Moral Persuasion and the Diversity of Fictions* Shen-yi Liao Paci c Philosophical Quarterly (2013)† Abstract Narrative representations can change our moral actions and thoughts, for better or for worse. In this paper, I develop a theory of ctions' capacity for moral education and moral corruption that is fully sensitive to the diversity of ctions. Speci cally, I argue that the way a ction in uences our moral actions and thoughts importantly depends on its genre. is theory promises new insights into practical ethical debates over pornography and media violence. e way we think and act in the domain of morality is constantly undergoing changes. Sometimes changes in ourmoral actions and thoughts are shaped by the products of solitary intellectual contemplation, but far more oen these changes are induced by external sources. is paper is about ctions' capacity for moral persuasion-the power of narratives to change the way we act and think with respect to moral matters, for better or for worse. Since Aristotle's times, philosophers have written much about the role of ctions in moral persuasion. Most contemporary theorists-Booth (1988), Carroll (2002), Currie (1995), Depaul (1988), Jacobson (1996), Kieran (1996), Murdoch (1970), Nussbaum (1990), Robinson (2005), to name just a few-focus on the use of ctions in moral education. And some of them-such as Currie (1995)-are equally aware of ctions' power for moral corruption. *For helpful criticisms and suggestions, I thank Sarah Buss, Jonathan Gilmore, Daniel Jacobson, Lina Jansson, Ian McCready-Flora, Alex Plakias, Sara Protasi, Nils-Hennes Stear, Dustin Tucker, Kendall Walton, members of the Aesthetics Discussion Group at the University of Michigan, the audience at Carleton College, and an anonymous referee. †PV. For citation and reference, please see the de nitive and nal version in Paci c Philosophical Quarterly 94(2), pp. 269–289. doi: 10.1111/papq.12000. 2 * Shen-yi Liao *Moral Persuasion and the Diversity of Fictions Despite the amount of attention devoted to the topic, I argue, philosophers have been insufficiently sensitive to the diversity of ctions in theorizing about ctions' capacity for moral persuasion. Following Walton (1990), ctions are simply representations that prompt imaginings. is broad conception of ction is indifferent to a work's medium: it includes poems, plays, lms, novels, comic books, and video games. It is[end of p. 269] also indifferent to a work's aesthetic worth: it includes both the classic and the kitsch. Finally, as Friend (2008, 2011, 2012) clari es, it includes both nonctive works, such as counterfactual histories, and ctive works, such as historical ctions. On this broad conception, ctions turn out to be a rather heterogenous bunch. However, discussions of ctions tend to take realism-the kind of ctions that are morally and psychologically realistic-as the paradigm. As James Harold notes, Philosophical discussion has therefore focused primarily on [the modern realistic novel]. In fact, it is difficult to nd any sustained discussion of novels outside of this tradition (broadly conceived) in the entire philosophical literature (Harold 2007, 145) Unfortunately, the discourse on ctions' capacity for moral persuasion is no exception. In the context of this discourse, taking realism as the paradigm is problematic because different kinds of ctions can have differentmodes of persuasion: they in uence our moral thoughts and actions in distinct ways. us, an account of how the realistic novel e Golden Bowl functions in moral education is unlikely to help us make sense of how the satirical novel Catch-22 functions in moral education. e focus on realism makes our theories of ctions' capacity for moral persuasion incomplete. We need a theory that accounts for the diversity of ctions. On the theory I develop in this paper, a ction's mode of persuasion importantly depends on the genre it is appropriately classi ed in. Here is a roadmap for what lies ahead. §1 introduces the phenomenon under investigation: how ctions function in moral persuasion. §2 highlights a frequently overlooked aspect of this phenomenon, the diversity of ctions, through an examination of non-realist ctions. §3 develops a theory of ctions' capacity for moral persuasion that accounts for the diversity of ctions. §4 outlines broader implications for cognate elds. 1 Fictions in Moral Persuasion To get a grasp on ctions' role in moral persuasion, it is easiest to start with the case that philosophers have primarily focused on: the mode of persuasion found in realist ctions. Roughly, on the realist mode of persuasion, a ction is responsible for getting us to believe a moral (or immoral) outlook when it is responsible for getting us to imagine a similar moral (or immoral) outlook. In this section, I explain the concepts necessary for characterizing the realist mode of persuasion. First, I differentiate the real-world perspective that a ction gets us to believe and themake-believe perspective that a ction gets us to imagine. Second, I clarify the notion of being responsible for.[end of p. 270] Shen-yi Liao *Moral Persuasion and the Diversity of Fictions * 3 1.1 Real-World and Make-Believe Perspectives Our task here is to draw a theoretical distinction between the moral outlook that a ction gets us to imagine and the moral outlook that a ction gets us to believe as a result of our imaginative engagement. Before starting on this task, it makes sense to ask whywe sometimes fail tomake this intuitive distinction. My answer is that the ordinary language used in the ethical criticism of art leads us astray. When we criticize a ction for its "moral aws", we do not always make the target of our criticism clear. As Jacobson (1997) and Mullin (2004) point out, there are at least two kinds of criticism that we could be making. On the one hand, we might be criticizing a ction for being morally troubling, for asking us to imagine an immoral outlook. On the other hand, we might be criticizing a ction for being morally dangerous, for in uencing us to come to believe or accept as true an immoral outlook. Ordinary uses of the term "moral aw" encompass both moral troublingness and moral dangerousness. us, ordinary language blinds us to the distinction between the targets of these two kinds of ethical criticism. In the same spirit, Hanson (1998) warns against confusing the outlook that a ction represents and the outlook that it recommends, andGiovannelli (2007) speci cally criticizes Noël Carroll for not carefully distinguishing these two kinds of ethical criticism. e fact that numerous theorists continue to emphasize this distinction, between the moral outlook that we imagine and the moral outlook that we come to believe or accept as true, underscores how easy it is to confuse them. Perhaps it will be easier for us to remember this distinction if the two targets have simpler