Ethical Identification, Literary Imagination, and Public Life: A Review of Martha Nussbaum’s Ethical Criticism

Foreign Literature Studies ›› 2019, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (6): 50-59.

• Ethical Literary Criticism • Previous Articles Next Articles

Ethical Identification, Literary Imagination, and Public Life: A Review of Martha Nussbaum’s Ethical Criticism

Chen Houliang

Published:2022-05-23
About author:Chen Houliang is a professor of English at the School of Foreign Languages, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (Wuhan 430074, China). His primary research interests include literary theories, ethical criticism, and Afro-American literature. Email: chenhouliang@hust.edu.cn
Supported by:
“Hot Topics in Contemporary Literary Theories in the West under the Background of ‘Post-Theory’ Studies ” (18BWW001), sponsored by the Program of National Social Science Fund of China

Abstract

Abstract: Martha Nussbaum highlights the ethical function of literary writing and reading. In her view, literature can do much more than moral philosophy in representing the subtlety of morality and the complexity of ethical particularities. Nussbaum argues that the emotional response and moral imagination initiated by the reading of literature can be supplementary for public rationality because they can cover the deficiency of economic utilitarianism in guiding public life and make positive contributions to our vision and plan for a better public life. Nussbaum tries to retrieve the potential function of literary reading in constructing a wonderful human life, but the true value of literature should not be measured by whether or not it could make ordinary people more perfect in morality, but by whether or not it could revive a long-gone public discourse that will turn literary reading and criticism into an open public sphere, once again, for free conversations and consultations between multiple voices representing different values.

Key words: Nussbaum, ethical criticism, moral imagination, public life

Chen Houliang. Ethical Identification, Literary Imagination, and Public Life: A Review of Martha Nussbaum’s Ethical Criticism[J]. Foreign Literature Studies, 2019, 41(6): 50-59.

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Ethical Identification, Literary Imagination, and Public Life: A Review of Martha Nussbaum’s Ethical Criticism

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