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Morality Fiction and Ethical Escapism

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Notes

  1. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes From Underground/ the Double, trans. Jessie Coulson. (New York: Penguin, 1982), pp. 58-9.

  2. Kendall L. Walton, “Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality (I),” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 68:1 (1994): 27–50.

  3. ‘Imaginative resistance’ is due to Richard Moran, “The Expression of Feeling in Imagination,” Philosophical Review 103:1 (1994): 75–106. https://doi.org/10.2307/2185873. After Walton, wider debate stems from Tamar Szabó Gendler, “The Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance,” The Journal of Philosophy 97:2 (2000): 55–81. https://doi.org/10.2307/2678446. For an “opinionated” survey, see Tamar Szabó Gendler, and Shen-yi Liao, “The Problem of Imaginative Resistance,” in John Gibson and Noël Carroll, eds., The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Literature (London: Routledge, 2016), 405–18. Brian Weatherson, “Morality, Fiction, and Possibility.” Philosophers’ Imprint 4 (2004): 1–27, distinguishes four IR-related puzzles: alethic, imaginative, phenomenological, aesthetic. This division is influential, bordering on standard in IR debate contexts, but does not map onto my account, due to my focus on genre and my split between fictional content/fictionalized. See §§6, 10. See also Kendall Walton, “On the (So‐called) Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance,” in Shaun Nichols, ed., The Architecture of the Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 137-48. Per his title, Walton does not approve every IR puzzle but does persist in puzzlement, per original paper. He favors Weatherson’s fourfold puzzle division. Again, I do not, but I think my frame is fair to Walton.

  4. Walton (1994), op. cit., p. 37.

  5. See Todd Cain, “Imaginability, Morality, and Fictional Truth: Dissolving the Puzzle of ‘Imaginative Resistance,’” Philosophical Studies 143:2 (2009): 187–211. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-007-9198-5; and Kathleen Stock, “Resisting Imaginative Resistance.” Philosophical Quarterly 55:221 (2005): 607–24. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0031-8094.2005.00419.x; and Shen-yi Liao, “Imaginative Resistance, Narrative Engagement, Genre.” Res Philosophica 93:2 (2016): 461–82. https://doi.org/10.11612/resphil.2016.2.93.3. Todd and Stock fault the potted quality of Giselda-type sentences, pointing out how, transplanted into richer settings, they thrive. This amounts to saying 2-4 are viable. Liao investigates the tipping point between 3 and 4, in effect. 1—author preaches baby murder—also arises. See Gender (op. cit.), also her “Imaginative Resistance Revisited,” in Shaun Nichols, ed., The Architecture of the Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 149–73, on ‘import/export’ and ‘quarantining’; see, relatedly, Adriana Clavel-Vázquez, “The Diversity of Intrinsic Ethical Flaws in Fiction,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 78:2 (2020): 143–55.

  6. See Ursula K. Le Guin, “Is Gender Necessary Redux”, in The Language of the Night, Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction (New York: HarperPerennial, 1993), 155-172, pp. 161-3.

  7. Ursula Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness (New York: Ace, 1976), p. ix.

  8. For SF that is MF, showing how unlikely this stuff is to catch on, see John Holbo, “Morality Tale”, Sci Phi Journal, June 26, 2017. https://www.sciphijournal.org/index.php/2017/06/26/morality-tale-by-john-holbo/.

  9. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), p. 41.

  10. Gendler and Liao, op. cit., adopt this division in §2 of their survey.

  11. Nancy Bauer, How to Do Things with Pornography (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015), p. 5.

  12. Aeon Skoble, “Superhero Revisionism,” in Tom Morris and Matt Morris, eds., Superheroes and Philosophy: Truth, Justice and the Socratic Way (Chicago: Open Court, 2001), 29-42, p. 33.

  13. Doubters may demand a case, Detective Comics page or panel. I say that would irrelevantly invite over-ingenious lawyering. Marvel editors used to award ‘no prizes’ to fans who purported to fill awkward plot holes. I say ‘no-prizing’ past my point would be pointless. Apply common sense. Superheroes act crazy, by actual standards.

  14. Steven Yablo, “Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda,” in Tamar Szabó Gendler and John Hawthorne, eds. Conceivability and Possibility (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002), 441-92, p. 485.

  15. From an interview with Mike Avon Oeming in Brian Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming, Powers: Anarchy (Portland: Image, 2003), no page number.

