When we read literature, we become more aware of the existence of another being. Not only the best of the best reads in literature enables empathy, but the best of the best heightens and expands what Naussbaum calls, “the narrative imagination.”
Literature is “fundamentally concerned with ethics”. Without the humanities in general and literature in particular, we might be in danger of ‘forgetting …the ethical’ in our approaches to any discipline.
Reading as an Ethical Work
Martha Naussbaum described a moral theory of literature and a practice of reading that fostered the “narrative imagination.” It gets the readers involved with the characters, their hopes and fears – they acknowledge their own world, choose morally, and reflectively. “The inter-human moment is a profound and natural experience and opens the individual to new possibilities. This is a prerequisite of relationship, a first acceptance of responsibility.
“Crucial in this inter-human moment “is the ability to see people as human beings, not simply as objects.”
Another Person is a Soul and not Merely an Instrument
Other questions with an ethical consideration: What is my moral duty? (Kantian Ethics); How shall I maximize utility? (Utilitarianism).
The above questions does not take moral imagination [Naussbaum] into consideration. Her ‘ethics’ focuses on the moral actions and not on the morality of the agent. The morality of these actions provides for moral character
Martha Naussbaum's Ethical Thought
All forms of human behavior may be assessed by having a full view of the lived experience. Literacy and reading contributes to the unity of human character how human beings flourish.
Ethical texts replicate the multiple dimensions of the world it represents. They put us in the shoes of other individuals, gives us a sense of how people live beyond the norms. As readers, we empathize even as we maintain distance or are refrain from formulating moral judgments.
Reading allows the subject to identify and align to what is explored in the literature. If epistolary or didactic this text will be less persuasive, but will still move an individual notion of right and wrong. A person’s ethical stand , say, to minority and marginalized voices are enabled through their empathy.
Limitation of Naussbaum's Ethics
Reading with a question of the ‘moral of the story’ seems less ethical when merely opposing and criticizing. But a critique for change should be the main goal. Yet in Naussbaum’s ethics the OTHER is diminished because a moral has been proscribed. At stake is the inter-human encounter. Is there a personal transformation out of realizing one’s responsibility?
Even before a person’s face appears before us, we are already responsible for that individual. Our response is not what we have learned as a moral response, but what we have known as what makes that OTHER different. A human being’s face speaks to us even without a situation of need. Before reading the literary text, they have been there, present and human.
