Ethics Starts With You Outline

ETHICS STARTS WITH YOU
Outline
Ethics Starts With You is an inspiring guide to how we might become better human
beings. The three-part book contains 26 discussions, each presenting a clear
overview of one philosophical idea from renowned figures including Hans-Georg
Gadamer, Emmanuel Levinas and Jean-Paul Sartre. Each of these ideas is paired
with a cultural object, such as a film, work of literature, piece of music, or artwork.
The overall aim of this book is to encourage a more personal ethical and moral point
of view, and prompt thoughts about our relationships with other people and what
effect our behaviour has on them. Ethics Starts With You explores what it means to
be human, not biologically, but in the sense of our moral and ethical virtues.
The first part of the book begins with introductory chapters about ethics and respect.
In Ethics, the premise that fear, hate and suspicion are becoming normal ways of
regarding fellow humans is presented, and that this needs to be stopped by an
understanding of personal ethics. In Respect, the question “Why bother trying to be
ethical?” is addressed through two examples: the infamous Stanford Prison
Experiment and Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible. Each highlight just how far we
can fall when we lose our respect and personal ethics. Having made the case for why
we need to be wiser and more compassionate in the introduction, Ethics Starts With
You now commences.
In the first discussion, called Prejudices, Gadamer is introduced with the first of his
philosophical ideas: understanding how one’s prejudices can lead to a moral outlook
towards others. Sherlock Holmes’ prejudices towards women in A Scandal in
Bohemia by Arthur Conan Doyle are exposed and given as an example, whilst Irene
Adler exemplifies how one can go beyond those who would seek to define us.
In the next discussion, Horizons, Gadamer’s thoughts on personal horizons are
considered, giving priority to the theme of understanding. For Gadamer, when a
fusion of horizons between two individuals occurs, understanding follows. Irvin
Yalom’s novel, The Schopenhauer Cure, works through just such a fusing of horizons
as the two main protagonists seek to understand and learn from each other.
Conversation breaks down Gadamer’s three conditions for speech and dialogue to be
genuine: giving precedence to the subject or topic of the conversation, not either
party; listening properly to the other person; and the creation of a common language.
The therapeutic work of Wilfred Bion reflects these conditions by directing therapists
to work with their patients without memory or desire.
In Experience Gadamer critiques Immanuel Kant’s views on aesthetics and develops
his own ideas on what experiencing art do for the spectator. The works of Francis
Bacon and René Magritte are explored here, and help explain Gadamer’s idea that art
“has its true being in the fact it becomes an experience that changes the person who
experiences it.”
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In Play, Gadamer describes different forms of experience as either ‘something you
have’ or ‘something you experience.’ Play is identified as something you experience
or participate in. Benny Goodman’s 1938 Jazz concert at Carnegie Hall provides an
understanding of play from multiple perspectives: the musicians’, the audiences’, and
our own, as listeners not at the concert.
Art follows Gadamer as he focuses on visuals and aesthetics through works of art.
The viewpoint taken is one where the artwork offers a “timeless present”. He looks at
how the artwork is constant and always personal to person looking at it, and states
that artworks say “something to each person as if it were said especially to him.”
Mozart’s overture to The Marriage of Figaro is given as the cultural example of this.
In the next discourse, Understanding, Gadamer realises how an “anticipation of
meaning” steers one’s thinking and presents obstacles when engaging with the other,
whether that is a person or a work of art. Instead, we need to seek an open mind.
Sartre’s play, No Exit, provides a negative example to such openness, due to the three
characters being so strictly closed in their thinking.
The final essay in this part, Commitment, looks at Gadamer’s work on the claim an
artwork holds upon its spectator, and the reciprocity of a relationship between
artwork and individual. When thinking about music, and considering Stanley Cavell’s
work on the subject, Gadamer realises that sometimes there is a requirement for
listening with an ethical ear as opposed to a musical one. Trust rather than aesthetics
comes into play. The music of AC/DC is given as an example of how one can commit
to an artform and how one might benefit from that commitment.
The second part of the book has eight essays and focuses on the philosophy of
Emmanuel Levinas, with support from Silvia Benso.
Otherness introduces Levinas’ thoughts on the il y a, which is a sense of otherness or
a presence that comes from without. The il y a is Levinas’ catalyst for understanding
the otherness of others. Kafka’s The Burrow, in its exposition of the mole’s
increasing sense that another animal/lifeform is somehow present around his/her
burrow, provides an instance of such otherness.
The Face presents Levinas’ philosophy of the face, as the most basic mode of
responsibility. It is explained how the face is dynamic, it comes from without, it
brings infinite responsibility and has an impact on our ego. The face demands that
we look and see differently. Clyfford Still’s works, by having titles and traditional
content removed, enable the viewer to have the freedom to see things differently.
The desire to understand and to know is examined in The Self. Western rationality,
with its need to understand everything perfectly, is seen by Levinas as a “project of
mastery” that eradicates otherness in favour of promoting the self. Barnett Newman
is held up as an example of self-obsession, with his works projecting so much
‘Barnett Newman’ that there is no space for a sense of otherness at all.
