Narrative and Ethical Understanding

Garry L. Hagberg is the James H. Ottaway Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics at Bard College and Editor of the journal Philosophy and Literature. He is presently completing three new books: Consciousness Portrayed: Seven Case Studies in Philosophical Literature; The Mind on Screen: Seven Case Studies in Philosophical Film; and Art and Meaning: On Artworks and their Implications.

1.Introduction: Layers of Understanding and Long-Form Narrative, Garry L. Hagberg, Part 1. To Focus on Ethical Vision rather than Moral Action.- 2. From Wittgenstein to Homer: Ethics, 'World-Pictures,' and Iliadic Time, Carl Humphries.- 3. Murdoch and Gilead: John Ames as a Model of Murdochian Virtue, Cathy Mason.- 4. Patricia Highsmith's Kierkegaardian Fiction, Don Adams.- Part 2. Self-Narration, Self-Deception, and Self-Critique.- 5. Consciousness, Beckett and the (Un)Aware Being: Krapp's and Winnie's Wobbly Mindfulness Under the Lens of Phenomenology, Stefano Rossi.- 6. Self-deception and Self-narration: Linklater's Tape, Zeynep Talay Turner.- 7. Shame and Self-Abasement: Bernard Williams, Kant, and J.M. Coetzee, Ana Falcato .- Part 3. Layers of Understanding: Responsibility Reconsidered.- 8. Orwellian Responsibility, Peter Brian Barry.- 9. Kant, the Karamazovs, and Hitler's Pawn, Samuel Kahn.- 10. Storm Jameson's Phenomenology of Place in The Hidden River, Robert Lance Snyder.- Part 4. Unobvious Forms of Moral Progress.- 11. Just Sex in Heller's Catch-22?,James A. Baker and Zenon Culverhouse.- 12. Imperfect Fiction and Criticism im Stillstand: A Reading of The Mill on the Floss, Daniele Niedda.- 13. Listening to the Dead: Exploring the Differend in Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad, Catherine MacMillan.- Part 5. Against Oversimplification.- 14. We all have Plague: Human Nature and Decency in Camus' The Plague, Hayden Kee.- 15. Wallace Stevens' Poetic Realism: The Only Possible Redemption, David Kleinberg-Levin.- 16. The Godfather III as an Essay in Long-Arc Ethical Understanding, Garry L. Hagberg.