In so far as ethics is the study of existing moral systems, both.Suz wrote: Thomas, are you speaking of ethics or morality?
That is indeed a good question. Booktalk persons, I imagine, would have a bias toward the belief that a literary education is uplifting. However, I have a specific model in mind, an intellectual and literate classmate of mine whose life has been devoted to wine, women, and song, and who abandoned his wife with several small children and left the country in order to evade child support. Somehow, too much imagination seems to deprive a person of ordinary moral sensibilities.. . . a well read person does not gain great moral wisdom from the books that she chooses to read. However, how does a literary person become less trustworthy?
The personal lives of literary persons are typically less than admirable -- Frost, Vachel Lindsey, Whitman, Melville -- for example. Their works would be unreadable were it not for the separation that is typically made between literature and morality. And as for Shakespeare, perhaps you are aware of the physical horror and revulsion that underlies the sonnets?
Supposing you are speaking of me by indirection and are accusing me of a "one man show monologue" -- do three sentences make a monologue? Think of me as the loyal opposition who wonders whether an author who supports a war begun on lies and carried through with corruption and torture has any morality to speak of.It is impossible to debate, or exchange opinions, or discuss topics with a person uneducated on the proposed topic, a monologue would be the result. It has been my personal experience to find the one man show monologue untrustworthy.
Tom