names. Call the moral outlooks that various ctions ask us to imagine makebelieve perspectives. Call the moral outlooks that we in fact have, and the moral outlooks that ctions in uence us to believe or accept as true, real-world perspectives. (at these perspectives have to do with morality is hereaer implicit.) To truly capture what we mean by "moral outlook", one more re nement is necessary: the notions of make-believe and real-world perspectives must be broadened beyond, respectively, imaginings and beliefs. Moral outlooks in uence the judgments we make and the actions that we take. Beliefs are undoubtedly important. Still, personal experiences and psychological research give us ample reason to think that our judgments and actions do not always cohere with our professed beliefs.1 In thinking about the psychological in uences on how we judge and how we act, we must also consider other components of the mind, such as desires, emotions, and dispositions. In general, our real-world perspectives include non-cognitive morally-relevant attitudes in addition to beliefs.2 Similarly, the moral outlooks that we adopt during imaginative engagements with ctions are more than just collections of propositional imaginings. Consider the fa- [end of p. 271] miliar example of Triumph of the Will, which asks us to adopt a moral outlook that glori es Nazism. e lm does not mandate us to only propositionally imagine certain 1See Gendler (2008a) and Gendler (2008b) for philosophical discussions of, and references to, the relevant empirical studies. 2Indeed, if expressivists are right, then our moral perspectives consist entirely of non-cognitive attitudes. I thank an anonymous referee for noting this complication. 4 * Shen-yi Liao *Moral Persuasion and the Diversity of Fictions moral claims, such as that Nazism is morally praiseworthy. e lm mandates us to also imaginatively adopt non-cognitive attitudes that comport with the relevant propositional imaginings, such as positive affective responses toward Nazism. In general, make-believe perspectives include non-cognitive morally-relevant attitudes in addition to imaginings.3 Moreover, make-believe perspectives can include both the moral worldview of the ctional world and the moral outlooks adopted by characters whom the ction depicts sympathetically.4 1.2 What a Fiction is Responsible For e topic of moral persuasion is neither straightforwardly causal nor straightforwardly normative. On a rough characterization of ctions' role in moral persuasion, a ction is responsible for what a normal audience would come to believe and come to imagine as a result of imaginatively engaging with the ction. What morally educative or corruptive effects that ctions can be said to be responsible for includes both a causal element, concerning imaginative engagement's in uence on the audience, and an evaluative element, concerning what is normal-speci cally what counts as a normal audience. We can get a grasp on the (admittedly elusive) notion of being responsible for through a brief thought experiment. Suppose that there is a ction that is, content-wise, just like the Harry Potter books. is ction has only one reader. As a matter of fact, this ction in uences the reader to come to have strong negative emotions toward boys with scars on their foreheads and accompanying desires to murder them. e real-world perspective that this ction actually gets the reader to have is, safe to say, rather immoral. Yet, it seems unfair to call this ction morally corruptive. Intuitively, the reader has misunderstood the ction in important respects. A normal audience would not respond to this ction in the same way. In assigning moral blame for the immoral real-world perspective that actually results from imaginative engagement, we place the blame squarely on the eccentricity of the reader and not on the content of the ction. In thinking about the morally educative or corruptive effects of a ction, what matters are not the effects it actually has, but the effects that it is responsible for-in just the elusive sense that we are pursuing. A ction is only responsible for the effects that it would have on a normal audience.5 Normality, in the sense I want to endorse, 3It is debatable whether we need to posit imaginative analogues of non-cognitive attitudes in order to explain certain phenomena peculiar to ctions. Walton (1978) argues for imaginative analogues of emotions. Currie and Ravenscro (2002) and Doggett and Egan (2007, 2011) argue for an imaginative analogue of desire. My own view is that we do not need to posit distinctive non-cognitive attitudes to account for the relevant phenomena, but this paper is officially neutral on these debates. What is important is that the desires, emotions, and dispositions-or their imaginative analogues-that we have in response to ctions could have different warrant conditions, or conditions about when they are tting. 4ere is a complication: many ctions present con icting make-believe perspectives. To properly assess the moral effect of a ction, we must assess the relative contributions of all the various make-believe perspectives that a ction presents. 5ere is a complication: some ctions, such as pedophilia fantasies, target audiences that we might antecedently consider psychologically abnormal. To properly assess the moral effect of such ctions, the notion of normality needs to be relativized accordingly. Shen-yi Liao *Moral Persuasion and the Diversity of Fictions * 5 is essentially evaluative.6 One standard of correctness that informs our evaluation is whether the audience has correctly understood the work. In other words, normality is [end of p. 272] not synonymous with or reducible to statistical typicality. In the thought experiment above, the statistically typical effect-by stipulation-just is the effect on the reader's real-world perspective. Since we do not think that the effect on the reader is the normal one, the relevant sense of normality must differ from statistical typicality. As a practical matter, wemight use statistical typicality as an imperfect proxy for evaluative normality, but we must also recognize the theoretical distinction between the two. With the central concepts clari ed, I can now sketch a picture of ctions' role in moral persuasion, focusing on the realist mode of persuasion. A ction is responsible for getting us to really adopt a moral (or immoral) real-world perspective when it is responsible for getting us to imaginatively adopt a moral (or immoral) make-believe perspective. e exact mechanisms remain controversial.7 But what is incontrovertible is that there exists a relationship between what a ction gets us to imagine and what a ction gets us to think about reality. Let us turn our attention to the nuances of that relationship. 