Are horror films immoral? Gianluca Di Muzio argues that horror films of a certain kind are immoral because they undermine the reactive attitudes that are responsible for human agents being disposed to respond compassionately to instances of victimization. I begin with this argument as one instance of what I call the Argument from Reactive Attitudes (ARA), and I argue that Di Muzio’s attempt to identify what is morally suspect about horror films must be revised to provide the most persuasive interpretation (...) of the ARA. I then argue that the ARA provides a compelling standard for evaluating the moral permissibility of creating and viewing horror films, yet I note that it is an exceedingly difficult practical task evaluating the risk that these films create for our reactive attitudes. My conclusion is that the ARA provides a useful way or orienting ourselves to the complicated details of evaluating the moral status of horror films. (shrink)

Though each of its four constituent essays has received scholarly attention in itself, Hume?s Four Dissertations (1757) has received virtually no consideration from scholars as a unified whole. This article offers such an assessment, and argues that two crucially Humean themes link the four texts. First, they show the applicability of Hume?s theory of the passions to a wide range of questions: to the philosophy of religion, to psychology, and to aesthetics. Second, they show Hume grappling with the tension between (...) his iconoclastic religious skepticism and his valorization of tolerant and sociable exchange between thinkers with differing views. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume 29, Number 2, November 2003, pp. 305-325 Hume, Sympathy, and the Theater BRIAN KIRBY Every movement of the theater, by a skillful poet, is communicated, as it were by magic, to the spectators; who weep, tremble, resent, rejoice, and are inflamed with all the variety of passions, which actuate the several personages of the drama. (EPM 5.2.26; SBN 221-2) Much has been written recently about the (...) role of sympathy in Hume's moral theory. That may indeed be its most important use. But it seems from a number of illustrations he uses that it has broader applications, in particular, application to a spectator's appreciation of drama. The problem some see with this broader application is that it conflicts with the basic definition of sympathy as a process by means of which impressions are shared. The actors on the stage would not seem to have the same passions which "inflame" the spectators. Worse, the spectators do not believe in their hearts that the passions which inflame them have real correlates. At first blush, "sympathy" might mean any one of several things. In "The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn," for example, Jonathan Bennett says, "As for 'sympathy': I use this term to cover every sort of fellow-feeling, as when one feels pity over someone's loneliness, or horrified compassion over his pain, and when one feels a shrinking reluctance to act in a way which will bring misfortune to someone else."1 However, fellow-feeling is not a sharing of feelings in Hume's sense. Alvin I. Goldman comes closer to Hume's meaning in a narrow description of empathy: "To empathize with someone, in its Brian Kirby, Associate Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at St. Lawrence University, is at 172 Miner Street Road, Canton, NY 13617, USA. e-mail: [email protected] 306 Brian Kirby most frequent sense, is to sympathize or commiserate, which involves shared attitudes, sentiments, or emotions."2 Still, Hume's sympathy is not the commiseration but rather what is involved in the commiseration, the shared attitudes, sentiments, and emotions. "No quality of human nature," says Hume, "is more remarkable, both in itself and in its consequences, than that propensity we have to sympathize with others, and to receive by communication their inclinations and sentiments, however different from, or even contrary to our own" (T 2.1.11.2; SBN 316). The principle of sympathy as he describes it in his technical sense is as follows: When any affection is infus'd by sympathy, it is at first known only by its effects, and by those external signs in the countenance and conversation, which convey an idea of it. This idea is presently converted into an impression, and acquires such a degree of force and vivacity, as to become the very passion itself, and produce an equal emotion, as any original affection. However instantaneous this change of the idea into an impression may be, it proceeds from certain views and reflections, which will not escape the strict scrutiny of a philosopher, tho' they may the person himself, who makes them. (T 2.1.11.3; SBN 317) If sympathy has to do with the sharing of impressions, what can one say about possible broader applications in which the correlate impression is absent? One tack to take is to dismiss the illustrative examples as aberrations or at least minor inconsistencies on Hume's part. A second is to argue that the broader applications follow reasonably, given Hume's description of the mechanism of sympathy. I propose, in this paper, to take the second tack. The above description characterizes what one might call sympathy in its normal social context in which the feelings of another are identifiable from his verbal and bodily behavior. Of course, the identification is not infallible. The other person may intend to deceive by lying or mimicking the behavior associated with a feeling. But such occasions are parasitic on normal contexts. But beyond the normal social context, there are other occasions which elicit sympathy, situations in which passions are aroused in the sympathizers for good cause, but which have no correspondent in the objects of sympathy. The case... