Drawing from Life

British Journal of Aesthetics 55 (4):449-464 (2015)
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Abstract

Felicia Ackerman argues that it is often wrong to use real people in fiction because it harms them. I argue that even when drawing from life is wrong, the unethical use of real people as literary material may nonetheless be rationally justified, and not in purely self-interested, instrumentalist terms. Either ethical considerations are always overriding, and much of our creative and appreciative practices are morally corrupt, or ethical and aesthetic values are incommensurable. I defend the plausibility of the incommensurabilist alternative, and indicate how creative and appreciative choices might be rational even when the values in play are incommensurable.

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Brandon Cooke
Minnesota State University, Mankato

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