2 e Diversity of Fictions e realist mode of persuasion is a ne starting point for getting a grasp on ctions' role in moral persuasion. However, philosophers' typical focus on realism is dangerous because it tempts us to carelessly slide from this starting point to a problematic theory of ctions' capacity for moral persuasion. On this theory, persuasion invariantism, all ctions function in moral persuasion in the same way: they are are responsible for getting us to really adopt a moral (or immoral) real-world perspective when they are responsible for getting us to imaginatively adopt a similar moral (or immoral) makebelieve perspective. In other words, the realistmode of persuasion applies to all ctions. Showing where persuasion invariantism goes wrong exposes the dangers of taking realism as the paradigm in theorizing about ctions' role in moral persuasion. In this section, I argue that once we step outside of the comfortable con nes of realism, persuasion invariantismbegins to look implausible. e problem is the diversity of ctions: speci cally, different ctions have different modes of persuasion. As theorists, wewant to furnish a general account of how ctionsmorally educate and corrupt. To do 6An example from Lance and Little (2004) can help us understand this essentially evaluative sense of normality. A normal soccer game, we say, is played between two teams of 11 players. We could say this while acknowledging that many variants-such as "little league" soccer that is played by two teams of 20 players-exist, and that these variants statistically predominate. What makes 11-on-11 soccer normal, then, cannot be statistical typicality. Rather, 11-on-11 soccer is normal because we understand the variants by referring to and recognizing deviations from it. 7For example, Currie (1995) says that ctions get us to have certain values through the secondary imaginings they prescribe, Jacobson (1996) says that ctions give defeasible warrant for what would be tting to feel through the feelings they prescribe, and Kieran (1996) says that ctions grant us appropriate imaginative understandings to be deployed in moral assessments. Notice that each of these proposals contains a normative element, which is captured by the notion of being responsible for. 6 * Shen-yi Liao *Moral Persuasion and the Diversity of Fictions so, we must attend to all ctions and examine the ways in which they morally persuade. (Or, if they do not morally persuade, we must examine why this is so.) First, I consider the satirical novel Catch-22 and multiple interpretations of how it functions in moral persuasion.8 All the interpretations show that satires do not have a mode of persuasion that is the same as realist ctions'. Second, I consider the horror[end of p. 273] comedy lm Evil Dead 2 to further illustrate the diversity in modes of persuasion and to respond to an empirical objection to positing non-realist modes of persuasion. 2.1 Satires: the Case of Catch-22 Catch-22 persuades readers to question and challenge themoral absurdities that are associatedwithwars, militaries, and bureaucracies. Whatmakes it an interesting case in theorizing about ctions' capacity for moral persuasion is that it morally educates in a way that is distinct from theway that realist ctions do. Onmy preferred interpretation, Catch-22 is responsible for getting readers to really adopt amoral real-world perspective because it is responsible for getting readers to imaginatively adopt an immoral makebelieve perspective. Let me spell out this interpretation in more detail. e ctional world of Catch-22 is importantly unlike ours with respect to morality. As Harold notes in his discussion of the novel: First, there are cases ... where the narrator baldly claims that something that is clearly immoral was in fact justi ed: "Clevingerwas guilty, of course, or he would not have been accused, and since the only way to prove it was to nd him guilty, it was their patriotic duty to do so." Second, sometimes characters advocate horrifying moral views, which go unchallenged by the other characters. In these cases the implication is that in the world of the novel, these ideas are not reprehensible. (Harold 2007, 149–150) When engaging with this ction, we readers are prescribed to imaginatively adopt a make-believe perspective that treats themorally absurd as normal and sensible. Perhaps we imaginatively adopt this perspective in order to be immersed in this morally odd ctional world. Perhaps we imaginatively adopt this perspective in order to empathize with the morally odd characters who have similar views. What matters is that, at some point in reading the novel, we imaginatively adopt an immoral make-believe perspective as the ction prescribes us to do. Despite being responsible for getting us to imaginatively adopt a make-believe perspective that treats the morally absurd as normal and sensible, Catch-22 is not responsible for getting us to really adopt a real-world perspective that treats themorally absurd as normal and sensible. In fact, it does the opposite. It persuades us to really adopt a real-world perspective that questions and challenges the moral absurdities that are associated with real wars, militaries, and bureaucracies. Catch-22 thus constitutes a counterexample to persuasion invariantism. Persuasion invariantism would tell us that 8is section owes a great deal of intellectual debt to Harold (2007), which, in addition to providing a careful case study of Catch-22, emphasizes the importance of non-realist ctions for theorizing about ctions in general. Shen-yi Liao *Moral Persuasion and the Diversity of Fictions * 7 Catch-22 is morally corruptive because it is responsible for getting us to imaginatively adopt an immoral make-believe perspective. Accepting persuasion invariantism would therefore lead us to seriously misunderstand Catch-22's moral achievement. [end of p. 274] at is how I interpretCatch-22, at least. Importantly, even ifmy interpretationwere to turn out to be actually incorrect for Catch-22, we could still conceive of an artwork for which my interpretation would be correct.9 e possibility of such an artwork is sufficient for challenging persuasion invariantism. Hence, my foregoing interpretation illustrates one way that a ction can educate us that is distinct from the way that realist ctions do. Since I do not want to stake too much on one particular interpretation of Catch22, I will examine two alternatives next.10 e upshot is that, on these alternative interpretations, Catch-22 still requires us to imaginatively accept norms different from the norms that we really accept. No matter which of these interpretations turns out to be correct in the end, satires such as Catch-22 have a mode of persuasion distinct from that of realist ctions. So persuasion invariantism remains implausible when it comes to satires. Consider Harold's imaginative resistance interpretation. Harold claims that engaging with Catch-22 mandates us to resist