(February 14, 2012 at 8:08 am)thesummerqueen Wrote: You have to hinge a story on some sort of premise. If this is a moral absolute (as I'm understanding it) then the author himself or herself is choosing the absolutes which rule that world created by the story. I've no problem with the idea that something has to be absolute in order to create tension. My problem is that a Judeo-Christian worldview is necessary, that morals have to be understood to come from God in order for something to be treated as an absolute in fiction.
If I understand the point he is arguing, and I am confident that I do, then I would suggest that Duran is not claiming that in order to create tension in a story the author has to treat ethical absolutes in a Judeo-Christian context; in other words, she is not compelled to invoke that worldview within her story. In fact, the author does not have to account for those ethical absolutes at all within the story, describing and explaining the philosophical justification. Yet she does invariably use ethical absolutes to achieve that tension (2012a, par. 17). "Life, like good stories, has something at stake. It's why the struggle of good and evil is at the heart of life and fiction," he observes, "[and] why messiah figures are so prolific in literature and resonate so powerfully in our psyche" (par. 21).
But the author does inexorably draw upon a biblical worldview, even if unconsciously, because apart from that framework of reality things like "absolute evil" are unintelligible concepts. "In fact, if evil is simply an illusion, then fictional evil is the most illusory of all things" (par. 22; emphasis his). And, again, when he says "a biblical worldview" what he means is "a perspective or set of assumptions that generally coheres with how the Bible frames reality" (par. 11). What he is arguing for is the recognition "that any appeal to good and evil, right and wrong—a universe where absolutes exist—is intrinsically tethered to a Judeo-Christian worldview" (2012b, par. 21). Whether consciously or unconsciously, that is the framework of reality being employed when invoking ethical absolutes, because that is the only framework which coherently produces such things. As such, his point certainly allows for an author who consciously rejects the biblical worldview, even though the ethical absolutes which drive her story are unintelligible apart from it. Perhaps she has never critically engaged the point philosophically herself; after all, her craft is writing good stories, not developing rigorous meta-ethics.
(February 14, 2012 at 8:08 am)thesummerqueen Wrote: To go to his example, if we decide as a society that stealing is bad [...] then we've decided it's an absolute. To my understanding, at least. I don't know where the relativism part comes into this. Perhaps you can correct me, since I don't engage in [...] philosophy.
If our society has decided that P is morally wrong, then the moral wrongness of P is relative (to our society that decided it); and if P is relative, then it is not absolute—by definition. (And if societies A, B, and C all decided that P is morally wrong, then the moral wrongness of P is relative to societies A, B, and C; in other words, it is still definitionally not absolute.)
(February 14, 2012 at 8:08 am)thesummerqueen Wrote: If it is relative because others might not think stealing is bad [...]
It is relative because its moral wrongness is relative to the individual or society that decided so. If it were absolute, then its moral wrongness would be independent of what any individual or society decides.
(February 14, 2012 at 8:08 am)thesummerqueen Wrote: Even in Judeo-Christian worldviews there is conflict over what's actually right and wrong. How is that not also relative and requiring a consensus?
Because there is a difference between what is moral (ethics) and what morality is (meta-ethics). First, pointing to arguments between groups A and B over the former does not somehow prove a disagreement between them over the latter. Second, even if two Judeo-Christian groups conflicted over whether or not morality is absolute, that does not somehow prove it is not (viz. from the fact that it is impossible for them to both be right it does not follow that they are both therefore wrong).
(February 14, 2012 at 9:40 am)thesummerqueen Wrote: Sorry, Ryft. His problem comes down again to whether or not morals come from God, which is an entirely different argument from "Is this a good story."
No, his argument is that we have good stories because they presuppose and appeal to "real" ethical tensions, which presuppose and appeal to ethical absolutes, which are inexorably tethered to a Judeo-Christian worldview. "Therefore, good stories require an appeal to a Judeo-Christian worldview" (2012a, par. 22), even if not consciously.
(February 14, 2012 at 9:40 am)thesummerqueen Wrote: And I totally gave the thread that title for the lulz, like most of my threads. Mainly because I don't have a stick up my ass.
Which is precisely what I reckoned.
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References:
Duran, M. (2012, January 9). "Why a Judeo-Christian worldview is essential to good fiction." DeCompose. [Blog].
http://mikeduran.com/2012/01/why-a-judeo...d-fiction/
__________ (2012, February 6). "Without moral absolutes, your story sucks!" DeCompose. [Blog].
http://mikeduran.com/2012/02/without-mor...ory-sucks/
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when
called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
(Oscar Wilde)
called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
(Oscar Wilde)
