complex works of literature offer us insight into the difficulties and possibil-
ities of furthering values that do command our allegiance. Rich, complex,
and plausibly developed novels do not just offer perceptions of the particular;
they also“shape, in their reader, certain evaluative judgments that lie at the
heart of certain emotions.”^70 And these judgments may be tested by and
integrated into a general moral theory that“contains the potential to organ-
ize and transform perceptions on a large scale, in a way that may be crucial
for political change and individual self-criticism.”^71 Literature and ethical
theory can be, as she puts, allies and not adversaries.^72 I have argued expli-
citly that the richest narrative texts are best understood as“allegories of the
possibilities of human freedom and morality and self-understanding in the
world,”^73 as understood in Kantian terms. Kantian moral philosophy accepts
the standing presence of complexity and tragedy in human life and yet sees
complexities and tragedies as in principle (if not always availably in practice)
problems to be worked through as we cultivate our powers of meaning-
making in and through present antagonisms.^74 Complex narratives, includ-
ing tragic ones, naturally complement this thought.
The idea that works of artprescribeemotions and attitudes that they then
clarify may initially suggest moral didacticism, thus classing works of art with
propaganda, advertising, and pornography, in which emotional responses are
likewise prescribed and expected. Some viewers may see Finley’sWe Keep Our
Victims Readyas prescribing and inviting predictable and moralistic liberal
sympathy, just as some viewers may see the paintings of Norman Rockwell as
prescribing and inviting predictable nostalgia for an idyllic middle-class
(^70) Martha C. Nussbaum,“Exactly and Responsibly: A Defense of Ethical Criticism,”Philoso-
phy and Literature22, 2 (October 1998), pp. 343–65 at p. 353.
(^71) Martha C. Nussbaum,“Review ofMaking Sense of Humanity and Other Philosophical Essaysby
Bernard Williams,”Ethics107, 3 (April 1997), p. 529.
(^72) See Nussbaum,“Literature and Ethical Theory,”pp. 5–16. For a full description and
evaluation of Nussbaum’s ways of opposing and allying literature and moral philosophy,
see Eldridge,“Reading for and Against the Plot: On Nussbaum’s Integration of Literature
and Moral Philosophy,”inOne World: Essays on Martha Nussbaum on Literature and Philoso-
phy, ed. Leonard Ferry (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, forthcoming).
(^73) Richard Eldridge,“How is the Kantian Moral Criticism of Literature Possible?,”in
Eldridge,Persistence of Romanticism, pp. 71–84 at p. 77. See also Eldridge,On Moral
Personhood, p. 63.
(^74) See Richard Eldridge,“How Can Tragedy Matter for Us?,”in Eldridge,Persistence of
Romanticism, pp. 145–64, especially pp. 162–64.
Art and morality 241