imagining the morally outrageous and contradictory claims that the novel makes. Mandating imaginative resistance, he says, is what makes the work aesthetically valuable and successful: In Catch-22, however, imaginative resistance serves to engage the reader more fully with the events and ideas of the work. e book is lled with contradictions, and with morally outrageous propositions, which escalate as the book goes on. Our inability to imagine these propositions contributes to the work's value and success. (Harold 2007, 149) Initially, Harold appears to have a strong case. Imaginative resistance is associated with a jarring phenomenology, and many of the claims in Catch-22 certainly evokes that "what-is-going-on" feeling.11 However, we can see important differences between Catch-22 and paradigmatic imaginative resistance cases. Imaginative resistance-as I understand the phenomenon- 9I thank Jonathan Gilmore for pointing out this dialectical move. 10By no means are these the only other alternative interpretations available. For example, another interpretation may incorporate the notion of an implied author. On this interpretation, Catch-22 is responsible for getting us to question and challenge the moral absurdities that are associated with wars, militaries, and bureaucracies because it is responsible for getting us to imaginatively identify with the implied author, who also questions and challenges the moral absurdities that are associated with wars, militaries, and bureaucracies. Since the notion of an implied author remains controversial in both philosophical aesthetics and literary criticism, adequately presenting and evaluating this interpretation would take us far beyond the scope of this paper. Nevertheless, this interpretation remains a radical departure from the realist mode of persuasion. e upshot for this interpretation is thus the same as for the alternative interpretations considered below in text. I thank Sarah Buss for suggesting this interpretation and Daniel Jacobson for further discussion. 11Weatherson (2004) notes that sentences that evoke imaginative resistance tend to generate a striking, jarring reaction. Gendler (2006)'s "pop-out" terminology, as applied to these sentences, suggests a similar phenomenological characterization. 8 * Shen-yi Liao *Moral Persuasion and the Diversity of Fictions involves more than just the jarring phenomenology. Readers must also persistently resist imagining and accepting as ctional the claims that the work makes. ere is a nearby phenomenon, hermeneutic recalibration, that shares the phenomenology of imaginative resistance but differs in that readers' resistance is only temporary. It is a common literary technique to evoke hermeneutic recalibration; we frequently see it in, amongst other places, magical realist novels. In cases of hermeneutic recalibration, the jarring phenomenology is employed by the author to prompt readers to reconsider and reinterpret the work. For example, if one were new to magical realism, one might initially nd jarring the claim that a character was literally washed into this world on a great tide of tears. However, aer realizing that magical realist worlds come with their own sets of rules, claims like this cease to be jarring. is example would thus[end of p. 275] be a case of hermeneutic recalibration rather than a case of imaginative resistance. In contrast with paradigmatic imaginative resistance cases, in hermeneutic recalibration cases readers are able to come to a relatively stable reading of the ction on which the initially jarring claims cease to be so. Catch-22 seems to evoke hermeneutic recalibration rather than imaginative resistance.12 We are able to imagine the morally outrageous and contradictory claims once we recognize that the ctional world is importantly unlike ours. What is morally outrageous in our world could be perfectly sensible there. e rules that apply in our world need not apply there. On the relatively stable reading of the work, the morally outrageous and contradictory claims do make sense-not according to the norms that apply in the real world, but according to the norms that apply in the ctional world. Engaging with Catch-22, on this reading, mandates us to not only imagine the propositions asserted, but also to imaginatively adopt some norms that are opposites of the ones that we really hold. Consider now the ironic assertions interpretation.13 On this interpretation, all the moral absurdities and contradictions in Catch-22 are only instances of verbal irony. As is the case with ordinary ironic assertions, the ction asserts absurdities and contradictions only to bring out, to the readers, how ridiculous its subjects-including wars, militaries, and bureaucracies-really are. Does this interpretation entail that audiences need not imaginatively adopt immoral make-believe perspectives while engaging with Catch-22? To answer this question, we must consider the cognition of ordinary ironic assertions. While the matter remains controversial, there are plausible pretense accounts of gurative language in general, and irony in particular.14 In psychology, Clark and Gerrig (1984) argues for a pretense theory of irony. Drawing on Clark and Gerrig's account, Walton provides the following general account of irony: 12Harold could also be using the term "imaginative resistance" to refer to the emotional distance that Catch-22 mandates readers to maintain. As is the case with hermeneutic recalibration, it is a common literary technique to emotionally distance readers where appropriate. More importantly, as is the case with hermeneutic recalibration, emotional distance does not entail the lack of imaginings. I thank Daniel Jacobson for discussion on this point, and for coining the term "hermeneutic recalibration". 13I thank Kendall Walton for suggesting this alternative interpretation. 