Getting It Right: Language, Literature, and Ethics

In a critical scene deeply troubled by questions of justice and responsibility, and beset by political and moral scandals, no issue in recent years has been more urgent or more unsettled than the question of ethics. Geoffrey Galt Harpham, whose previous book, The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism, was one of the first to announce the critical renewal of ethics, attempts in this new book to explain why ethical questions resist settlement. He urges a new account of ethics not as a stable set of principles, values, or prescriptions, but as a variable factor of "imperativity" immanent in language, analysis, narrative, and creation.

Booknews

Harpham (English and literary theory, Tulane U.) explains why ethical questions resist settlement, and urges a view of ethics, not as a set of rules, but as a variable analysis, narrative, and creation. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)