Why can’t ethical criticism be easy?

Artykuł Robert K. Booth pochodzi z książki: Mapping the ethical turn : a reader in ethics, culture, and literary theory, red. T.F. Davis i K. Womack, Charlottesville-London, University Press of Virginia 2001, s. 16-29

The article attempts to defend ethical criticism against opponents who consider that textual analysis cannot take into consideration ethical issues, and makes an effort to prove that not all ways of speaking about ethics and literature have anything to do with ethical criticism. In spite of different approaches to the issue of ethical criticism, the existence of the “ethical power of art” is undeniable. Although the above fact is quite obvious and universally recognized, literature scholars in most cases do not wish to deal with this aspect of literature. As different genres and different types of literary texts incite to the formulation of ethical judgments, arguments and contentions concerning ethical issues may only be solved by critical pluralism.