those readers unaware of Sartre’s philosophical works can enjoy the presentations as plays or novels in their own right. The critical understanding of what these works mean is tied up with the texts themselves. Thus, Sartre’s philosophical writings become a mere device in “author-intent” criticism. Others, who choose not to employ author-intent in their assessment of the work, will seek other means to ferret out meaning. They will rely upon contemporary theories of critical theory such as formalism, structuralism, and deconstruction, reader-response, psychoanalytic, Marxist, new historicism, cultural studies, feminism, queer theory, and postcolonialism.24 The independence of Sartre’s fictive writings were so extraordinary that he was offered the Nobel Prize in literature in 1964 (which he declined).
Murdoch is in somewhat the same position, except that her fictive writings were her front line of communication. Though she published around 30 nonfiction pieces (reviews, essays, books), they were never the touchstone of her primary identity to readers. She was foremost a novelist. In such critically acclaimed works as An Accidental Man, The Green Knight, The Sea, the Sea (winner of the Booker Prize), and The Black Prince, Murdoch fictively presents stories that excite our interest in foundational ethics and epistemology.25 Since Murdoch leads with her fiction, her philosophical writings are secondary. Thus, there is an even purer sense of letting fiction itself carry the author’s message forward.26 In this case one should use her fiction to illuminate her nonfiction. This is turning Sartre on his head! But what follows from this? It is simply that the empirically suggestive indirect discourse connects with the audience such that they feel they have entered her worldview perspective. Thus, when Murdoch engages in her direct deductive discourse, the rather sparser landscape is enhanced by the reader’s previous experience of the more vital fictive presentation.
Charles Johnson and Rebecca Goldstein move us one step away from Murdoch. Both these MacArthur Fellows are academically qualified philosophers (PhD) who teach in the academy. However, like Murdoch, they have no sustained philosophical opus in academic philosophy journals that we can use to engage in criticism as we could with Sartre. Johnson’s presentation of philosophy begins with his worldview tenets of Buddhism and the African American experience – both in the past in Oxherding Tales (1983) and Middle Passage (1990, National Book Award winner), and in the present in Faith and the Good Thing (1974) and and Dreamer (1998). Johnson is also a screenwriter with many awards to his credit, as well as being an accomplished visual artist and cartoonist. Goldstein’s first novel was The Mind-Body Problem. More novels followed: The Late-Summer Passion of a Woman of Mind; The Dark Sister, which received the Whiting Writer’s Award; Mazel, which received the 1995 National Jewish Book Award and the 1995 Edward Lewis Wallant Award; and Properties of Light: A Novel of Love, Betrayal, and Quantum Physics. Goldstein’s book Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity was published in May 2006, and won the 2006 Koret International Jewish Book Award in Jewish Thought.
Johnson and Goldstein resonate with cultural and identity themes that connect them in certain respects to Sartre’s historicism and issues of social interest – determined via the connection to shared community worldview.27
In Albert Camus (Nobel Prize for literature, 1957) we make the classification complete. Camus was not an academic. He was not trained professionally in philosophy and yet in his works The Stranger, The Fall, and The Plague he left an indelible philosophical mark on his audience. This may be the purest sense of fictive presentations of philosophy: novels written by non-academics who see the indirect discourse of fiction as their only way to communicate what they see as true.28 Because of this, it is unclear whether the narrator’s vision and the author’s vision are separate and should be differentiated.
The continuum of this presentation can be given a simple depiction as in Table 0.1.
Table 0.1 Various approaches to narrative-based philosophy.
Plato
Kierkegaard
Nietzsche
Sartre
Murdoch
Johnson/Goldstein
Camus
Uses Fiction
To deliver a message via indirect discourse
y
y
y
y
y
y
y
Uses short fictive presentations
n
y
y
n
n
y
n
Uses long fictive presentations
y
y
n
y
y
y
y
Has a body of direct-deductive philosophy apart from the fictive presentations that is
primary
n
n
y
y
n
n
n
Uses fictive narratives as the
primary
presentation of philosophy
y
y
n
n
y
y
y
Overwhelmingly devoted to fictive narrative expressions
n
y
n
n
n
y
y
Is openly didactic
y
y
y
y
n
n
n
Is coy in the presentation requiring the audience to fill in the enthymeme
gaps
y
y
y
y
y
y
y
Table 0.1 is a gross approximation of the ways of presenting narrative-based philosophy. Some of the key points to mention are: (i) Some philosophers lead with their direct deductive presentation, while others lead with fictive presentations. (ii) Some philosophers are openly didactic, exploiting the advantages of indirect discourse while not wanting to throw the door open to just any interpretation. (iii) Some philosophers prefer to be non-didactic and by taking this strategy allow for a greater range of interpretations.
