The Ethics of Criticism

Tobin Siebers (Author)

9781501728112

Paperback / softback, published 15 August 2018

264 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.454 kg

The Ethics of Criticism should contribute to the new theoretical conversation through its conclusions about specific thinkers and by moving others to think harder and say more about the relation among ethics, criticism, and literature.

Tobin Siebers asserts that literary criticism is essentially a form of ethics. The Ethics of Criticism investigates the moral character of contemporary literary theory, assessing a wide range of theoretical approaches in terms of both the ethical presuppositions underlying the critical claims and the attitudes fostered by the approaches. Building on analyses of the moral legacies of Plato, Kant, Nietzsche, and Freud, Siebers identifies the various fronts on which the concerns of critical theory impinge on those of ethics.