Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 3 Number 2, August 2002
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Cunningham, Anthony. The Heart of What Matters: The Role for Literature in Moral Philosophy. London: University of California Press, 2002. 296 pp, ISBN 0-520-22662-3, $60, £40.
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Cunningham’s work rests on the premise that traditional moral philosophy is unable to cope with the diversity of particular relations and intimate attachments that make up what he calls the “heart of what matters.” The main adversary is Kantian inspired formalism and rules of moral rationality. Cunningham asks of a moral philosophy that it meet what he calls the “internalism” requirement; a good moral philosophy ought to motivate one to be good. But he says, “Good moral philosophy should be about life,” and “Any ethical theory that ignores or deforms what we are really like in favor of a fanciful philosophical image can harm us if we pay too close attention.” (p.1)
Much of western philosophical ethics can only meet the requirement in part. For they explain the source of motivation but do so at the cost of directly appealing to a life as lived. It is this tension that is exploited by Cunningham through the analysis of literary characters. In fact, Cunningham leads us to see both the aforementioned harm and a sort of moral blindness in the Stoic character of Stevens from Ishiguro’s novel, Remains of the Day. He leads us through the complications of love in Zora Neal Hurston’s novels, Their Eyes Were Watching God and Seraph on the Suwanee. In addition, he takes up the complexity and compatibility of good character and moral weakness in Morrison’s Beloved. A common theme throughout is the role that literature can play in educating our sense of the ethical life.
He says,
The error of Kantian ways, and more generally, the errors of ethical theory can best be corrected by a moral philosophy that pays attention to particular people leading particular lives, complete with rich emotional attachments that are prey and sometimes prone to conflict. (p.3)
Cunningham proposes, to this end, an examination of fictional characters embroiled in the “messy business of living.” He says, “My aim is to treat some fine literary characters as character portraits that can provide us with the right stuff for concrete particular deliberation in all its ethical complexity.” (p.5) Describing his work as broadly Aristotelian in spirit, Cunningham suggests that “Novels can help us to see by helping us to feel the right things at the right times, to the right degree, toward the right objects, and the depiction can make all the difference.” (p.5)
In chapter one, Cunningham claims that a distinctly moral point of view carves out a content without regard in some cases for why this morality ought to move us one way rather than another. This motivational constraint is what is referred to as the “internalism” requirement. (p.10) In order to merit fidelity, moral conceptions must “explain why anyone should pay attention to their commands.” (p.10) Cunningham says,
the internalism requirement gives poignant voice to the way most of us try to put together a life and self. We struggle to find, forge, and sustain a character and existence that have real meaning and value. (P.13)
He points out that most philosophers in the Western tradition, including Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, have sought an internalist account of morality and that “divorcing the content of ethics from motivation would have been unthinkable.” (p.13) In the moderns such as Hobbes and Hume, motivational force is a part of our entrenched natural psychology. But Kant sought an account that would “have the power to give rise to its own special form of motivation. As he saw it, moral considerations must motivate because they are moral, rather than be moral because they motivate.” (p.15) In making the source of motivation moral, however, the heart of what matters in life is transferred to reason. Thus, in both cases, the theoretical appeal misses the concrete, particular considerations. This can be rectified by the style and content of literature.
In chapter two, Cunningham claims there is no complete decision procedure based upon an essential canonical ordering or hierarchy of concerns that can guide us because “no such essence or hierarchy is to be found.” (p.22) He focuses on Kant’s “universal law” and criticizes its focus on the “assessment of the same” as a principle of decision. (p.23) He finds “respect” intuitively appealing, but is worried that intimate attachments, if not differences, are squelched under rules. There is just enough of a difference in a case-by-case basis to make a principle of impartiality inapplicable. Cunningham says, “we must be able to scan the moral terrain with an eye alive to innumerable subtleties, complications, and variations.” (p.67) In a related vein, though he agrees with the use of cognitive emotions by the Stoics, he disapproves of the distancing and apathy that results from their views. Thus, he takes issue with both Kantist and Stoic views on ethical life.
Furthermore, a Kantian moral point of view may “muck up the free and spontaneous workings of intimate love” with a “one thought too many.” (p.27) Here, the cold face of reason distorts the image. This finds expression in the conflict and moral vulnerability of the character Sethe from Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Minimally, passional nature can better prepare one to see the import of rational law. Natural psychology, however, no matter how good an explanatory principle, fails in turn to prepare us to see our passional nature as lived. Thus, both our passional and rational natures are foiled by abstract theory. Cunningham concludes by suggesting that “sometimes the wise can also be wiser for having listened very carefully to the stories of others who have imbibed deeply from the waters of life.” (p.68) To that end, Cunningham turns to “reading for life.” In chapter three, he argues that both the style and content of literature play a role in educating the ethical life.
In the second part of the book, Cunningham takes the reader through the moral complications and complexities of human characters as fictionally depicted. Cunningham believes that good fiction can act as a moral “filter” which weeds out salient features of life worthy of consideration. He focuses on vulnerability and the mutual compatibility of good character and moral weakness. He continues to criticize Stoic and Kantian views and tackles moral blindness and the subtleties of love to support his criticism.
The book will be of immense interest to anyone interested in moral psychology, pedagogy, and the critique of dominant western philosophical views on the nature of a good life.