Reforming the Humanities: Literature and Ethics from Dante through Modern Times PDF
Preview Reforming the Humanities: Literature and Ethics from Dante through Modern Times
Reforming the Humanities This page intentionally left blank Reforming the Humanities Literature and Ethics from Dante through Modern Times Peter Levine REFORMING THE HUMANITIES Copyright © Peter Levine, 2009. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-230-62144-2 All rights reserved. First published in 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-38336-8 ISBN 978-0-230-10469-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230104693 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Levine, Peter, 1967– Reforming the humanities : literature and ethics from Dante through modern times / Peter Levine. p. cm. ISBN 978-1-349-38336-8 (alk. paper) 1. Literature and morals. 2. Narration (Rhetoric)—Moral and ethical aspects. 3. Humanities. 4. Dante Alighieri, 1265–1321. Divina commedia. 5. Dante Alighieri, 1265–1321—Technique. 6. Ethics. I. Title. PN49.L474 2010 809(cid:2).93353—dc22 2009016614 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: December 2009 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For My Mother This page intentionally left blank C O N T E N T S Introduction 1 One The Story of Paolo and Francesca 13 Two Dante Philosophizes About Francesca’s Case 23 Three Poetry and the Emotions in Francesca’s Case 47 Four Criticizing Moral Theory 71 Five Good and Bad Stories, and Francesca as a Reader 105 Six Modern Versions 127 Seven Consequences 169 Appendix: The Text of Inferno, Canto V 207 Notes 211 Index 231 Introduction This is a book about ethics and stories. Ethics (or morality) encompasses what is right or good, what we ought to do, and how laws and institu- tions should be organized. I argue that a good way to make ethical judg- ments and decisions is to describe reality in the form of a true narrative. Fictional stories also support moral conclusions that can translate into real life. I argue that when the moral judgments supported by a good story conflict with general principles, we ought to follow the story and amend or suspend our principles, rather than the reverse. What makes a story “good” for this purpose is not its conformity to correct moral principles, but its merits as a narrative—for instance, its perceptiveness and coher- ence and its avoidance of cliché, sentimentality, and euphemism. The relationship between stories and moral principles is connected to other issues that I also explore: the proper role of emotion and reason in ethics; the scope of moral judgments; what cultural diversity means for ethics; when it is appropriate to favor relatives and friends; whether to consider historical context when interpreting literary texts; and the value of fictional versus true narratives. One can explore these issues in a theoretical way, by advancing general propositions and investigating whether they fit together, what fundamen- tal values or beliefs support them, and whether they are plausible when applied to cases. Moral particularism is an example of such a theory. It has antecedents as old as Aristotle and has recently been developed in a novel way by Jonathan Dancy and others. It asserts that we must make moral judgments about whole situations, but we should not morally evaluate abstract concepts, such as love, justice, courage, or freedom. These con- cepts are sometimes good and sometimes bad, depending on the context. One can only tell the moral significance of a concept by examining the whole situation in which it figures. Particularism opens the door to an ethics based on narrative, because stories describe whole situations. 2 Reforming the Humanities Particularism is a philosophical thesis that can be developed in some detail, applied to real or hypothetical examples, and connected to other principles derived from logic, epistemology, and the philosophy of lan- guage. Portions of this book involve such theorizing. I argue for a mod- erate version of particularism, one that acknowledges the value of some general moral principles. I do not, however, believe that theoretical arguments can settle the question of how to reason about moral issues, or—more specifically— how much we should trust stories versus moral principles when the two conflict. In theoretical arguments about morality, authors frequently appeal to our intuitions about principles and methods or about hypo- thetical cases. But our intuitions differ; and even when all modern professional philosophers happen to agree, that does not mean that they are all right. Prevailing intuitions change over time and from commu- nity to community. We can be relatively secure when we feel strong intuitions about very simple ideas, such as “murder is wrong.” But this book explores propositions that are not categorical rules; they are gen- eralizations or rules of thumb about complex social phenomena such as literature, modern philosophy, ordinary morality, and love (which is this book’s main example of an ethical concept). I do not maintain, for example, that narrative is inevitably better than moral theory, but that we ought to be persuaded by certain types of story if we read them well. Many readers will begin with different opinions about the value of the actual stories that exist in our culture, or in any other. If all we have are clashing intuitions about fiction, philosophy, and important ethical issues such as love, we can make no progress. Instead, I propose to investigate what happens when we try to rea- son about one moral issue in a highly “literary” way—by means of narrative that is subtle and carefully constructed—and also by develop- ing and testing general principles. This book examines the advantages and disadvantages of these two ways of thinking and judging. I use as a case-study a particularly excellent story that addresses an important moral issue (adulterous love). It is also a story about the relationship between fiction and morality, the tension between emotion and reason, the place of a story in its context, and the proper role of partiality— precisely the issues that I mentioned at the outset. To say that any story is “about” something is a complex and subtle matter. Only the simplest kind of fable announces its theme explicitly. It is especially difficult to say what the narrative I analyze is about, because it deliberately breaks off before it provides essential pieces of informa- tion. It is part of the fifth canto of Dante’s Inferno. We call it the story of
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