14Walton (1993) and Egan (2008) defend pretense theories of, respectively, metaphor and idiom. Shen-yi Liao *Moral Persuasion and the Diversity of Fictions * 9 To speak ironically is to mimic or mock those one disagrees with, ctionally to assert what they do or might assert. ...One shows what it is like to make certain claims, hoping thereby to demonstrate how absurd or ridiculous it is to do so. (Walton 1990, 222) On Walton's account, ordinary ironic assertions involve mini-games of make-believe. A speaker pretends that some absurd claim φ is not absurd in order to really convey that φ is absurd. In order to understand what is conveyed, a listener imaginatively judges that φ is not absurd in order to really recognize that φ is absurd. e centrality of imaginative perspective-taking to irony recognition is evidenced by psychological research. Individuals with de cits in imagination, such as autistics and schizophrenics, tend to have difficulties with recognizing and comprehending irony.15 erefore, [end of p. 276] recognition of ordinary ironic assertions plausibly requires the use of imagination: to really recognize an absurdity as such, one must imagine as if it were not so. If ironic assertions in ctions function like ordinary ironic assertions, then imaginative perspective-taking is central to understanding them too. Hence, even if the moral absurdities and contradictions in Catch-22 are best characterized as instances of verbal irony, readers are nevertheless required to exercise their imagination-speci cally, they must imaginatively adopt different norms-in order to engage with the ction. In fact, the pretense account of irony shows that persuasion invariantism is fundamentally misguided because it disregards the possibility that we learn about what-it's-like by pretending what-it's-not-like. 2.2 Horror Comedies: the case of Evil Dead 2, and an Empirical Objection Consider another case that further illustrates the diversity in modes of persuasion. Sometimes, despite being responsible for getting us to imaginatively adopt an immoral make-believe perspective, a ction is not responsible for getting us to really adopt a similar immoral make-believe perspective. For example, the tting response to a decapitation scene in the horror comedy lm Evil Dead 2 is to laugh rather than be morally outraged. Laughter is the tting response because a decapitation scene in a horror comedy is ctionally worthy of laughter. Of course, Evil Dead 2 does not get us to really think that a decapitation is any more really worthy of laughter than we thought before watching the lm. Despite getting us to imaginatively adopt a makebelieve perspective from which laughing at a decapitation is tting, Evil Dead 2 is not responsible for-contrary to what persuasion invariantism says-getting us to really adopt a real-world perspective from which laughing at a decapitation is tting. Similar 15Happé (1991) documents the difficulties with irony recognition that individuals with Asperger's syndrome encounter. Langdon et al. (2002) surveys the literature on schizophrenia and difficulties with irony recognition. To be precise, these psychologists have attributed difficulties with irony recognition to de cits in meta-representation and theory-of-mind, respectively. However, there is an extensive literature in both philosophy and developmental psychology, as surveyed in Liao and Gendler (2011), on the close ties between imagination, pretense, theory-of-mind, and meta-representation. e differences in details therefore do not threaten the present claim that imaginative perspective-taking is central to irony recognition. 10 * Shen-yi Liao *Moral Persuasion and the Diversity of Fictions cases are easy enough to nd once we know where to look: ctions that are morally and psychologically non-realistic. However, the excessive violence in horror comedies also seems to invite an empirical objection for positing non-realistmodes of persuasion.16 On the face of it, the emerging consensus in the empirical literature on violentmedia is that the consumption of violent media in fact in uences people's violent behaviors and attitudes. In philosophy, Hurley (2004) provides a review of this literature. In addition, Hurley draws on the cognitive psychology literature on imitation to argue that violentmedia affect audience's attitudes, desires, and dispositions in largely automatic and unconscious ways. So, the worry is that, even if we do not consciously think Evil Dead 2 morally desensitizes us to realworld decapitations, it in fact does. Of broader signi cance, the empirical literature on violent media appears to support applying the realist mode of persuasion to ctions outside of realism.[end of p. 277] e aw of this objection is the empirical literature that serves as its basis. Researchers of violent media themselves tend to be insensitive to the diversity of ctions. e stimuli used in their research thus tend to be the same kind of ctions on which philosophers have focused in theorizing about ctions' role in moral persuasion: morally and psychologically realistic ctions.17 Consequently, we cannot expect the results that these stimuli generate to be straightforwardly applicable to theorizing about non-realist ctions' role in moral persuasion. In fact, when researchers do take perceived realism into account in their studies, their ndings suggest that horror comedies like Evil Dead 2 are unlikely to be responsible for getting us to really adopt a real-world perspective from which laughing at a decapitation is tting. Even psychologist Rowell Huesmann, who has consistently argued that violentmedia has dangerous real-world effects, acknowledges the importance of recognizing differences in perceived realism: Observational-learning theory suggests that children who identify fairly strongly with an aggressive character or perceive a violent scene as realistic are especially likely to have aggressive ideas primed by the observed violence, to imitate the character, or to acquire a variety of aggressive scripts and schemas. ...Also, realistic portrayals are more likely to increase viewers' aggression than those presented in a more ctionalized or fantastic fashion. (Huesmann and Taylor 2006, 404)18 However, it is important to note that the differences between perceived realism that Huesmann and colleagues highlight are between individuals. So, while these differences suggest that the current empirical literature presents no challenge to positing different modes of persuasion for different kinds of ctions, they do not support positing 16I thank an anonymous referee for advancing this objection. 17Liao and Gendler (2011) press this point further in a related context, the empirical literature on the relationship between transportation (into ctional worlds) and persuasion. 18e basis for these claims is the longitudinal research presented in Huesmann et al. (2003), which provides more details on the role of perceived realism in mediating violent media's in uence on violent behaviors and attitudes. Shen-yi Liao *Moral Persuasion and the Diversity of Fictions * 11 different modes of persuasion either. Simply put, there is a need for further research on potential differences in realism between different kinds of ctions by empirical researchers of violent media and related topics. Sensitivity to the diversity of ctions is indispensable to ful lling this need. 3 Persuasion Variantism e implausibility of persuasion invariantism shows that a theory of ctions' capacity for moral persuasion must be sensitive to the diversity of ctions. In this section, I argue that genre is the key: a ction's mode of persuasion importantly depends on its genre. e resulting theory, genre persuasion variantism, is an attractive position because it both captures the variations that exist in the landscape of diverse ctions and preserves the explanatory power necessary for philosophical theorizing. First, I present an alternative development of persuasion variantism. As a foil, it [end of p. 278] shows why genre is useful for theorizing about ctions' capacity for moral persuasion. Second, I give an overviewof genre persuasion variantismbefore developing it in greater detail. ird, as a proof of concept, I show that genre persuasion variantism adequately explains the moral achievement of Catch-22. 