  16. Quoted in Maurizio Fagioli and Angela Cipriani, Bernini (Florence: SCALA, 1981), p. 23.

  17. See Robin S. Rosenberg, Robin S and Jennifer Canzoneri, The Psychology of Superheroes: An Unauthorized Exploration (Dallas: BenBella Books, 2008); also, Tom Morris and Matt Morris, Superheroes and Philosophy: Truth, Justice, and the Socratic Way (Chicago: Open Court, 2001). None the 40-odd entries in these volumes so much as entertains either MD or ML as a possibility.

  18. Quoted in Craig Dethloff, “Coming Up to Code: Ancient Divinities Revisted,” in Classics and Comics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 103–14.

  19. See Peter Coogan, Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre (Austin: MonkeyBrain Books, 2006) for the fullest discussion to date of superhero genre conventions.

  20. Gendler (2000), op. cit., p. 56 and 56 n 6.

  21. Walton (2006), op. cit., p. 144.

  22. See Kathleen Stock, Just Imagine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), p. 1. “In the first half of this book, I offer a theory of fictional content or, as it is sometimes known, ‘fictional truth’ …. The basic idea—very roughly … is that the fictional content of a particular text is equivalent to exactly what the author of the text intended the reader to imagine.” For her this is controversial only due to ‘intended’. Intentionalism aside, she does not consider anyone might split terms, further, as I do.

  23. I am not the first to focus on genre as key to IR-related issues. See Liao (2016), op. cit.. He lacks my fictional content/fictionalized distinction. He agrees MF is possible. He discusses empirical psychology and a pair of Giselda variants I would handle differently. See note 5. Debating Liao would be good but our frameworks are not mutually fitted enough to do his view justice in passing. Relatedly, see Aaron Meskin and Jonathan M. Weinberg, “Imagination Unblocked,” in The Aesthetic Mind: Philosophy and Psychology (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011), 239–54.

  24. See David Hajdu, The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America (New York: Pan Macmillan, 2009).

  25. Gershon Legman, Love and Death: A Study in Censorship, 2nd ed. (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1963), first published 1949, pp. 33-4; excerpted in Jeet Heer and Kent Worcester, Arguing Comics: Literary Masters on a Popular Medium (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004), p. 118. I quote Legman as provocatively cogent, not as historically representative. The most influential—notorious—indictment of comics from this era is Frederic Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent (place of publication not identified: Main Road Books, 2004), published in 1954. Legman and Wertham appear together on a panel on “The Psychopathology of Comic Books” in 1948. See American Journal of Psychotherapy, 2:3 (1948), 472-90 for abstracts. Anti-comics editorials appear as early as 1940. The first prominent ‘superheroes are fascist’ statement is by Walter J. Ong, “Comics and the Super State”, Arizona Quarterly, Autumn (1945), 34-48, quoted in “Are Comics Fascist?”, Time Magazine, October 22 (1945); https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,778464-1,00.html.

  26. Alan Moore says it started, for him, with Kurtzman. See Brian Cremins, “Quotations from the Future: Harvey Kurtzman’s ‘Superduperman,’ Nostalgia, and Alan Moore’s Miracleman,” Studies in American Humor, 30 (2014): 169–89.

  27. In 1942, five years after Superman’s debut, no lesser a light than Vladimir Nabokov submits to The New Yorker a parody poem about the Man of Tomorrow, pondering perils of supersex. It is unpublished until 2021. See Andrei Babikov, “Superman Returns, an Unpublished Poem by Vladimir Nabokov”, in The Times Literary Supplement, March (2021). https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/superman-returns-poem-vladimir-nabokov-andrei-babikov/.

  28. Richard Reynolds, Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1994), p. 77.

  29. See Susan Sontag, “The Imagination of Disaster,” in Against Interpretation (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966), 209-25.

  30. See Sean Howe, Marvel Comics: The Untold Story (New York: Harper, 2012), p. 101. The reset convention is adopted for branding reasons but also has inherent appeal.

  31. Norman Spinrad, The Iron Dream (New York: Avon, 1974), is alt-history metafiction. Hitler emigrates to the US after W.W. I, becoming the author of the Hugo award-winning The Lord of the Swastika, an SF novel of courageous Trueman survivors of a nuclear war. They wage righteous war against hordes of subhuman mutants and sinister Dominators. Lord, in inglorious entirety, comprises the bulk of Spinrad’s book, plus a frame narrative in the voice of an appreciative critic who fails to see how dark it is.

