that it is meant to achieve. For humans, this state
is happiness and it is reached through the cultiva-
tion of virtues. In order to be happy, humans have
to cultivate their potential, often by seeking what
Aristotle called the golden mean, or, in other words,
by seeking moderation in most things. People act
ethically—for example, giving up some of their din-
ner to help feed a hungry child—not because it is
in their self-interest (most probably their stomach
wants the whole thing) but because it reflects the
cultivation of the virtue of generosity. Put simply,
in Aristotelian ethics, people act to demonstrate
or work toward being better, more virtuous people.
They show who they are, not what they want.
Kant, one of the most influential writers on eth-
ics, offered a different, though not unrelated, posi-
tion. In the Kant view, every human is free insofar
as he or she has the ability to exercise reason. Ethics,
then, is something that each person imposes on him
or herself freely. Kant developed what he called the
categorical imperative to describe the basis for ethical
action. Lying, according to Kant, is evil in that it
deprives others of the ability to exercise their reason
properly. Therefore, telling the truth is a categorical
imperative—it is the right thing to do, no matter the
circumstances.
The other major 18th-century ethical philoso-
phy is that of utilitarianism. Developed by Jeremy
Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–
73), utilitarianism can be described as a philosophy
seeking the greatest good for the greatest number of
people. Unlike Kant’s philosophy, utilitarianism is
concerned only with the results of actions, not the
intentions of the people making the decisions. For
these thinkers, lying could be justified if it did more
good than harm. There are, however, objections to
this philosophy; most people would have a hard
time sacrificing a family member to try to save two
strangers, for example.
One important 20th-century ethical thinker was
Emmanuel Levinas (1906–95). Unlike Aristotle,
Bentham, or Kant, Levinas begins his ideas on eth-
ics with an interaction with another human. For
Levinas, each of us has an infinite responsibility to
the other person, who will always remain a mystery
to us. In fact, Levinas argues that it is precisely when
we stop looking at one another as unique people
that ethical problems arise. As a prisoner in a Nazi
concentration camp during the Second World War,
Levinas saw firsthand what people were capable of
when they labeled others and thought of them as a
group rather than as individuals. Precisely because
his philosophy emphasizes the importance of lan-
guage and labeling, Levinas’s thought demonstrates
the importance of literature in either furthering big-
otry or in exposing the workings of this procedure
and warding against it.
Few stories have remained in the popular imagi-
nation as long or as firmly as Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein (1818) and this, in large part, is
because many of the ethical questions it raises are
still being debated today. For example, is it right to
take advantage of scientific advances to create new
life forms? Is the genetic alteration of plants and
animals safe? Is it right to clone humans? If we do,
does the clone have the same rights as the original
person? Relating to debates over abortion rights,
when is a human a human? At what point do the
rights of the child supersede the mother’s right to
choose? Is it ethical to abort a pregnancy if the child
has traits the parents consider to be undesirable? In
the novel, Victor Frankenstein becomes obsessed
with exploring the limits of his power as well as the
limits of science and locks himself away from fam-
ily and friends in order to create a being. Although
he at first finds his creation to be beautiful, when
the being finally awakes, Victor is horrified by his
creation and runs away. Unlike his portrayal in many
adaptations of the novel, Victor’s creation is hardly a
monster at first; he begins his life by helping a poor
family, learning their language, and reading John
Milton’s paradise Lost. Only after the monster,
based solely on his appearance, is repeatedly rejected
by those around him, including Victor, does he
become evil and set out on a path of vengeance. The
novel simultaneously taps into many ethical debates
over the responsibility of parents to their children,
the responsibility of society to those it superficially
labels monstrous, the ethics governing experiments
with science and technology, and many more.
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs daLLoway (1925) is
another novel that resonates with many ethical
debates. Clarissa Dalloway is an unlikely heroine
according to traditional logic, in that the culmina-ethics 29