Getting It Right: Language, Literature, and Ethics

by Geoffrey Galt Harpham

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.

254 pages, Hardcover

First published July 15, 1992

Reviews

[Margaret Hrezo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book, which focuses on the character of ethics, has a very valuable chapter on ethical thought concerning the "Other." He argues that "otherness" is involved in every aspect of ethical thought. In his discussion, he looks at the ideas of Levinas, Sartre, Lyotard, Derridas. He criticizes "otherness" as the site of ethical obligation, finding instead that ethics is centered in an "intelligible human community knit together by commitments, cares, responsibilities, and obligations." Although, I do not agree with him, his work is good and really makes the reader think about and engage with his ideas.