Silvio Astier challenges Martha Nussbaum: am I reading bad?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32735/S0718-22012023000573290Keywords:
Compassion, empathy, moral development, literature and ethicsAbstract
Martha Nussbaum defended the original thesis that the reading of literary texts may be a necessary component in the moral development of subjects, since it would allow them to develop to a greater degree an empathic capacity that, in turn, would allow them to develop a compassionate attitude. However, this claim does not consider those fictional characters that are morally ambiguous and yet arouse empathy in his readers. The aim of this paper is to contrast the potency of the Nussbaumian thesis in face of such ambiguous literary characters, represented here by Silvio Astier, the protagonist of El Juguete Rabioso, a central text written by Roberto Arlt. As I will show, these cases could be treated in two nussbaumianan ways: either by highlighting the causes for empathic failure or by pointing out that in that reading experience there is no longer empathy. I will argue that this second possibility is the only one that allows cases like Astier's to reinforce Nussbaum's thesis, without falling into excessive moralizing.
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