Violence and the Language of Virtue: Political Violence, Ethical Discourse, and Moral Transformation Open Access
Wiinikka-Lydon, Joe (2015)
Published
Abstract
Some who survive mass violence feel they have done so only by committing acts previously thought to be immoral. This can leave a lasting change in one's moral subjectivity, so much so that survivors often wonder if they can ever be "good" again. This is an issue for many who pass through violence feeling that they are no longer able to live in society, or even that society or the world can no longer be seen as a place where goodness is possible, however goodness is defined. Political violence can undermine the moral intelligibility of one's world, leaving a residue of doubt and even despair about the possibility of a restored moral ability and a world capable of supporting a meaningful moral life. This work focuses on ways that we can better understand experiences where political violence and upheaval transform the self as well as society. New vocabularies are needed to articulate what matters most for those caught in contemporary violent conflicts, as current frames do not capture the high moral stakes involved for individuals. Specifically, we need to draw on the moral languages and philosophical anthropologies found in religious ethics and moral philosophy if we are to do justice to these experiences and the high stakes that are involved. I argue that the language of the virtues, in particular, can help us create a thick representation of the self not just as a subject in the world but primarily as a moral subject for whom experience is best understood as moral development through continuous transformation of one's moral subjectivity. Such a resource is not currently available in most discussions of political violence. Virtue discourse, as I will refer to it, will provide the vocabulary and understanding of the self needed to account for and articulate the experience of political violence. Using Iris Murdoch's moral philosophy, and specifically her representation of moral subjectivity as a "field of tension" and a search for the "Good," I create a critical, interpretive framework to better articulate and account for the felt sense of having lost moral ability through the experience of political violence.
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Violence, Self, and Virtue 1
Violence and subjectivity 4
Limitations of current approaches 17
Virtue and the experience of violence 28
Applying Iris Murdoch's moral philosophy 48
Map of the present work 58
Chapter Two: Subjectivity to Moral Subjectivity 62
The subject of subjectivity 64
Elements of subjectivity 68
Limitations of subjectivity 77
Subjectivity and everyday, local moral worlds 81
Subjectivity to moral subjectivity 92
Moving toward virtue 96
Chapter Three: Iris Murdoch's Moral Philosophy 99
Overview of Iris Murdoch's thought 100
Philosophical Anthropology 104
Moral development 108
Murdoch's metaphysics 115
Accounting for vulnerability 122
Chapter Four: The Tensile Moral Subject 132
Modalities of moral subjectivity 135
Ethical modalities and political violence 143
Local moral worlds 148
The tensile moral subject in local moral worlds 159
Chapter Five: Void 172
Reading Murdoch's void 179
Void and extreme violence 189
Chapter Six: Moral subjectivity dominated by void 202
Experiencing void 202
The corrosiveness of political violence to moral subjectivity 209
Vision and vulnerability 215
Chapter Seven: The Untapped Potential of Virtue 224
Political violence, moral violence 227
The moral heart of methodology 232
Significance beyond academia 237
Beyond political violence 240
The subject of character 242
Hope 245
Bibliography 248
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