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Artless Integrity: Moral Imagination, Agency and Stories
Author(s): Susan E. Babbitt (Author)
- Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (UK)
- Publication Date: 1 Dec. 2000
- Language: English
- Print length: 301 pages
- ISBN-10: 0742512126
- ISBN-13: 9780742512122
Book Description
This book considers the nature and exercise of moral imagination in situations in which our ability to act and choose meaningfully is limited by unarticulated expectations. Moral imagination is a cognitive attitude, in which we regard propositions as true. But it also involves orientation. In moral imagination, we regard propositions as true in order to make something else true, and we act and interpret as if it were true. The demand for explanatory unity in such situations – what I call explanatory burden – involves self-constitution, with seeing oneself as a certain sort of person and developing relevant expectations. Whereas it is common to define human well-being in terms of choice and capacities, I suggest that meaningful choice and human capacities are sometimes defined in terms of the actual pursuit and achievement of human well-being. I draw upon examples from literature, film, and historical narrative to suggest that while we think autonomy and agency consist, at least in part, in taking control, we must sometimes be controlled by circumstances and relations in order to occupy an appropriate interpretive perspective for real freedom. I consider the implications of this point for such concepts as respect, friendship and democracy.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Artless Integrity crosses the boundaries of literature and philosophy, hence is an important contribution to many disciplines, from philosophy to social science. This book would be useful to researchers, teachers, practicing professionals within social sciences and humanities. It would be of particular interest to anyone who believes in practical reasoning, living well, and as best we can amidst the contingent and complex messiness of life.
Susan Babbit”s Artless Integrity is an original and radical moral epistemology that supports the lives of those in situations of moral risk. There are several valuable foci in Babbit”s work that one simply doesn”t find elsewhere in contemporary North American ethics. The book would make an exciting and challenging text in a graduate course in ethics, political theory, or IDS. Her analysis makes accessible and necessary to North American audiences the work of important Southern political theorists.
About the Author
Susan Babbitt teaches at Queens University, Canada and works with an interdisciplinary group at the University of Havana, on women and human development.
