伦理认同、文学想象与公共生活：评玛莎·纳斯鲍姆的伦理批评思想

Ethical Identification, Literary Imagination, and Public Life:A Review of Martha Nussbaum’s Ethical Criticism

玛莎·纳斯鲍姆强调文学创作和阅读活动的伦理功能,认为文学在描述道德生活的细腻性和伦理抉择的复杂性方面有着道德哲学所不及的特殊作用。文学阅读激起的情感反应和道德想象应该成为公共理性的有益补充,它们可以弥补经济学功利主义在指导公共生活方面的不足,为我们规划和设计更好的公共生活发挥有益作用。纳斯鲍姆试图恢复文学阅读在建构美好人类生活方面的潜能,但实际上,文学的真正价值并不在于它可以让普通人在道德上变得更完美,而在于复活一种早已消解的公共话语模式,让文学阅读和批评再次成为代表多元价值的多种声音进行对话协商的公共开放领域。

Martha Nussbaum highlights the ethical function of literary writing and reading. In her view, literature can do much more than moral philosophy in representing the subtlety of morality and the complexity of ethical particularities. Nussbaum argues that the emotional response and moral imagination initiated by the reading of literature can be supplementary for public rationality because they can cover the deficiency of economic utilitarianism in guiding public life and make positive contributions to our vision and plan for a better public life. Nussbaum tries to retrieve the potential function of literary reading in constructing a wonderful human life, but the true value of literature should not be measured by whether or not it could make ordinary people more perfect in morality, but by whether or not it could revive a long-gone public discourse that will turn literary reading and criticism into an open public sphere, once again, for free conversations and consultations between multiple voices representing different values.