I would say the story of the Good Samaritan is a story with moral vision, but no moral agency. The man gets rescued by the good Samaritan without exerting any agency, but in the story as a whole, we see a vision of a world governed by morality.
One can also imagine a story with moral agency (a protagonist tries to do good things) but no m…
I would say the story of the Good Samaritan is a story with moral vision, but no moral agency. The man gets rescued by the good Samaritan without exerting any agency, but in the story as a whole, we see a vision of a world governed by morality.
One can also imagine a story with moral agency (a protagonist tries to do good things) but no moral vision. An example would be Hans Fallada's EVERY MAN DIES ALONE, about a couple who fail relentlessly in an effort to resist the Nazis. It's a great book, but ultimately the portrait is of a world ruled only by power, where morality is meaningless (the world that we would indeed have had if the Nazis had won!)
I would say the story of the Good Samaritan is a story with moral vision, but no moral agency. The man gets rescued by the good Samaritan without exerting any agency, but in the story as a whole, we see a vision of a world governed by morality.
One can also imagine a story with moral agency (a protagonist tries to do good things) but no moral vision. An example would be Hans Fallada's EVERY MAN DIES ALONE, about a couple who fail relentlessly in an effort to resist the Nazis. It's a great book, but ultimately the portrait is of a world ruled only by power, where morality is meaningless (the world that we would indeed have had if the Nazis had won!)