Artistic imagination and its role in moral progress: embracing William James’ cries of the wounded

Castella-Martinez, Sergi; Weber, Bernadette

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/01914537241284964

Artistic imagination and its role in moral progress: embracing William James’ cries of the wounded

Citation

Castella-Martinez S, Weber B. Artistic imagination and its role in moral progress: embracing William James’ cries of the wounded. Philos Soc Crit. 2024. 21 p. DOI: 10.1177/01914537241284964

Abstract

In recent pragmatist-leaning philosophy and ethics, the Jamesian notion of the cries of the wounded has reemerged as a method of evoking moral progress. Philosophers like Philip Kitcher have argued that a surefooted approach to the complaints of those harmed by given social moral arrangements may lead to an improvement of moral thought, practices and institutions. Yet, at the same time, it has been acknowledged that this comprises a most evident problem: many wounded stakeholders do not cry out about their sorrow, not at last because they may not be capable of doing so. In this paper, we aim at providing a more detailed account on the communicative range of social unrest, capable of overcoming the reductive vision of some possibly harmed as being silent. Some moral philosophers have highlighted the role of the arts and the humanities in the fostering of a more empathetic imagination. With the aid of continental aesthetics (T. W. Adorno and M. Beistegui), we acknowledge the value of artistic imagination as a communicative faculty extending beyond the limits of discursive reason through non-conceptual tools. Taking it into account in moral inquiry effectively expands and provides a more detailed account on the wounded that are apparently silent, as it includes a variety of forms of communication as moral standpoints and conversational apostrophes. This finally leads us to reread James’ take on the notion of the cries of the wounded, to emphasize the necessity to understand it as a fruitful stance about inclusive moral inquiry exceeding the limits of a conceptual-discursive focus.