3.1 Anti-eoretic Persuasion Variantism Persuasion variantism, as the name indicates, is a broad family of theories that are opposites of persuasion invariantism. It denies that all ctions function in moral persuasion in the same way. And that is all that can be said, according to one possible development of persuasion variantism; anti-theoretic persuasion variantism says that different ctions have different modes of persuasion but there are no principles for capturing these differences. Although we can say true things about particular ctions' capacity for moral persuasion, no true theory exists.19 As theorists, we should nd anti-theoretic persuasion invariantism unsatisfying. In trying to understand ctions' capacity for moral persuasion, we want to understand more than what happens in individual cases. We want to say, for example, that Triumph of theWill and Birth of a Nationmorally corrupt in similar ways, and understand where the similarity lies. We want an explanation of the difference between the ways that realist ctions like e Golden Bowl and satires like Catch-22 morally educate, and not merely acknowledging that there is a difference. Explanatory considerations thus place a presumptive demand of generality on the accounts that we develop. Anti-theoretic persuasion variantism's lack of explanatory power prompts us to search for a better alternative. Such an alternative can be had, I argue, if we bring genre into the picture. (Of course, at the end of the day, it is possible that other considerations will tilt the cost-bene t analysis in favor of anti-theoretic persuasion variantism. My aim is only to motivate the need to consider an alternative, not to make a full comparison.) 19I borrow this characterization of anti-theoretic persuasion variantism from Jacobson (2005)'s characterization of his anti-theoretic position in the ethical criticisms of art debate. is position is also inspired by particularism in ethics. 12 * Shen-yi Liao *Moral Persuasion and the Diversity of Fictions 3.2 Genre Persuasion Variantism: An Overview I take a genre to simply be a special grouping of ctions that is recognized by a community as such.20 Walton (1970)'s account of perceptually-distinguishable categories suggests one, but by no means the only, way of lling out this minimalist conception of genre.21 On Walton's account, a ction's appropriate classi cation in a genre depends on factors such as its relevant resemblance to other ctions in that genre, the artist's intentions, critical judgments, and that genre's propensity for aesthetic pleasure. epicture of genre space that falls out is rathermessy.22 ere exist relatively broad genres, such as drama, and relative narrow genres, such as Victorian romance. Some[end of p. 279] ctions may be the only actual exemplar of its genre, as is the case with rst works of new genres.23 Typically, a genre will overlapwith and stand in hierarchical relationships to many other genres. Typically, a ction is appropriately classi ed in multiple genres, someofwhichmay be particularly salient for a given aimor context. All these features of genre space introduce complications for assessing particular ctions' capacity for moral persuasion. But for now, let us set these complications aside to focus on the theoretical role that genre plays in explaining ctions' capacity for moral persuasion. Even though there are a variety of ctions, we have ways of grouping them sensibly that allow us to recognize theoretically-important similarities and differences amongst the diversity. at is what we do when we use terms like "horror comedies", "satires", and "realist ctions". e groupings that these terms pick out allow us to both recognize the diversity of ctions and preserve some theoretical unity. According to genre persuasion variantism: ceteris paribus, a ction's mode of persuasion depends on the genre(s) inwhich it is appropriately classi ed, for a given aimor context. In otherwords, a particular ction's genre offers pro tanto reasons for assessing its mode of persuasion. Next, I develop a version of genre persuasion variantism that takes the realist mode of persuasion andmy interpretation ofCatch-22 as starting points. On this development of genre persuasion variantism, the relationship between the real-world perspective that a ction is responsible for getting us to really adopt and the make-believe perspective that it is responsible for getting us to imaginatively adopt partly depends on the genre of the ction. It takes two steps to see how genre can vary the relationship between the make-believe and real-world perspectives that are appropriately associated with a ction. First, we must recognize the symmetry that exists between import, or what we put into imaginative engagements with ctions, and export, or what we take away from imaginative engagements with ctions. Second, we must recognize genre's in uence 20Context plays a role in specifying who the community includes. Which groupings are special for a given community is an empirical matter, and why they are special may require us to look to sociology or literary theory for a non-philosophical explanation. 21In contemporary philosophical aesthetics, Currie (2004) and Laetz and Lopes (2008) suggest other ways of lling out our minimalist conception of genre. 22I thank an anonymous referee for urging me to acknowledge the following complications. 23As an anonymous referee notes, this is a particularly contentious claim, but not without contemporary defenders. Carroll (2000) appears to defend the completeness of genre classi cations-every work belongs to at least one genre-in his extension of Walton's account to lm criticism. In a rather different tradition, Derrida (1980) asserts that "a text cannot belong to no genre, it cannot be without or less a genre. Every text participates in one or several genres, there is no genreless text" (65). Shen-yi Liao *Moral Persuasion and the Diversity of Fictions * 13 on import: it partly determines what is warranted to be ctional and what we ought to imagine. I now elaborate on these two steps that connect genre to export. 