David B. Wong
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226306834
- eISBN:
- 9780226306858
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226306858.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This chapter investigates in detail three exemplary cases: the fictional Stasi agent who is the protagonist of the film The Lives of Others; Oskar Schindler; and C. P. Ellis, who left the Klan and ...
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This chapter investigates in detail three exemplary cases: the fictional Stasi agent who is the protagonist of the film The Lives of Others; Oskar Schindler; and C. P. Ellis, who left the Klan and became friends with a militant black activist. The film The Lives of Others, about Gerd Wiesler, showed the human hopes for the possibility of moral conversion. Schindler's “freelance” relationship with power structures appeared important in explaining his conversion. The discontinuities that make his story one of moral conversion are underlain by continuities which help to make the conversion intelligible. Ellis sought recognition and respect in a society whose authority structures were changing, and that allowed him to recognize how he and others like him had been used and deceived. In general, the stories of conversion presented indicate inquiry into the ways moral education can engage emotion as well as critical reflection and inquiry.Less
This chapter investigates in detail three exemplary cases: the fictional Stasi agent who is the protagonist of the film The Lives of Others; Oskar Schindler; and C. P. Ellis, who left the Klan and became friends with a militant black activist. The film The Lives of Others, about Gerd Wiesler, showed the human hopes for the possibility of moral conversion. Schindler's “freelance” relationship with power structures appeared important in explaining his conversion. The discontinuities that make his story one of moral conversion are underlain by continuities which help to make the conversion intelligible. Ellis sought recognition and respect in a society whose authority structures were changing, and that allowed him to recognize how he and others like him had been used and deceived. In general, the stories of conversion presented indicate inquiry into the ways moral education can engage emotion as well as critical reflection and inquiry.
Ruth W. Grant (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226306834
- eISBN:
- 9780226306858
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226306858.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
What does a good life look like? How do people become good? Are there multiple, competing possibilities for what counts as a good life, all equally worthy? Or, is there a unified and transcendent ...
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What does a good life look like? How do people become good? Are there multiple, competing possibilities for what counts as a good life, all equally worthy? Or, is there a unified and transcendent conception of the good that should guide our judgment of the possibilities? What does a good life look like when it is guided by God? How is a good life involved with the lives of others? And, finally, how good is good enough? These questions are the focus of this book, the product of a year-long conversation about goodness. Its eight chapters challenge the dichotomies that usually govern how goodness has been discussed in the past: altruism versus egoism; reason versus emotion; or moral choice versus moral character. Instead, the contributors seek to expand the terms of the discussion by coming at goodness from a variety of perspectives: psychological, philosophic, literary, religious, and political. In each case, they emphasize the lived realities and particulars of moral phenomena, taking up examples and illustrations from life, literature, and film—from Achilles and Billy Budd, to Oskar Schindler and Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree, to Iris Murdoch and the citizens of Flagstaff, Arizona.Less
What does a good life look like? How do people become good? Are there multiple, competing possibilities for what counts as a good life, all equally worthy? Or, is there a unified and transcendent conception of the good that should guide our judgment of the possibilities? What does a good life look like when it is guided by God? How is a good life involved with the lives of others? And, finally, how good is good enough? These questions are the focus of this book, the product of a year-long conversation about goodness. Its eight chapters challenge the dichotomies that usually govern how goodness has been discussed in the past: altruism versus egoism; reason versus emotion; or moral choice versus moral character. Instead, the contributors seek to expand the terms of the discussion by coming at goodness from a variety of perspectives: psychological, philosophic, literary, religious, and political. In each case, they emphasize the lived realities and particulars of moral phenomena, taking up examples and illustrations from life, literature, and film—from Achilles and Billy Budd, to Oskar Schindler and Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree, to Iris Murdoch and the citizens of Flagstaff, Arizona.
