Renegotiating Ethics In Literature, Philosophy, And Theory (literature, Culture, Theory)

Renegotiating Ethics in Literature, Philosophy, and Theory Is it possible for postmodernism to offer viable accounts of ethics? Can these accounts be coherent and stable? Or are our social and intellectual worlds now too fragmented to provide any broad consensus about the moral life? These issues have emerged in recent decades 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 addresses some of the major reconceptualisations involved in this so-called ‘turn towards ethics’. An important feature of this ‘turn’ 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 – a contributor and a key figure in this volume. The book tries to assess the significance of this development for ethical and literary theory. Renegotiating Ethics in Literature, Philosophy, and Theory also attempts to articulate an alternative postmodern account of ethics which does not rely on earlier appeals to universal truths. ja ne a d a ms o n, formerly Senior Lecturer in English at the Australian National University, is the author of Othello: Some Problems of Judgement and Feeling and Troilus and Cressida. ric ha rd f re a dm a n, Professor of English at La Trobe University, is the author of Eliot, James and the Fictional Self: a Study in Character and Narration; (with Seamus Miller) Re-thinking Theory: a Critique of Contemporary Literary Theory and an Alternative Account, and editor of Literary Theory and Philosophy: A Cross-Disciplinary Encounter. da vi d p a r ke r, Reader in English, Australian National University, is author of Ethics, Theory and the Novel, and editor of Shame and the Modern Self. XXXXXXXX Literature, Culture, Theory ✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥ General editors a n t h o n y c a s c a r d i, University of California, Berkeley and ri cha rd m a ck se y, The Johns Hopkins University Recent titles include Paratexts: thresholds of interpretation ge ra rd gen et te Chronoschisms: time, narrative, and postmodernism ur su l a h ei s e Cinema, theory and political responsibility in contemporary culture pa tr ick mc gee The practice of theory: rhetoric, knowledge, and pedagogy in the academy m ich a el be rna rd - do n al s Ideology and inscription: ‘Cultural studies’ after De Man, Bakhtin, and Benjamin t om co h en Psychoanalysis, historiography, and feminist theory: the search for critical method k a t he rin e k ea rn s Singularities: extremes of theory in the twentieth century th o ma s pe pp er XXXXXX Renegotiating Ethics in Literature, Philosophy, and Theory ✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥✥ edited by JANE ADAMSON, RICHARD FREADMAN, DAVID PARKER p u bl i sh ed by t he p re ss s y nd ic at e of t he u n i ver s ity of c am bri dg e The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge cb2 1rp, United Kingdom c a mb r i d g e un i v e r s i t y p r e s s The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 2ru, United Kingdom 40 West 20th Street, New York, ny 10011–4211, USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia © Jane Adamson, Richard Freadman, David Parker 1998 ‘‘The Literary Imagination in Public Life’’ is from Poetic Justice by Martha Nussbaum © 1995 Martha Nussbaum, reprinted by permission of Beacon Press. ‘‘Ethics in Many Different Voices’’ is reprinted by permission of the publisher from Moral Prejudices: Essays on Ethics by Annette Baier, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, copyright © 1994 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. ‘‘Martha Nussbaum and the Need for Novels’’ by Cora Diamond is from Philosophical Investigations, vol. 16