In the end, each of these various analytical categories exists on a continuum. It would be my contention that, when an author wants to create major worldview change on the part of his audience, he will be more effective if he employs some form of narrative: long fictive apologue, long conventional fiction, or short narratives (stories, parables, thought experiments, and cases). The reason for this is because of the suggestive empirical content that the fictive presentation brings forward. I have contended elsewhere that suggestive empirical content helps most people understand a claim to such an extent that they are able to project it into their personal worldview.29 Because of the greater number of contact points that empirically suggestive narrative-based philosophy engenders, it is able to engage the personal worldview of most readers more strongly than direct, deductive-based presentations (that offer fewer worldview contact points). It also sits as an invitation for personal reconstruction in ways not entirely conscripted by the author. The line of demarcation between narrative-based philosophy and fictive display that is amenable to a philosophical reconstruction is that in the case of narrative-based philosophy the text presents itself (with or without author intent) as making truth claims that take the form of being likely stories that suggest ways to illumine those inevitable shadows that lurk about the topography of truth.
The structure of fictive claims can be discovered within the text through the examination of various narrative devices – such as carefully crafted plot situations or dialogue between characters that present truth claims. The boundaries of the claim will be less precise than deductive presentations, but they are many times more engaging to readers. Narrative-based philosophy creates a stronger partnership of author and reader. The greater the suggestiveness of the narrative, the greater the audience engagement and cooperative ownership is likely to be. Because this process is so powerful, it is very important that practitioners obey some guidelines unless they want to be subject to the charge of corrupting their audience – a serious offense that mistakenly cost of life of at least one prominent philosopher.
Part II: Applying Fictive Narratives, Cases, and Thought Experiments
So, what is there about the process of the audience engaging with fictive narratives (of any length), cases, and thought experiments that needs some rules to prevent audience corruption? I have argued elsewhere that sincerity and authenticity are necessary dispositions for the creation of the good will.30 Those who present fictive narratives that are structured principally to be persuasive (without regard for what is ultimately true) are engaged in mere rhetoric. Like Plato’s attack on Gorgias, rhetoric (for its own sake simply to win an argument) is the scourge of philosophy, which is concerned with the passionate quest for truth. Thus, those who use narrative as a powerful device merely to put forth a position persuasively fail at least in authenticity (using the most epistemologically reliable means possible) and possibly also in sincerity (seeking the truth for its own sake) because the rhetorician puts winning the point (and its ensuing prudential advantages) above all else. If one were to fail in either sincerity or authenticity, then there is the distinct possibility that he will be corrupting his audience. If this is done with intent, then the speaker may not properly call himself a philosopher.
In order to get more closely to actual situations, let’s take a moment and look at each of these categories separately and try to discern how each works well and how they may be corrupted.
Fictive Narratives
The safest category perhaps is the fictive narrative. This is because it exists in at least two modes: the apologue (direct and easily applied philosophy through the presentation) and conventional fiction that seeks first to tell a story that is compelling. In the first case, the author through her narrator and characters presents a carefully scripted tale. Famous examples of this are Plato’s Cave, Aesop’s Fables, Jesus’ and Buddha’s parables, and some of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives (though presented as biography, they are often regarded as fiction with definite point of view).
The reason that apologues are relatively safe from corruption is that the moral is so clearly presented and the fictive clothing relatively transparent. The stories are told with few modifications of the real world or, if presented in a fantasy realm, the conditions of the fantasy realm are consistent with the common body of knowledge.
The common body of knowledge is a term I use to describe what any given social group of people might accept as a given set of facts and values about the world.31 These shared assumptions allow discourse to proceed. When someone with an aberrant maxim from the community’s agreed body of knowledge and values puts forth a claim based upon these novel assumptions, then there is often a clash. For example, in the Jim Crow South (USA) a speaker who assumed that African Americans were people wholly entitled to equal rights under the law might confront a social community that didn’t accept her assumed common body of knowledge. As a result, her audience might turn off right there and no meaningful rational discourse would follow.32
When the common body of knowledge for any given community, itself, is set up for scientific rational scrutiny, then it is the case that some versions will be shown to have been false. “False” here means that they have violated both epistemological and ethical standards for making reliable judgments. Because apologues are so transparent in their presentation, the dangers of their corrupting the audience are relatively low.
In conventional fiction with a philosophical intent, the story is presented first. If the story doesn’t work there is no need to go further. The reader is confronted first with whether the work counts as good fiction. Does it fulfill various critical expectations – such as imitating nature, reading clearly, plotting convincingly, and so on? These primary sorting devices will enable the reader to toss out a work that is fictively deficient before considering anything else. Because it is assumed that a work that fulfills these critical expectations is sufficiently vetted (because these are the touchstones to the true),33 one may be less concerned about the possibility of using the powerful communicative device of fiction to promote bad philosophy.
Cases
Cases are fictive presentations that are structured so that the reader is enjoined to come up with his own response at the end. Some cases are open-ended, so that the author is really interested in stimulating autonomous thinking with broad boundaries that the reader must limit to begin his evaluation. Others are structured for right answers. Still others are structured so that students are to show how much technical expertise they possess in solving practical problems (often the case in business school and law school cases).
From this presentation, it is clear that cases are highly artificial in their structure. They go beyond fictive apologues to a more conscripted vision of the world. They present a vision and then they request an audience response from that particular frame only. As an example, let me focus upon one of my own more famous cases.
The Death of Granny
Your grandmother is dying.
Your grandmother is in great psychic and moderate physical distress.
Your grandmother has always had an intense fear of death and disease and has never handled “bad news” well.
The physician tells you that if your grandmother can maintain a positive attitude, she can live another year and will be relatively pain free. If she becomes overly agitated, her condition will worsen and her death will be much sooner and her physical pain will increase greatly.
You are sitting with your grandmother and she asks you whether she will be “all right” (meaning that she won’t die and will get better). What do you say in response?
This case study is rather pointed. Like most case studies it tries to narrow the focus of consideration upon a limited range of topics. In this case it seeks to evaluate the idea of whether extending human life and minimizing pain are the most important principles at stake. Might there be other principles that are important to put into the mixture? What would different normative theories say about the weight of other possible principles?
The protocols for cases are that they follow some scenario that could actually happen. We are constrained by the common body of knowledge to create cases that seem plausible to the reader. Outlandish cases are of little interest, since their implausibility renders their probability of occurrence at very close to nil. Why should readers pull their hair out to solve a case that could never be? A case is meant to simulate a choice situation in real life. The parameters are narrowed so that there is more focus on some particular aspect of life. However, in the end it is assumed that the presentation and solution of case-exercises aid the reader in practical decision-making. Finish enough cases and one is more likely to have improved one’s decision-making ability. The emphasis is upon empowering the reader to think for themselves.
Thought Experiments
Thought experiments are fictive presentations that are structured in a particular way in order to challenge the reader to think about a traditional problem from a conscripted point of view. Like cases, thought experiments call for an action response on the part of the reader. Readers are supposed to go through a thought experiment and derive an outcome. However, unlike cases, a thought experiment is not as open-ended. The author of a thought experiment intends to offer a practical problem (just like a case), but then also suggests additional criteria that will alter the way that the reader approaches the problem. In this way a thought experiment is more like a game: an outcome is given and the rules of play are set out. The outcome, if the reader succeeds, is to finish the game according to the rules and then to contemplate how she got there.
Let us turn to one of the more famous thought experiments over the past 60 years, the prisoner’s dilemma.
The Prisoner’s Dilemma
Tanya and Cinque have been arrested for robbing the Hibernia Savings Bank and have been placed in separate isolation cells. Both care much more about their personal freedom than about the welfare of their accomplice. A clever prosecutor makes the following offer to each. “You may choose to confess or remain silent. If you confess and your accomplice remains silent, I will drop all charges against you and use your testimony to ensure that your accomplice does serious time. Likewise, if your accomplice confesses while you remain silent, they will go free while you do the time. If you both confess, I get two convictions, but I’ll see to it that you both get early parole. If you both remain silent, I’ll have to settle for token sentences on firearms possession charges. If you wish to confess, you must leave a note with the jailer before my return tomorrow morning.”34
What the prisoner’s dilemma means to show is that if one is socially interested in one’s worldview perspective, then the best result is mutual silence. However, if one is individually oriented in worldview (such as is assumed by Rawls),35 then the best result is to confess (while the other remains silent). In versions of the dilemma where one party is able to cheat the other by making her think that she will be silent when, really, she has no intention of doing so, there is a stark disconnect between social and selfish. Thus, this thought experiment has been viewed by many as a watershed to separate the distinct worldview orientations of the social versus the egoistic.