  32. Walton (1994), op. cit., p. 37.

  33. Carl Schmitt and Tracy B. Strong, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty. George Schwab, trans. 1st ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006).

  34. Gendler (2000), op. cit., p. 67.

  35. Weatherson, op. cit., p. 1.

  36. Walton (1994), op. cit., p. 41.

  37. Graham Priest, “Sylvan’s Box: A Short Story and Ten Morals.” Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 38:4 (1997): 573–82, p. 573. https://doi.org/10.1305/ndjfl/1039540770.

  38. Bence Nanay, “Imaginative Resistance and Conversational Implicature,” Philosophical Quarterly 60:240 (2010): 586–600. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9213.2009.625.x.

  39. See John Holbo, “Morality Tale”, Sci Phi Journal, June 26, 2017. https://www.sciphijournal.org/index.php/2017/06/26/morality-tale-by-john-holbo/.

  40. See Thomas G. Pavel, The Lives of the Novel: A History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013).

  41. William Empson, Some Versions of Pastoral (New York: New Directions, 1974), p. 140.

  42. Lionel Trilling, Sincerity and Authenticity, 1st ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), p. 15.

  43. See Martha Nussbaum, “Exactly and Responsibly: A Defense of Ethical Criticism.” Philosophy and Literature 22:2 (1998): 343–65. https://doi.org/10.1353/phl.1998.0047; Richard Posner, “Against Ethical Criticism.” Philosophy and Literature 21:1 (1997): 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1353/phl.1997.0010; “Against Ethical Criticism: Part Two.” Philosophy and Literature 22:2 (1998): 394–412. https://doi.org/10.1353/phl.1998.0048.

  44. Vladimir Nabokov, “Good Readers and Good Writers,” in Lectures on Literature, Fred Bowers, ed. (New York: Harcourt, 1980), 1-35, p. 1.

  45. Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night (New York: Random House, 2009), p. 5.

  46. See Colin Freeze, “What Would Jack Bauer Do?” The Globe and Mail, June 16, 2007; https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/what-would-jack-bauer-do/article687726/; Steve Benin, “Antonin Scalia's Spirited Defense of Torture”, MSNBC; https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/antonin-scalias-spirited-defense-torture-msna485861.

  47. Daniel Avery, “Marvel’s The Punisher Lays the Beatdown on Cops Who Use His Skull Symbol for ‘Blue Lives Matter’ Movement.” Newsweek, July 15, 2019; https://www.newsweek.com/punisher-police-blue-lives-matter-skull-logo-1449272.

  48. See David A. Pizarro and Roy Baumeister, “Superhero Comics as Moral Pornography”, in Robin S. Rosenberg, ed., Our Superheroes, Ourselves (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 19-36.

  49. Pizarro and Baumeister puzzle over ‘paradoxical popularity of the supervillain.’ I don’t see it. People enjoy imagining being bad—also good. My account grapples with how we have it both ways, but this much is obvious: transgression is often tempting.

  50. Friedrich Nietzsche’s major works all at least touch on this theme. Any good edition of The Genealogy of Morals may do for commencement of study.

  51. That habituation to dehumanization may be harmful needs no defense but see David Livingston, On Inhumanity. Dehumanization and How to Resist It (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).

  52. For the latest, see M.H. Miller and Alan Moore, “The Grand Return of Alan Moore”, October 18 (2022) GQ Magazine. https://www.gq.com/story/alan-moore-interview. The details of Moore’s view matter, but his presentation is invariably polemical, typically off-the-cuff, so any student must collect and consider carefully.

  53. ‘Authoritarian personality’ is due to Erich Fromm. The term is better known due to Theodor Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford, The Authoritarian Personality (London: Verso, 2019). I do not presume to say whose use, if any, should be authoritative. The Victorian ‘cult of the child’ is, likewise, a many-sided topic. I recommend Empson, op. cit., for coordination of ‘child-cult’ with other forms and genres.

  54. Quoted in Bruce Krimmse and Virginia R. Laursen, eds., Encounters With Kierkegaard, a Life as Seen by his Contemporaries (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 74.

  55. Most of Kierkegaard’s philosophy concerns faith. Start with any good edition of Fear and Trembling.

  56. See C. Thi Nguyen, Games: Agency as Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).

  57. Isaiah Berlin, The Roots of Romanticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), p. 37.

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    John Holbo

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Holbo, J. Morality Fiction and Ethical Escapism. J Value Inquiry (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-023-09934-9

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