Interesting idea: that we can live the agonies and ecstasies of the moral life without an awareness of morality itself. And this is supposedly a form of "moral realism." It sounds more like a form of crass and question-begging empiricism - i.e., morality is what we have when we recognize the contradictions and dangers we experience in living the moral life. How do we know that our reply to the imperative: "Get a (moral) life" - is indeed itself a moral one Kant, rightly I believe, refused to accept such empiricism, maintaining that the possibilities for moral judgement and experience themselves presuppose apriori the self-understanding a rational being has of itself as a form of willing and practical knowledge governed by moral law. Just as an individual is free for moral deliberation only if she represents/understands herself to be free (i.e., as an agent capable of willing from duty), so is an individual capable of living a life of moral experience and judgement only on the condition that she understand herself as a capacity/power to autonomously legislate her own principles of reflection and action as universal laws. Once again, all understanding of a world of problems, contradictions, etc, is self-understanding. I think that's right. Walter Okshevsky MUN Quoting John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>: > Was taking a break. Arts & Letters Daily took me to a Gertrude Himmelfarb > review of a new book about Lionel Trilling. I read the following and thought > instantly of John Wager and his observation that if choices are black and > white there is no moral judgment to be made. > > Trilling matters, then, Kirsch insists, because literature matters?and > > literature as Trilling understood it. His novel, The Middle of the > Journey, > > has been criticized for creating characters who are merely the spokesmen > for > > ideas. The same charge has been levelled against his literary criticism, > > which is said to treat novels and poems as vehicles for ideas about > society > > and politics rather than as aesthetic responses to personal experience. > > Kirsch counters this objection by elevating Trilling?s literary criticism > to > > the ?primary,? ?autonomous? status of literature itself, reflecting the > same > > aesthetic sensibility that the novelist or poet brings to experience?and > > reflecting, too, the ideas about society and politics that are implicit in > > the novels and poems themselves. > > Kirsch is treading a fine line. He does not want to reduce Trilling to the > > role of social or, worse, political commentator. Yet he fully acknowledges > > the social and political import, even intent, of Trilling?s literary > > criticism: ?More than any twentieth-century American intellectual, > Trilling > > stood for the principle that society and politics cannot be fully > understood > > without the literary imagination.? And the literary imagination, for > > Trilling, was preeminently a ?moral imagination.? Moral imagination?not > the > > moralistic dicta or pronouncements evoked in present-day debates about > > same-sex marriage, abortion, and the like. The true moral imagination > > transcends such dogmatic moralizing because it is imbued with ?moral > > realism,? a realism that is ?not the awareness of morality itself but of > the > > contradictions, paradoxes, and dangers of living the moral life.? > > It is this combination of ?moral realism? and ?moral imagination? that was > > the basis of Trilling?s critique of the ?liberal imagination.? That phrase > > first appeared in the title of the introductory chapter of his book on E. > > M. Forster, ?Forster and the Liberal Imagination?: > > > > > For all his long commitment to the doctrines of liberalism Forster is at war > > with the liberal imagination. Surely if liberalism has a single desperate > > weakness, it is an inadequacy of imagination: liberalism is always being > > surprised. Surprised, because the ?liberal mind? has an unrealistic and > > simplistic view of morality itself. It thinks that ?good is good and bad > is > > bad. . . . Before the idea of good-and-evil its imagination fails.? It > > cannot accept this ?improbable paradox,? a paradox that such ?great > > conservative minds? as Johnson, Burke, and Arnold well understood. > > > John > -- > John McCreery > The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN > Tel. +81-45-314-9324 > jlm@xxxxxxxxxxxx > http://www.wordworks.jp/ > This electronic communication is governed by the terms and conditions at http://www.mun.ca/cc/policies/electronic_communications_disclaimer_2011.php ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html