Eyes examines the ‘social’ relationship identified by Levinas when two people engage
in genuine dialogue and have eye contact. The priority of the self, for both, gives way
to the sincerity and respect of their conversation. As we allow the otherness of the
Other person to be present, our humanity unveils itself. The primacy of focusing on
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difference when looking at people or objects is critiqued through investigation of
Clyfford Still’s work, which unifies space and figure to both unsettle and liberate the
spectator.
Two interpretations of art, by the early and later Levinas, are given in The Gaze. The
shadow realm of art in the first reading, is swiftly replaced by the second’s more
sophisticated account where abstract art, in particular, resists being totalised by the
subject. Silvia Benso teaches us about the ethics involved in such encounters.
Jackson Pollock’s work provides example, with his thought that spectators should
not bring “preconceived ideas,” but rather look passively, with open minds.
In Tenderness, Benso’s prior work on the ethics of an encounter, between a thing and
a subject, is taken further with her introduction of touch, attention, and tenderness
as mediums that respectively allow otherness, prioritise humility and give off an
attitude of welcoming. Rothko’s works, by their seemingly explicit request for silence
and sensitivity from spectators, are presented as almost visual reflections or enablers
of Benso’s mediums.
Self-forgetting begins with Gadamer’s thoughts on festivals as events that enable
self-forgetfulness in participants. Benso’s views follow, but with a focus on festivals
as spaces and that can interrupt the everyday, to allow otherness, which leads to
ethics. Ernest Hemmingway’s Fiesta and Joanne Harris’ Chocolat are given as
possible examples of such festival experiences.
In Openness, the question around otherness actually leading to ethics is asked.
Benso’s thoughts on touch, attention, tenderness and festival are shown to come
together in facilitating otherness, which leads directly to ethics. Tolstoy’s novella The
Death of Ivan Ilyich is presented as the antithesis of Benso’s ideas with the main
characters being devoid of ethical behaviour.
The third part of the book has eight chapters and looks mainly at the philosophy of
Jean-Paul Sartre.
Couched as an aesthetic interlude, Spectatorship examines the experience of art
through the eyes of Kandinsky, Susan Sontag and Jennette Winterson. Spectatorship
itself is brought into question and it is explored that artists increasingly have to
resort to extreme measures to capture the attention and concentration of their
spectators. The metaphor of artist as a kidnapper is presented.
In Consciousness, the Sartrean epiphany of “man is condemned to be free” is
balanced with his declaration at the end of Being and Nothingness that he will write
on ethics in a future work. Harry Lime, in The Third Man is given as an example of
someone who grabs at freedom but has no steadying ethical counterweight.
Nothingness examines Sartre’s idea that between us and the world a “buffer of
nothingness” is present at times of choice and/or deliberation, where we display
freedom and our human capacity to go beyond the ordinary or predictable. In
Nausea, Roquentin and Anny portray different manifestations of nothingness,
respectively, nausea and the desire for “perfect moments”.
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Freedom explores Sartre’s thoughts regarding time. We, as individuals, are not
bound by decisions made in the past, therefore, we can change who we are in the
present. Such freedom, though, can induce anguish. Derek Vinyard, in American
History X, realises his freedom to reinvent himself when he becomes the
archetypical neo-Nazi. Dr Bob Sweeney helps Vinyard view this as a mistake and that
he is also free to reject this path.
In Bad Faith, attention is paid to how anguish can cause bad faith. For Sartre, this
amounts to lying to oneself about oneself, one’s actions and, in extremes, that one
has a purpose given by a supervening force. Jorge of Burgos, in Umberto Eco’s The
Name of the Rose, is presented as someone acting in the extreme version of bad faith
by seeing themselves as the “hand of God”.
In Responsibility, the opposite of bad faith is examined for Sartre, as the fact that we
have freedom demands that we also have responsibility. However, philosophically
this doesn’t necessarily follow and a leap of faith appears to be required. Authenticity
is brought in to try and resolve this. Frank Owen, in Robert Tressell’s The Ragged
Trousered Philanthropists, is seen to demonstrate authenticity and responsibility by
not taking easy options.
The penultimate essay, Ourselves, works through Sartre’s declaration of freedom as a
value and that we, as individuals, should think of ourselves a project. Sartre is also
seen to invent himself, by finally casting-off ontology and embracing his own
philosophy, based on a belief in freedom. Georgia O’Keeffe’s rejection of “doing what
had already been done” meant finding her own path and realising that she had the
freedom to invent herself as an artist.
The final essay, Becoming, reflects upon Nietzsche’s moral perfectionism, through
James Conant’s piercing lens which corrects a mistranslation at the same time as
presenting inherent wisdom. The idea that we should see ourselves as permanently
in a state of becoming, of evolving is drawn out as an example of how to live. John
Lee Hooker is given as a case study of someone who lived his life in this manner.
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