Paul Ricoeur on the Ethical Significance of Reading

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a great deal of debate about significance of reading. A number of prominent philosophers and literary critics have argued that reading is morally and politically valuable, since it develops traits that good agents and good citizens need. Wayne Booth's The Company We Keep is a seminal text in this debate. Writing in 1988, Booth notes that ethical criticism . . . plays at best a minor and often deplored role1 in contemporary literary theory, and he mounts a spirited defense of attempt tie 'art' to 'life,' 'aesthetic' to 'practical.'2 In two decades since, Booth has had many imitators. Richard Rorty's Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, for example, argues that reading plays a crucial role in our moral development, since certain literary works can help us become aware of our capacity for cruelty and other worrisome traits.3 Major works by Andrew Gibson, Colin McGinn, and many others have explored similar terrain.4 Surprisingly, though, debate over ethics and reading has had little to say about Paul Ricoeur. A recent article in journal Philosophia surveys work in this area and claims to give a comprehensive bibliography of it.5 But article does not mention Ricoeur, and none of his works appears in bibliography. This lack of attention is surprising for two reasons. First, as his readers know, Ricoeur has written extensively and eloquently on significance of reading for ethics. Time and Narrative and Oneself as Another both explore idea that narrative [is] first laboratory of moral judgment6 literature ... a vast laboratory for thought experiments7 about how to live. Given how much Ricoeur has said about this topic, one would expect him to be given a voice in current debate. Second, and more importantly, Ricoeur offers a kind of voice that is badly needed in this debate. Today there is widespread agreement that reading can be ethically valuable, but significant disagreement about why. Some philosophers, such as Rorty and Martha Nussbaum, seem to think that moral benefits of reading follow more or less directly from contents of literary works themselves.8 On this view, if reading Hard Times can make us better people, it is because of something m Dickens's text: his unsympathetic portrayal of Gradgrind, for example. Others, notably Simon Stow, reject Nussbaum's view, arguing that value of reading lies not in literary works themselves, but in our responses to them - in our tendency to talk about what we have read, for example.9 In short, debate over ethics and reading is divided into two polarized camps: those who privilege literary works and downplay readers, and those who privilege readers and downplay works. A more conciliatory position seems needed. But there is no more conciliatory philosopher than Ricoeur. He is, as Bernard Dauenhauer puts it, the exponent of 'bothand' and opponent of 'either-or,' a philosopher who finds instruction not only in both Kant and Hegel but also in both Plato and Aristotle, Augustine and Benedict de Spinoza, and Karl Marx and Freud.10 Perhaps more importantly, Ricoeur has an admirable tendency to steer between extremes of abstractness and concreteness, advancing positions that are tied to a specific content but still governed by general principles.11 Ricoeur not only has a great deal to say about ethics and reading; he says kinds of things that could lead us out of current impasse. My goal here is to ask what Ricoeur can contribute to debate about whether and in what ways reading matters for ethics.12 1 want to show that Ricoeur can act as a helpful mediator in this debate. He can help us to see literature's lessons as tied to specific works, while recognizing that readers play a crucial role in shaping and interpreting these lessons. My argument for this claim has three steps. First, I examine an influential account of reading that has been advanced by Martha Nussbaum, an account that I take to be exemplary of much recent work in this area. …