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume 30, Number 2, November 2004, pp. 213-236 Pleased and Afflicted: Hume on the Paradox of Tragic Pleasure E. M. DADLEZ How fast can you run? As fast as a leopard. How fast are you going to run? A whistle sounds the order that sends Archie Hamilton and his comrades over the top of the trench to certain death. Racing to circumvent that order and arriving seconds (...) too late, Archie's friend Frank screams in rage and despair. Archie is cut down before he has run twenty yards. Peter Weir's film Gallipoli is a chronicle of the disastrous Dardanelles campaign of the first World War, but it is also a film about racing. Archie is trained by his uncle Jack to run "as fast as a leopard." The film begins as it ends, with Archie sprinting in response to a whistle. Frank is first shown racing after a train, along with friends who are on their way to enlist. Archie and Frank meet while competing in a race, they race in Cairo once they have enlisted, and they finally race death. From the beginning, Archie has been faster; even at the end he is the first to die. And from the beginning he has swept Frank along in his wake, encouraging him, pushing him, inspiring him, and helping him to positions for which he is inadequately qualified. In the end, Archie's compassion and kindness prompt a decision which has grim consequences both for himself and for hundreds of others. Knowing that his friend fears death in the trenches, Archie recommends Frank as a substitute for himself, a designated message runner. But Frank is not fast enough, and falls short by mere seconds which Archie would not have lost. This is what leads to the failure of the one real effort to countermand the fatal charge. E. M. Dadlez is Professor of Humanities and Philosophy, University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond, OK 73034, USA. e-mail: [email protected] 214 E. M. Dadlez I am an emotional wreck by the time the movie is over, though I should admit that most of my tears are the result of sheer rage. Both my dogs exited the room in some haste once I began to shout at the television and the unpardonably dimwitted British officers who sat sipping tea at a comfortable distance as they gave the order for soldiers to commit suicide. But it isn't just the scope of the real human disaster, or the enormity of the blunder, or the pointlessness of the entire enterprise, or even my renewed conviction that stupidity is, in fact, evil, that is so unsettling. The film unnerves with respect to personal as well as global concerns, focusing attention on the chance of vanity's leading one to undertake responsibilities beyond one's competence, the possibility of advancement or security being achievable only at the expense of another, and the realization of how easy it might be to let those things happen. Gallipoli is a sad, disturbing film, and the spectator is grieved and disturbed in the course of watching it. Yet, having said that, I must own to having a copy in my possession, and to having watched it more than once. I recommend it to friends, offering to lend them my videotape. In fact, I press it on them. I say that it is a terrific, rewarding work which they should take the time to see. How is it that I can describe my experience of the film in such glowing terms and at the same time acknowledge the extreme distress I felt in the course of watching it? How can I reconcile the discordant aspects of my experience? David Hume explores some possible answers in his essay "Of Tragedy."1 He begins by calling attention to the paradox of tragic pleasure: It seems an unaccountable pleasure, which the spectators of a well written tragedy receive from sorrow, terror... and other passions, which are in themselves disagreeable and uneasy. The more they are touched and affected, the more are they delighted with the spectacle.... The whole art of the poet is employed in rousing and supporting the compassion and... (shrink)

While there is hardly an aspect of Hume’s work that has not produced controversy of one sort or another, deciphering and evaluating his views on aesthetics involves overcoming interpretive barriers of a particular sort. In addition to what is generally taken as the anachronistic attribution of “aesthetic theories” to any thinker of the eighteenth century, Hume presents the added difficulty that unlike the other founding-fathers of modern philosophical aesthetics, he produced no systematic work on the subject, and certainly nothing comparable (...) to his efforts in epistemology, morals, politics, history, and religion. Even interpreting Hume’s most definitive expression of his views on aesthetic questions—the famous essay “Of the Standard of Taste”—is fraught with difficulties and, as the diversity of views on the piece demonstrates, only the most confident reader would take it as an unambiguous statement of Hume’s position. (shrink)