Metaphor and Moral Experience

Abstract

This book examines the parallels between moral and metaphorical discourse, and the ways in which our engagement with literary art, and metaphorical discourse in particular, informs our moral beliefs. It suggests that there are three ways in which one's beliefs can be improved: if more of them are true, if more of them are warranted or justified, or if the warrant or justification for some of them is strengthened. So the book considers whether and how such improvements can be made to moral beliefs, and what role metaphor can play. It is an integral aim of the work to discern to what extent moral and metaphorical discourses deserve to be regarded as cognitive at all. This involves investigating to what extent such discourses are capable of truth or falsehood, warrant or justification, and how it is that we understand moral judgements and metaphorical expressions. This investigation is founded on an account of the nature of value and of our experience of value.

Empathy & Literature

“…Notes 1. In a similar vein, I have argued that there are dimensions of subjective (including moral) experience that are best captured by traditional literary devices such as metaphor, simile, and allegory, and that in this respect literary works perform a distinctive and ethically valuable epistemic role (Denham, 2000(Denham, , 2015. 2.…”

“…Recent decades, however, have seen a welcome convergence in the psychological literature. Empathy now more often, if not always, designates what is sometimes called affective empathy: the first-personal experience of affective states (including emotions, motivations, and visceral sensations) in response to observations (perceptual or otherwise, veridical or non-veridical) of natural manifestations or second-order representations of those states in another, while maintaining awareness of self and other as distinct subjects of experience (e.g., Busselle & Bilandzic, 2009;Coplan, 2004;Decety, 2015;Denham, 2000Denham, , 2015Denham, , 2017Denham, , 2021Mar & Oatley, 2008;Mar et al, 2011). 4 This conception respects the important distinction between affective responsiveness and mindreading or theory of mind (ToM)often misleadingly labelled 'cognitive empathy'.…”

Good, Evil and the Virtuous Iris Murdoch CommentaryIris Murdoch, Philosopher, edited by JustinBroackes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, 400 pp. ISBN 978‐0‐19‐928990‐5 hb £35.00

“…For a variety of reasons connected with the tradition from which she speaks, Denham is pulled the other way. She is attracted to the idea that the worst among us must be without a particular kit bag of moral responsiveness, and that idea is congenial to the account offered in Denham (). She there suggests that moral understanding is a capacity for discerning moral properties —a special kind of property elucidated by her as one among ‘a certain category of properties: “aspectual properties” ’ (Denham : 330).…”

“…She is attracted to the idea that the worst among us must be without a particular kit bag of moral responsiveness, and that idea is congenial to the account offered in Denham (). She there suggests that moral understanding is a capacity for discerning moral properties —a special kind of property elucidated by her as one among ‘a certain category of properties: “aspectual properties” ’ (Denham : 330). These ‘can only be detected by those who possess an appropriate sensitivity in their responses to the base properties on which they depend [and] … are “autonomous” or unanalysable independently of the responses of those able to detect them’ (ibid.).…”

Imagining Confucius: Paradigmatic Characters and Virtue Ethics

“…Some contemporary Western moral philosophers argue for the need to supplement reason with the imagination in an adequate account of moral experience. 33 Psychologist Jerome Bruner asserts that the mandate of human sciences today is to show "in detail how, in particular instances, narrative organizes the structure of human experience-how, in a word, 'life' comes to imitate 'art' and vice versa"-narrative genres provide "a guide for using mind." 34 To treat paradigmatic characters merely as the basis for some kind of argument-whether deductive, inductive, or analogical-about what we should do in any particular situation will not account for their special importance, and indeed their power, within the Confucian tradition.…”