Key Arguments

• Ricoeur declares, 'In the same way, I would say, anticipating the course of these studies, there is no ethi cally neutral narrative.'
• He characterizes literature as 'a vast laboratory in which we experi ment with estimations, evaluations, and judgments of approval and condemnation through which narrativity serves as a propaedeutic to ethics.'
• By describing narrativity as a 'propaedeutic to ethics', he links the act of narrating directly to ethical formation and reflection rather than treating narrative as ethically indifferent.
• He concludes this section by referring to 'this double gaze, looking backward in the direction of the practical field and ahead in the direction of the ethical field, that the sixth study' will adopt, showing that narrative already anticipates the ethical inquiry to come.

Source Quotes

In other words, narrative theory can genuinely mediate between description and prescription only if the broadening of the prac tical field and the anticipation of ethical considerations are implied in the very structure of the act of narrating. For the moment, let it suffice to say that in many narratives the self seeks its identity on the scale of an entire life; between the brief actions, to which our earlier analyses were confined (conforming to the constraint of the grammar of action sentences), and the connectedness of life, of which Dilthcy speaks in his theoretical writings on autobiography, we find staggered degrees of complexity which carry the theory of action to the level required by narrative theory.2 In the same way, I would say, anticipating the course of these studies, there is no ethi cally neutral narrative. Literature is a vast laboratory in which we experi ment with estimations, evaluations, and judgments of approval and condemnation through which narrativity serves as a propaedeutic to ethics.

For the moment, let it suffice to say that in many narratives the self seeks its identity on the scale of an entire life; between the brief actions, to which our earlier analyses were confined (conforming to the constraint of the grammar of action sentences), and the connectedness of life, of which Dilthcy speaks in his theoretical writings on autobiography, we find staggered degrees of complexity which carry the theory of action to the level required by narrative theory.2 In the same way, I would say, anticipating the course of these studies, there is no ethi cally neutral narrative. Literature is a vast laboratory in which we experi ment with estimations, evaluations, and judgments of approval and condemnation through which narrativity serves as a propaedeutic to ethics. It is to this double gaze, looking backward in the direction of the practical field and ahead in the direction of the ethical field, that the sixth study

Literature is a vast laboratory in which we experi ment with estimations, evaluations, and judgments of approval and condemnation through which narrativity serves as a propaedeutic to ethics. It is to this double gaze, looking backward in the direction of the practical field and ahead in the direction of the ethical field, that the sixth study

Key Concepts

• In the same way, I would say, anticipating the course of these studies, there is no ethi cally neutral narrative.
• Literature is a vast laboratory in which we experi ment with estimations, evaluations, and judgments of approval and condemnation through which narrativity serves as a propaedeutic to ethics.
• It is to this double gaze, looking backward in the direction of the practical field and ahead in the direction of the ethical field, that the sixth study

Context

Closing sentences of the excerpt, where Ricoeur explicitly links narrative to ethics by denying ethical neutrality in narrative, describing literature as an experimental laboratory of value judgments, and foreshadowing the sixth study’s role in connecting the practical and ethical fields.