Faulkner’s Ethics, 1st ed. 2021 An Intense Struggle

This book offers the first comprehensive investigation of ethics in the canon of William Faulkner. As the fundamental framework for its analysis of Faulkner?s fiction, this study draws on The Methods of Ethics, the magnum opus of the utilitarian philosopher Henry Sidgwick. While Faulkner?s Ethics does not claim that Faulkner read Sidgwick?s work, this book traces Faulkner?s moral sensitivity. It argues that Faulkner?s language is a moral medium that captures the ways in which people negotiate the ethical demands that life places on them. Tracing the contours of this evolving medium across six of the author?s major novels, it explores the basic precepts set out in The Methods of Ethics with the application of more recent contributions to moral philosophy, especially those of Jacques Derrida and Derek Parfit. 

Introduction

1 Authorial Irresponsibility: Hemingway’s “The Battler” and Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”

2 The Benevolence of Self-Sacrifice: Kenosis in William Faulkner’s Light in August

3 William Faulkner, John Bowlby and Strains of Familial Attachment in Pylon

5 The Moral Mathematics of Strategic Games in The Unvanquished

6 The Gifted Presence of Intruder in the Dust

Conclusion: The Levine Shadow

Provides the first in-depth analysis of ethics across six of Faulkner’s major novels

Draws on Henry Sidgwick’s “The Methods of Ethics”, as well as applying more recent contributions to moral philosophy from Jacques Derrida and Derek Parfit

Explores Faulkner’s moral language and his exploration of responsibility, duty, benevolence and universalism