3.3 e Symmetry between Import and Export e terminology of import and export is introduced in Gendler (2000) to capture two important aspects of our interactions with ctions: what we put in and what we take away. To grasp these notions, we rst consider a realist ction case and focus on propositions that are believed and imagined. As we will see later, however, import and export involve more than just the contents of beliefs and imaginings, and the symmetry between import and export holds for non-realist ctions too. [end of p. 280] Start with import. Fictional worlds are rich entities: the propositions that are true in a ction oen outnumber the propositions that are explicitly expressed. We have rules about which of the non-explicitly-expressed propositions are allowed to be added to a ctional world outright, and which inferences we are allowed to make from what is explicitly expressed.24 ese are the import rules that tell us how to construct rich ctional worlds from the relatively few propositions explicitly expressed by words on a page or images on a screen. As an illustration, we can see import rules at work in our imaginative engagements with Pride and Prejudice. Even though Jane Austen never explicitly states that pride is a vice, we are nevertheless allowed to think so in the ctional world. We are allowed to think so because the ctional worlds of realist ctions are, for the most part, like ours. Since Pride and Prejudice reasonably counts as a realist ction, we can import much of what is true in our world (with some exceptions) into the ctional world, including the fact that pride is a vice.25 Import rules of a realist ction thus warrants us to imagine much of what we believe. Similarity is a symmetric relation.26 If we have good reasons to think that, in a given domain, a proposition is ctional if and only if it is true, then we have good reasons to both judge a proposition to be ctional once we know it is true (import) and judge a proposition to be true once we know that it is ctional (export). So the similarity between the ctional world of Pride and Prejudice and ours tells us more than what we can import; it also tells us what we can export. Speci cally, the export rules of realist ctions warrant us to believe much of what we imagine, at least the relatively general propositions.27 Gendler outlines two ways that export can happen: 24Walton (1990) calls these rules principles of generation and discusses their central role inmake-believe. See also Lewis (1978, 1983) and Currie (1990) for further discussion. 25I do not want to stake too much on this particular example. Although Gendler (2000) calls Pride and Prejudice a realist ction, the novel does contain parts that are melodramatically saccharine as well as parts that satirize societal norms. Perhaps the Henry James novels that Nussbaum (1990) invokes are better examples of the kind of works that I have in mind. 26Note that the symmetry here is epistemic, not metaphysical. Metaphysically, the ctionality of imported propositions depend on their actual truths, but the truth of exported propositions clearly do not depend on their ctionality. I thank Kendall Walton for pressing me to clarify the nature of the symmetry. 27What exactly are we warranted to export? Obviously, we should not export propositions regarding the existence of Elizabeth Bennet andMr. Darcy. As I suggest earlier, plausibly we should export psychological generalizations and broad moral norms. While it is difficult to give any precise answer, a good rule of thumb is that we are not warranted to export the particulars but we arewarranted to export the generalities. 14 * Shen-yi Liao *Moral Persuasion and the Diversity of Fictions e rst sort are those which make use of the narrative as clearinghouse: export things from the story that you the storyteller have intentionally and consciously imported, adding them to my stock in the way that I add knowledge gained by testimony. ...e second sort are those which make use of the narrative as factory: I export things from the story whose truth becomes apparent as a result of thinking about the story itself. ese I add to my stock the way I add knowledge gained by modeling. (Gendler 2000, 76–77) Using Pride and Prejudice as clearinghouse, we might come to believe the facts about social norms of the period that we also imagined. Using Pride and Prejudice as factory, we might come to believe that it is unwise to judge people by their rst impressions because we imagined so in response to Elizabeth Bennet's initial assessment of Mr. Darcy. ere is a symmetry between the import and export rules of realist ctions because they are both ultimately grounded in the symmetric relation of similarity that exists between realist ctional worlds and ours. It is worth emphasizing that import and export are about more than the contents of beliefs and imaginings. Hazlett (2009) and Hazlett and Mag Uidhir (2011), for example, adopt Gendler's terminology but narrowly construe import and export only in terms of propositions. However, as Gendler (2006) clari es, import and export also[end of p. 281] apply to other components of the mind: "When we imagine, we draw on our ordinary conceptual repertoire and habits of appraisal, and as the result of imagining, we may nd ourselves with novel insights about, and changed perspectives on, the actual world" (150–151). Conceptual repertoire and habits of appraisal are not reducible to beliefs; they involve our non-cognitive attitudes such as desires, emotions, and dispositions. So, import and export apply to all components of real-world and make-believe perspectives, not just beliefs and imaginings. It is also worth emphasizing that the symmetry between import and export holds for non-realist ctions too. What matters is that there exists some symmetric relation or relations between a ctional world and ours that grounds both import and export. Consider the ctional world of a science ction that is similar to ours with respect to morality but not with respect to physics. e import rules are thus such that we are allowed to add real-world moral norms to the ctional world, but not allowed to add real-world physical laws to the ctional world. Consequently, we are allowed to take away what the ction tells us about moral permissibility, but not allowed to take away what the ctions tells us about physical possibility. In this case, the symmetry between import and export is grounded in the similarity and the dissimilarity between the ctional world and ours. In addition to similarity and dissimilarity, another symmetric relation is opposition. Consider a ctional world that is the opposite of ours with respect to morality. Such a ction might be responsible for getting us to imaginatively adopt a make-believe perspective that is the opposite of what we really hold. Since opposition is symmetrical, we are thus to export the opposite of what the ction tells us to make-believe. Indeed, these are plausibly the import and export rules that govern the satirical parts of CatchShen-yi Liao *Moral Persuasion and the Diversity of Fictions * 15 22. Understanding the symmetry between import and export, and the relations that ground the symmetry, is thus an important step toward understanding how Catch-22 morally educates. More generally, it is also an important step toward understanding how genre in uences export. 