moral imagination

moral imagination, in ethics, the presumed mental capacity to create or use ideas, images, and metaphors not derived from moral principles or immediate observation to discern moral truths or to develop moral responses. Some defenders of the idea also argue that ethical concepts, because they are embedded in history, narrative, and circumstance, are best apprehended through metaphorical or literary frameworks.

(Read Peter Singer’s Britannica entry on ethics.)

In his The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), the Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith described an imaginative process essential not only to understanding the sentiments of others but also to moral judgment. Through an imaginative act, one represents to oneself the situation, interests, and values of another person, generating thereby a feeling or passion. If that passion is the same as that of the other person (a phenomenon Smith refers to as “sympathy”), then a pleasing sentiment results, leading to moral approval. As individuals across society engage their imaginations, an imaginative point of view emerges that is uniform, general, and normative. This is the viewpoint of the impartial spectator, the standard perspective from which to issue moral judgments.

The Anglo-Irish statesman and writer Edmund Burke was perhaps the first to use the phrase, “moral imagination.” For Burke, moral concepts have particular manifestations in history, tradition, and circumstance. In Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), he suggested that the moral imagination has a central role in generating and recollecting the social and moral ideas that, when crystallized into custom and tradition, complete human nature, stir the affections, and connect sentiment with understanding. In the early 20th century, and with a nod to Burke, the American literary critic Irving Babbitt proposed the moral imagination as the means of knowing—beyond the perceptions of the moment—a universal and permanent moral law. Assuming a distinction between the one and the many, Babbitt contended that the absolutely real and universal unity could not be apprehended; rather, one must appeal to imagination to develop insight into stable and permanent standards to guide one through constant change. That imagination might be cultivated through poetry, myth, or fiction was an idea of Babbitt later taken up by the American social critic Russell Kirk.

Since the late 20th century, philosophers, including business ethicists, also have shown interest in moral imagination. Mark Johnson, for example, argued that moral understanding relies on metaphorical concepts embedded in larger narratives. Moreover, ethical deliberation is not the application of principles to specific cases but involves concepts whose adaptable structures represent types of situations and modes of affective response. Furthermore, moral conduct demands that one cultivate one’s perception of the particularities of individuals and circumstances and develop one’s empathetic abilities. To those ends, the appreciation of literature has an essential role.

In business ethics, Patricia Werhane suggested that the moral imagination is necessary to ethical management. Beginning with the recognition of the particularity of both individuals and circumstances, the moral imagination allows one to consider possibilities that extend beyond given circumstances, accepted moral principles, and commonplace assumptions.