- Title
- Elizabeth Costello and the Biography of the Moral Philosopher
- Creator
- Jones, Ward E
- Subject
- To be catalogued
- Date
- 2011
- Type
- text
- Type
- article
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/275635
- Identifier
- vital:55065
- Identifier
- xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6245.2011.01462.x"
- Description
- Imagine someone who informs you that her conversion to vegetarianism began when she read Charlotte's Web or viewed the film Babe. Both stories invite the reader to celebrate the events surrounding a pig being saved from the butcher. What kind of role would her spectatorship of this book or film have played in her conversion? It is perhaps improbable to suspect that she would have undergone this kind of extreme moral conversion solely on the basis of her engagement with one of these fictions; perhaps more likely is the scenario in which her engagement was only one part of a lengthy process of her moral change of mind. In any event, it is certainly possible that our imagined vegetarian would see her encounter with Charlotte's Web or Babe as playing a justificatory role in her conversion. In looking back at her conversion, she might say something like this: “I know that I was young and impressionable, but the way in which the book (or film) made me feel about its characters moved me to further reflect upon animals and the animal industry, and I now realize that it was right to do so.” On her own view, at least, her spectatorship motivated and warranted her taking the further steps that ultimately led to her conversion. If she is right, then fictional narratives can possess—to at least some degree—what Raimond Gaita refers to as an ethical “authority.”
- Format
- computer, online resource, application/pdf, 1 online resource (12 pages), pdf
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Language
- English
- Relation
- The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Jones, W.E., 2011. Elizabeth Costello and the Biography of the Moral Philosopher. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 69(2), pp.209-220, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism volume 69 number 2 p. 209 2011 1540-6245
- Rights
- Publisher
- Rights
- Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of Oxford University Press (https://academic.oup.com/pages/legal-and-policy/legal-notice)
- Rights
- Closed Access
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Collections
Jones, Ward (Prof)
RU Department of Philosophy
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | Elizabeth Costello and the Biography of the Moral Philosopher.pdf | 846 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |