scholarly journals A Literary Aesthetics of War Crime

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (61) ◽  
pp. 135-153
Author(s):  
Rafe McGregor
Keyword(s):  
Moral Economy ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Systematic Relationship ◽  
Literary Aesthetics ◽  
Moral Uncertainty ◽  
Ethics Of Reading ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Literary Devices

In order to develop a literary aesthetics of war crime, I examine the phenomenon of moral immunity in military memoir. Using three paradigmatic examples of memoirs of unjust wars characterised by the routine perpetration of war crimes, I argue that moral immunity is achieved by means of three literary devices: literary irresponsibility, ethical peerage, and moral economy. I then employ the proposed literary aesthetics of war crime to provide an answer to the perennial question of the relationship between literature and morality as well as to two specific instantiations of this question, the value interaction debate in literary aesthetics and the ethics of reading in literary theory. My conclusion is that the literary aesthetics of war crime demonstrates both that there is a systematic relationship between aesthetic value and moral value and that there is no systematic relationship between literary ambiguity and moral uncertainty.

On Sacrifice

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshe Halbertal
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Life ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Hierarchical Relationship ◽  
Ritual Violence ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Political Ideal ◽  
Self Transcendence ◽  
Political Associations ◽  
The Relationship

The idea and practice of sacrifice play a profound role in religion, ethics, and politics. This book explores the meaning and implications of sacrifice, developing a theory of sacrifice as an offering and examining the relationship between sacrifice, ritual, violence, and love. The book also looks at the place of self-sacrifice within ethical life and at the complex role of sacrifice as both a noble and destructive political ideal. In the religious domain, Halbertal argues, sacrifice is an offering, a gift given in the context of a hierarchical relationship. As such it is vulnerable to rejection, a trauma at the root of both ritual and violence. An offering is also an ambiguous gesture torn between a genuine expression of gratitude and love and an instrument of exchange, a tension that haunts the practice of sacrifice. In the moral and political domains, sacrifice is tied to the idea of self-transcendence, in which an individual sacrifices his or her self-interest for the sake of higher values and commitments. While self-sacrifice has great potential moral value, it can also be used to justify the most brutal acts. The book attempts to unravel the relationship between self-sacrifice and violence, arguing that misguided self-sacrifice is far more problematic than exaggerated self-love. Through the book's exploration of the positive and negative dimensions of self-sacrifice, it also addresses the role of past sacrifice in obligating future generations and in creating a bond for political associations, and considers the function of the modern state as a sacrificial community.

Attention

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Bommarito
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Attention Deficit ◽  
Attention Deficit Disorder ◽  
Moral Character ◽  
Moral Concern ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
The Relationship

After a brief overview of the nature of attention, I argue that attention (and inattention) can be morally virtuous or vicious independently of associated overt actions. This is not, as others have claimed, because attention itself has moral value, but because attention can manifest underlying moral concern. After discussing the relationship between attention and concern, I discuss problematic cases related to mental disorders, in particular attention-deficit disorder and scrupulosity. I then apply the account to particular virtues associated with attention: modesty and gratitude. Gratitude, I argue, involves attention to our benefits and their sources, while modesty involves special patterns of attention away from our own good qualities. This account best explains how attention can be relevant to moral character.

Moral economy: What’s in a name

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
James G Carrier
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
The Past ◽  
Empty Symbol ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Moral Economic

The idea of moral economy has been increasingly popular in the social sciences over the past decade, given a confusing variety of meanings and sometimes invoked as an empty symbol. This paper begins by describing this state of affairs and some of its undesirable corollaries, which include unthinking invocations of the moral and simplistic views of some sorts of economic activity. Then, referring especially to the work of EP Thompson and James C Scott, this paper proposes a more precise definition of moral economy that roots moral economic activity in the mutual obligations that arise when people transact with each other over the course of time. It thus distinguishes between the moral values that are the context of economic activity and those that arise from the activity itself. The solution that the paper proposes to the confused state of ‘moral economy’ can, therefore, be seen as terminological, as the sub-title suggests, but it is intended to have the substantive benefits of a better approach to economic activity and circulation and a more explicit and thoughtful attention to moral value.

scholarly journals Visual form beyond traditional media——On the expression and construction of watercolor art in digital painting

2020 ◽  
Vol 189 ◽  
pp. 03013
Author(s):  
Shan Li
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Digital Image ◽  
Construction Process ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Traditional Form ◽  
Digital Painting ◽  
New Space ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Relationship

In the context of the development of digital image era and digital media art, watercolor art, as a traditional form of painting, will inevitably experience a subversive change and transformation of painting methods and ideas. By analyzing the artistic expression and construction process of watercolor art in digital painting, this paper finds out the aesthetic value and significance of watercolor art in digital painting, discusses the relationship between traditional watercolor painting and digital painting and the new space of watercolor development in the future.

scholarly journals Against Empathy Bias: The Moral Value of Equitable Empathy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoe Fowler ◽  
Kyle Fiore Law ◽  
Brendan Gaesser
Keyword(s):  
Moral Life ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Mechanical Turk ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Amazon's Mechanical Turk ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theoretical Insight ◽  
Insight Into

Empathy has long been considered central in living a moral life. However, mounting evidence has shown that empathy is often biased towards (i.e., felt more strongly for) close and similar others, igniting a debate over whether empathy is inherently morally flawed and should be abandoned in efforts to strive towards greater equity. This debate has focused on whether empathy limits the scope of our morality, with little consideration of whether it may be our moral beliefs limiting our empathy. Across two studies conducted on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (N= 604), we investigate moral judgments of biased and equitable feelings of empathy. We observed a moral preference for empathy towards socially close over distant others. However, feeling equal empathy for all is seen as the most morally and socially valuable. These findings provide new theoretical insight into the relationship between empathy and morality with implications for navigating towards a more egalitarian future.

scholarly journals The Sentimentalism of W. Godwin’s Early Novels

2021 ◽  
pp. 117-127
Author(s):  
М.А. Серегина
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Writing Style ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Literary Devices ◽  
Bear Witness

В статье рассматриваются ранние малоизученные романы английского писателя, журналиста и философа Уильяма Годвина «Деймон и Делия», «Имоджен» и «Итальянские письма». Цель данного исследования — выделение их сентиментальной основы, осознание ее эстетической значимости в художественной структуре произведений. Анализ ранних романов позволяет выделить в них характерные для сентиментализма особенности: преобладание естественного чувства над разумом, мотивы любования природой, возвышенным и прекрасным, восхищение искусством и сентиментальной поэзией, определившие характер героев и специфику сюжетно-мотивного комплекса. У. Годвин активно обращается к сентименталистской стилистике, используя как традиционные, так и оригинальные художественно-выразительные средства, которые основываются на контрасте как главном способе воздействия на читателя. Автор статьи приходит к выводу, что на раннем этапе творчества писателя происходит становление стиля и особого способа художественного выражения его философских и политических идей, тем самым опровергается широко распространенное мнение о том, что ранние романы У. Годвина не содержат каких-либо важных для его философии идей. Кроме того, анализируемые романы исходя из их жанрово-стилевой специфики можно отнести к типично сентиментальным произведениям. Данное исследование и его результаты могут быть использованы для дальнейшего анализа и изучения раннего творчества У. Годвина и для создания более полной панорамы его работ. The article treats an English writer, journalist and philosopher William Godwin’s previously underinvestigated novels “Damon and Delia”, “Imogen”, and “Italian Letters”. The aim of the research is to explore the sentimental aspects lying at the basis of the novels and to assess their aesthetic value. The analysis of W. Godwin’s early works enables one to trace in them some features characteristic of sentimental novels, such as prevalence of sentiment over common sense, fascination with nature, admiration for exquisite beauty, appreciation of art and sentimental poetry. All these characteristics account for the choice of personages and narrative devices. W. Godwin’s works abound with sentimentalism. The writer employs both traditional and unique stylistic devices, whose essence lies in contrast as the main means of affecting the reader. The author of the article concludes that W. Godwin’s early works bear witness to the evolution of W. Godwin’s writing style and to his search of literary devices which enable him to express his philosophical and political ideas. Therefore, the author of the article underlines that, contrary to widespread opinion, W. Godwin’s early works are not devoid of philosophical ideas. The author maintains that, judging by their genre characteristics, the analyzed novels can be classified as sentimental ones. The research can be used for further analysis of W. Godwin’s early novels and for the creation of a wider panorama of his works.

Everyday Aesthetics and the Experience of the Profound

2020 ◽  
pp. 173-202
Author(s):  
Patrick Fessenbecker
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Literary Interpretation ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Literary Aesthetics ◽  
Intellectual Content ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
Everyday Aesthetics ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Deep Thought

The oldest arguments justifying formal analysis of literature, of course, grow out of a longer tradition in aesthetics, one having its roots in the development of a theory of the aesthetic in the eighteenth century. Ultimately, to emphasize the content over the form in literary interpretation is to emphasize forms of aesthetic value other than the beautiful and the sublime: to read for the content, and particularly for the intellectual content, is to value a book because it is deep, thought-provoking, and profound. Yet far from ignoring a text’s aesthetic nature, in fact these latter ways of reading offer the possibility for a renewed justification for literary aesthetics, one especially salient given the deep skepticism that formalist accounts of aesthetic value evoke.

scholarly journals Journalism or Writing? (On the Syncretism of the Documentary and Fiction in Russian Writers Creative Works)

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 421-432
Author(s):  
Olga Skibina
Keyword(s):  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Ethical Aspect ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Nonfiction Text ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Artistic Image ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Selection Of

The article continues the discussion of the “phenomenon of journalism” in the creative heritage of Russian writers of the early twentieth century. The diary as a genre has always been at the center of research interests, but so far the criteria for “diary” have not been defined either by literary critics, or by theorists of journalism. At the turn of the century, diaries were kept by many artists of the word, it was the only genre that allowed expressing thoughts on pressing issues, which made it possible to attribute this genre definitely to journalism. At the same time, there is a tendency in the works of scientists to note the “informational possibilities of this type of ego-document for the study of the humdrum of a particular topos” (E.M. Krivolapovа), thus relating it to documentary prose. The subject of the analysis is the genre of diary prose by Ivan Bunin and Mikhail Prishvin. Written at the same time, the diaries of these writers reflect — each in its own way — one era — the bloody revolutionary present. The article poses the problem of the relationship between documentary and fiction in the diary genre. By comparing the diaries of Bunin and Prishvin, the author proves that a nonfiction text may well have a certain aesthetic value, but not the aesthetic, but rather the ethical aspect becomes dominant in nonfiction. This is manifested in the topical, socially significant problems of the work, and in the author’s striving to reduce the distance between his consciousness and the consciousness of the reader, and in the special lexical and grammatical structure of the phrase (Bunin's Cursed Days). Prishvin's diaries on the selection of vital material suggest that his position is artistic when the artistic image becomes the only true one in the presentation and perception of the world.

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