Moral Philosophers and the Novel A Study of Winch, Nussbaum and Rorty Peter Johnson Moral Philosophers and the Novel Also by Peter Johnson R. G. COLLINGWOOD: An Introduction THE CORRESPONDENCE OF R. G. COLLINGWOOD: An Illustrated Guide FRAMES OF DECEIT THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANNERS: A Study of the ‘Little Virtues’ POLITICS, INNOCENCE AND THE LIMITS OF GOODNESS Moral Philosophers and the Novel A Study of Winch, Nussbaum and Rorty Peter Johnson Department of Philosophy University of Southampton, UK © Peter Johnson 2004 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2004 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 1–4039–3365–0 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Johnson, Peter, 1943– Moral philosophers and the novel : a study of Winch, Nussbaum and Rorty / Peter Johnson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–4039–3365–0 (cloth) 1. Fiction–Moral and ethical aspects. 2. Literature and morals. 3. Winch, Peter. 4. Nussbaum, Martha Craven, 1947–5. Rorty, Richard. I. Title. PN3347.J596 2004 829.3′9384–dc22 2003066142 10987654321 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne In Memory of Liam O’Sullivan This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgementsviii Introduction1 Chapter 1TheMiddle Ground16 Chapter 2Decent Signs31 Chapter 3Enter the Novel39 Chapter 4The Novel’s Gifts55 Chapter 5Fiction and the Good70 Chapter 6The Novel and Ethical Reflection88 Chapter 7Goods and Powers105 Chapter 8Truth Drops Out128 Chapter 9Versions of Events145 Chapter 10Fictions and Freedoms161 Conclusion176 Notes184 List of Works Cited196 vii Acknowledgements My first debt is to the philosophers whose work I write about in this book. In the current debate over ethics and literature their ideas are seminal. I have learned a great deal from each of them. Thanks of a different kind are due to my wife, Sue, who has been an unfailing support throughout; to Pat, my friend and neighbour, who eased my neurotic worries over home parcel deliveries; to Jennifer Nelson of Palgrave Macmillan for efficiently seeing the project to com- pletion; to the Arts and Humanities Research Board for a Research Leave award in 2001–2 which gave me much valued additional time; to the publisher’s anonymous reader for help and encouragement exactly when it was needed, and last, but certainly not least, to my fellow drinkers in the Crown Inn at Highfield whose determined efforts to take my mind off the book while I was writing it sometimes came perilously close to succeeding. viii Introduction What should be the place of literature in moral philosophy? In many ways the question is puzzling, and, from some viewpoints, even auda- cious. Ethics is a branch of philosophy and philosophy’s engagement, possibly its sine qua non, is with argument. The whole rationale of philosophy is to follow the logos wherever it leads and in ethics it leads to the nature of the moral life and the manifold concepts involved in it. Imaginative literature, by contrast, does not consist in arguments, nor does it aim at general conclusions. The last page of a novel ends the story, but it is not the conclusion of an argument. So much is obvious, indeed, so blatantly obvious, that it is hard to see why moral philosophers should take an interest in literature at all. The novel in its many forms may be entertaining, boring or mystify- ing. We may be attracted or angrily repelled by the characters we encounter in fictional worlds and we may or may not be caught up in the tales they tell, but they are not demonstrations or proofs of any kind. It has, however, often been pointed out that this picture is too straightforward. Moral philosophy is expressed in language that cannot be wholly technical and abstract. Even the most formal philosophical writing incorporates allusion, metaphor and anecdote. We might think, for instance, of the evil demon in Descartes or Socrates’ appeal to the Oracle during his conversation with Crito. That philosophy can display literary qualities is, of course, true, but this fact alone cannot secure literature a philosophical role. Socrates’ attempt to understand justice by giving a definition of it is expressed by Plato in dialogue form, but the point could equally have been formulated in prose. When we reflect on the place of literature in ethics we are not investigating style, but what are we looking for? One answer is a 1 2 Introduction novel of ideas, a philosophical novel such as Sartre’s Nausea or Koestler’s Darkness at Noon in which there is already something which ethics can recognise as familiar. Since ethics follows the logos wherever it leads it must be some similar quest by the novelist which prompts the moral philosopher’s interest. What inspires ethics to turn to the novel is finding its own image reflected there. And, yet, we should be wary of taking this path. Few novels are philosophical in a form that permits their content to be summarised in philosoph- ical terms. More importantly, even if this were possible, such sum- maries stand or fall as arguments. On this view, literature has a place in philosophy only if it conforms to philosophy’s expectations of it. Where these are construed exclusively as matters of argument, literature’s freedom to play a part in ethics will be correspondingly reduced. Moral philosophers who see ethics as founding a rational moral theory will not find this conclusion unappealing. What these philo- sophers search for is a contemporary Olympus, a secular height from which to impart a theory of the good that is both impartial and univer- sal. Ethics must transcend life by modelling itself on formality and generality. Without a secure foundation in a systematic and compre- hensive moral theory, moral beliefs are liable to be rendered subjective and contingent. From this perspective, the interest of life to theory is as a source of evidence, a ready supply of illustration and a region of application for universal principles which aim to pattern life by filtering the permissible from the prohibited. In this familiar picture, ethics is a matter of argument, with reason sitting as the court of final appeal. Art, however, looks to beauty and the ambiguities of the beholder’s eye. The novel is yet another distort- ing mirror to life and its adherents are no different from Plato’s ‘lovers of sights and sounds’,1 responding acutely to the powerful images which art conveys, but having little or no idea how or why they do. Rather than be seduced by the siren voices of novelists, on this view, we are better advised to go to life itself and judge the experience we find there in the steady light of reason. Clearly, on this understanding of ethics there can be no question of negotiating a treaty with art. Rather art finds the door slammed quite violently in its face. But on at least one view of art the gesture can be rapidly returned. Defenders of art might say that art has no place for the intellect. Art is outraged if it is used as a means for communicating abstract ideas and it quickly self-destructs if an attempt is made to tie it to moral exhortation and advocacy. Introduction 3 This perceived and mutual antagonism goes very deep. D. H. Lawrence comments, ‘it was the greatest pity in the world, when philosophy and fiction got split … the novel went sloppy and philosophy went abstract dry.’2 Moral philosophers must somehow come to the recognition that in life contingency is not so easily disciplined. Moral dilemmas, contested instances, and areas of moral uncertainty, for example, are all indicators of life’s intractability to theory. The moral philosopher who starts by resisting life in the name of a pure theory of morality usually ends by becoming merely a connoisseur of awkward cases. A very different sort of moral philosopher argues, by contrast, that morality is best grasped through moral particulars oscillating in the flow and flux of life. Since theory confines life within parameters that are both abstract and static, it ignores the concrete and temporal dimensions of moral life. Moral reasoning is not performed by agents presumed to be of inter-changeable moral psychology, whose over- riding interest in one another is as units of action and power in a theory of decision-making, but rather by individuals whose moral atti- tudes and emotions display complex varieties of disposition and char- acter.