3.4 Genre and Import We now consider the other important step: how genre in uences import. e conventions that are associated with a genre constrain which implicit propositions are warranted to be ctional and which inferential patterns are appropriate. In turn, genre conventions inform our expectations about the appropriate ways to approach a ction, such as what we are warranted to imagine. Outside of philosophy, writers, literary theorists, and psychologists have all recognized the signi cance of genre. Writer Henry James claims that our imaginative [end of p. 282] engagements with ctions are informed by our recognitions of genre conventions: "'Kinds' are the very life of literature, and truth and strength come from the complete recognition of them, from abounding to the utmost in their respective senses and sinking deep into their consistency" (James 1899, xvii). Literary theorist Tzvetan Todorov extends James's insight and characterizes genre as having dual functions: "as 'horizons of expectations' for readers and as 'models of writing' for authors" (Todorov 1990, 18). Genre partly determines what is true in a ctional world and what our expectations during imaginative engagements should be. Finally, psychologists have found that genre in uences the way that audiences' engage with ctions and the claims that they accept as ctionally true (Bilandzic and Busselle 2008; Woolley and Cox 2007; Zwaan 1994). e convergence of opinions attests to genre's in uence on our imaginative engagements with ctions. As systematizations of the features common to works in a given genre, genre conventions do not merely catalogue the common features, but say something about the relationships between them. As a simplistic example, a convention of the sciencection genre is that physical laws of the real world need not hold in the ctional world. In one sense, this convention is descriptive: it is in fact typical for works that are appropriately classi ed in sciencection to include violations of real-world physical laws. In another sense, this convention is also normative: being appropriately classi ed in sciencection warrants a work's inclusion of violations of real-world physical laws. Considered in the normative sense, genre conventions constrain the nature of relevant ctional worlds by contributing to the relevant import rules. Genre in uences our responses to ctions because it in uences the extent to which we bring our real-world perspective to bear onmake-believe. e example above shows that there are variations in the extent to which ctions demand us to bring our physical beliefs to bear on make-believe; realist ctions demand us to do so, but science ctions do not. ere are similar variations in the extent to which ctions demand us to bring our moral outlooks to bear on make-believe. For example, the conventions of horror comedies allow ctional worlds to morally deviate from the real world in the same way that the conventions of sciencections allow ctional worlds to nomically deviate from the real world. Consequently, while wemust bring ourmoral outlooks to bear on realist 16 * Shen-yi Liao *Moral Persuasion and the Diversity of Fictions ctions, we need not do so with horror comedies. 3.5 A Test for Genre Persuasion Variantism: Back to Catch-22 Finally, we can put the previous two points together: genre partly determines the export rules that govern a ction because it partly determines the import rules that govern a ction. As a proof of concept, let us reconsider the case of Catch-22. What[end of p. 283] persuasion invariantism fails to explain is how a ction can have a non-realist mode of persuasion. Genre persuasion variantism can easily explain how. As a ction in the genre of satire, Catch-22 does not ask us to import our moral perspectives into make-believe. Instead, we are to import the opposite: what we really nd morally reprehensible, we are to imaginatively nd it morally unproblematic. Given the symmetry between import and export, we are warranted to export the opposite of what we make-believe. Hence, even though the ction is responsible for getting us to imaginatively adopt an immoral make-believe perspective, the ction is responsible for getting us to come to really adopt a moral real-world perspective. Undoubtedly, even this is a simpli cation of how Catch-22 morally educates. We need not come to really adopt a real-world perspective that is the exact opposite of the make-believe perspective imagined. For some, the novel simply challenges them to examinemore carefully their existing attitudes towardwars, militaries, and bureaucracies. e symmetry between import and export is only an imprecise heuristic, and genre's contribution to import and export rules is only partial. Still, simpli cations have theoretical worth: they illuminate interesting general relationships that hold. Although genre persuasion variantism may only constitute a partial explanation of ctions' role in moral persuasion, it highlights the importance of genre in constructing a complete theory. A promising way to account for the diversity of ctions, I argue, is to recognize that genre gives pro tanto reasons for understanding ctions' capacity for moral persuasion. 4 Broader Implications I have presented a problem for theorizing about ctions' capacity for moral persuasion, the diversity of ctions, and produced a solution to it, genre persuasion variantism. In closing, let me draw attention to two broader implications of the problem and solution this paper develops. Practical ethics. Fictions' capacity for moral persuasion serves as the basis for a multitude of claims in everyday ethical debates. It comes up in campaigns for including "great books"-the classics of Western literature-in primary education curricula. It comes up in criticisms of violent video games' effects on the teenagers that play them. It comes up in criticisms of pornography's negative impact on its consumers andwomen in general. A nuanced theory of ctions' capacity for moral persuasion thus gives us a more informed perspective for engaging in these debates.28 28Liao andProtasi (2013) applies the theoreticalwork in this paper to re neEaton (2007, 2008)'s feminist criticism of inegalitarian pornography. Shen-yi Liao *Moral Persuasion and the Diversity of Fictions * 17 Moral and aesthetic psychology. Besides philosophers, other researchers interested in the real-world impact of narratives should also be sensitive to the diversity of ctions. [end of p. 284] For example, violent media researchers in psychology and communication studies should use stimuli from non-realistic genres in their assessments of violent media's in uence on people's violent behaviors and attitudes. 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